Ian McDonald - River of Gods

“Ready to rock?” Marianna Fusco says, crossing her legs in a way that makes Vishram imagine his face between them. “Hey, funny man.” The most casual of hand gestures indicates the neat little line of coke on the black marble. “Just in case.”

“Lenny Bruce wasn’t desi,” Vishram says. He lets out a huff of tense breath. “Let’s do it.” Marianna Fusco slips off her marble perch and scoops the line straight down the washhand basin.

If she’d offered him a cigarette.

Vishram strides down the corridor. His leather soles give the slightest of creaks on the polished wood inlay, Marianna and Inder are at his back, every step he walks a little taller, a little prouder. The warm-up has the audience now, working them, getting the juices flowing, you on the left clap your hands, you on the right whistle, you up there in the gods, just roar! For! Mister! Vishram! Raaaaaaaay!

The carved wooden doors swing open and every face around the transparent table locks on to Vishram. Without a word his entourage splits around the table and takes their assigned places, Inder on his right-hand side, Marianna Fusco on his left, their advisors flying wing. Inder had been rehearsing them since five that morning. As he sets his palmer and ornately inlaid wooden document wallet (no leather: the policy of an ethical, Hindu power company) in his place at the head of the table, Vishram nods to Govind on the right, Ramesh on the left. Ramesh, he notes, has at least invested in a decent suit. His beard looks a little less scraggy. Signs. It’s no different for a stand-up or a suit, it’s all reading the signs. Team Vishram waits for its leader to sit. The advisors eyeball each other. Vishram checks out the shareholders. Inder-online has a clever little briefing feature that automatically gives him a profile, percentage control, voting history, and a probability on how they will swing in this one. Many of the shareholders are virtual, either on video link or represented by aeai agents modelled on their personalities. No US boardroom would recognise this as shareholder democracy. Vishram switches off Inder’s clever little toy. He’ll do this the old way, the stand-up’s way. He’ll search for the subtle graces, the potential in the set of that mouth to turn into a smile, the invitation in the corners of those eyes that say, go on then, entertain me.

The battle lines are by no means obvious. Even within his own division, there are major holders like SKM ProSearch who will vote against him. Too close to call. A glance to hider, a glance to Marianna. Vishram Ray stands up. The bubble of conversation around the table bursts.

“Ladies, gentlemen, shareholders of Ray Power, material and virtual.” The boardroom door opens. Clear in his line of sight, his mother slips into the room and takes a seat by the wall. “Thank you all for coming here this morning, some of you at considerable personal risk. This meeting is inevitably overshadowed by recent events, most fatefully by the brutal assassination of our Prime Minister Sajida Rana. I’m sure you would all echo my thoughts and sympathies for the Rana family at this time.” A murmur of assent from around the table. “I for one fully support the efforts of our new Government of National Salvation to restore us to our customary order and strength. I’m sure some of you must have questioned the appropriateness of carrying on this meeting in the light of the political situation. I could tell you that I would not have done so unless I felt it was in the highest interests of this company. It is, but there is another principle I feel needs upheld at times like these. The eyes of the world are on Bharat, and I believe it needs to be shown that, for Ray Power at least, it is business as usual.”

A nodding of heads together, soft, slow applause. Vishram surveys the room.

“Without doubt, most of you are surprised to find yourself back so soon at another Ray Power board meeting. It is only a couple of weeks since my father dropped his, if you’ll pardon the expression, bombshell. They have been a full and lively two weeks, I assure you, and I should warn you now, I fully intend for this meeting to be no less shocking—or transforming.”

A moment for audience reaction. His throat is as dry as a Rajasthan shitpipe but he won’t let slip even the weakness of a sip of water. Govind and his PA incline heads. Good. The murmur fades into inaudibility. Time to let the passion into the voice.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I want to announce to you a major technological breakthrough by Ray Power Research and Development. I don’t want to talk down to you; I don’t understand the physics either, but let me simply state, my friends, that we have achieved not just sustainable, but high-yield zero-point energy. In this very building, our research teams have explored the properties of other universes and have discovered how to make energy flow into our own on a commercial scale. Free energy, my friends.”

Snake-oil, my friends. No. You’re up there in the spotlight and the mike’s in your hand, that ultimate phallic symbol. Don’t get clever. Don’t get self-conscious.

“Limitless free energy; energy that is clean, that doesn’t pollute, that requires no fuel, that is endlessly renewable—that is as boundless as an entire universe. I have to tell you, my friends, many many companies have been looking for this miracle, and it is Bharati scientists in a Bharati company that have made the breakthrough!”

He has cheerleaders primed but the applause around the table is spontaneous and heartfelt. Now is the time for the sip of water and the glance over at his mother. She wears the merest of smiles on her face. And it’s that old glow in the balls, that hormone burn when you know you have them and can steer them any way you want. Careful careful, don’t blow it. It is timing, after all.

“This is history, this will change the shapes of our futures not just here in Bharat, but for every man woman and child on the planet. This is a great breakthrough and this is a great nation and I want the world to know that. We already have the world’s media here; now I want to give them something that will really make them remember us. Immediately after this meeting, I have arranged a full-scale public demonstration of the zero-point field.”

Now. Reel them in.

“In one quantum leap, Ray Power becomes a planetary-class player. And this is where I come to the second—more practical reason—I’ve asked you to come here. Ray Power is a company in crisis. We can still only speculate on our father’s motives for splitting the company; for my part, I have tried to be true to his vision of a Ray Power where vision and people mean as much as the bottom line. It’s not an easy standard to live up to.”

How may this engineer lead the right life ? But he can’t get over the image of Marianna Fusco on her back with his fist gripping one end of the knotted silk scarf.

“I’ve called you here because I need your help. The values of our company are under threat. There are other, larger corporates out there whose values are not ours. They have offered very large sums of money to buy sections of Ray Power; I myself have been approached. You may judge me rash, or at least gauche, but I turned them down, for those very reasons: I believe in what this company is about.”

Throttle back.

“If I believed they were working in the best interests of the zero-point project, I would entertain their offers. But they are interested only because their own high-profile plans are far advanced. They would buy us up only to delay or even close down the zero-point. Offers have been made—maybe even by the same groups—to my brothers around this table. I want to preempt them. I want to cut them off at the pass, as the Americans say. I’ve made a generous offer to Ramesh to buy Ray Gen, the generating division that would implement the zero-point technique. That will give me a controlling interest in Ray Power, enough to keep any outside influence at bay until the zero-point goes public and we are in a position to resist more effectively. The details of the offer are in your presentation packs. If you’d like to take a moment to study them, and to consider what I’ve said, and then we could move to a vote.”