José Miguel Sánchez Guitian - Synchro

“For fuck’s sake. Nothing works in this place”.

Cristina Herrera was reading the report on the arrest of Aldo Ríos when she felt the weight of Guzmán’s friendly hand upon her shoulder. She did not need to turn to know it was him, it was something he always did. Six weeks had gone since the morning of her son’s funeral and she was still terrified of going home to his empty room. She had decided she would leave the house and move closer to the sea, to an apartment with a single bedroom.

On the report, it said that Aldo Ríos was born in Manila and had become a Mexican national at the age of three. It also said that he had a brother, Doncel Ríos, who was missing. The fog crept into the office and grew until its darkness filled the whole place dark. She stopped reading the extradition report and her mind turned to death; she tried to remember her son’s face and failed.

At the cemetery, the boy did not have a gravestone. The order would still take another couple of days to arrive; it would have the inscription of his name, the dates of birth and death. Cautious steps approached the place where the child rested; their owner looked around, watchful. A pair of large, dark glasses hid the face almost entirely. The figure looked around once more and made sure there was nobody else there. They warned her that it would not be a good idea for her to go; they recommended her to stay away from the place, but that was impossible. At the grave, the figure bent down and left a bouquet of roses on the small mound; ten. One for each year that Lucas had lived, ten.

2. Ten

It is a natural number, composite and defective; it is also the basis for counting in many cultures, since it is the result of the sum of all fingers. In Roman numbering, it is presented with an x, in Chinese with a +, and in Mayan with an =. October is the tenth month.

“I told you that this was the best place for Synchro”. Carlo Stamas stood in the middle of the hangar, hand on his hips. “This is awesome”.

They were in the interior of a white industrial unit where groups of operators worked without rest conditioning and assembling robotic structures. A high technology center in the making.

Three operators in white lab coats and gloves, supervised the construction of a track where transport carts would run. All the boxes would be placed in automatized carts that were currently being tested, coming in and out of a door that opened whenever it detected movement. There was little need for human presence for all of that to work. A large group moved tables and computers into a space with wide windows; others supervised the setting up of a conveyor belt that would link the manufacture of the black pills with the drones’ hangar.

Julian and Anthony gazed in wonder at the immense unit that would soon buzz with activity; there were seemingly endless rows of biotechnology printers to make the tiny black balls, and enough delivery drones to cover the whole of Mexico City. Julian moved his hand impulsively and repeated his round of tics.

Carlo had personally taken up the task of finding and conditioning the old garage for interurban buses that was now being converted into offices, a factory, a warehouse and a delivery area for the new sensation in venture capital; all in record time. The money, four hundred million dollars had worked the miracle; the production would not begin until the following week but they already counted with over one hundred thousand orders from people ready to try it, and they had all already paid in advance the two hundred pesos for the download of the app and a pack of three black balls with their corresponding microchips. Synchro had already deposited its first million dollars in the bank.

The predictions that Julián Konks had presented to Nassar Capital were of seven hundred million sales within a year, with a benefit of one hundred million dollars in Mexico alone. When he showed the sum of the global benefit, the number contained nine zeros. Nobody, except Carlo Stamas, smiled at the news.

“This is our dream… Technology is going to make us rich. Orders are coming in by the thousand…” Carlo was thrilled.

Julián gazed at the autonomous carts that ran empty up and down the hangar. Close to one hundred drones waited for the take-off. Among them, a dozen operators in white lab coats followed instructions on their tablets. The company’s new CEO smiled, and when he walked past Carlo he punched him tenderly on the shoulder.

“I told you this would happen, see? And you didn’t believe us”.

“Sure, yes, and now you can beat me up if you’d like to; do whatever you want with me…” Carlo laughed. “We are meeting all our deadlines and investments”.

“Now it’s time to get this monster to work”, said Anthony and, looking at Stamas, added, “I like it, Carlo. Good job!”

Carlo Stamas checked his phone.

“We have a meeting in an hour with the chief attorney and the lawyers”, he said, and nodded at the door. “We don’t want any trouble with the State’s laws”.

Julián lifted both hands, showing his palms:

“I’m going to skip this one, if you don’t mind. I have a very important date”, he said, distractedly.

“What? What the hell, Julián, this is more important than anything else you might have right now”, said Anthony, raising his voice.

“You go, you’ll do fine without me, and, anyway, Nassar’s lawyers are going to be there to defend our best interests”.

“I don’t like it, Julián, I don’t like you dropping out now; we’re both in this thing together”. He looked annoyed.

“Don’t be an idiot, Anthony, I’m not dropping out from anything; we’ve been stuck in a room for a year, not even leaving our chairs to take a fucking dump. For once, I have a date and it clashes with a politics meeting. It’s not that big of a deal, so don’t get all worked up…”

“A date?... And I’m the idiot?” Anthony took his hands to his head. “I don’t want you to become a jerk. This has only just started and you’re already behaving like this…”

“Well, boys this argument really isn’t worth it, calm down”. Carlo did not want their heated argument to escalate. “Let’s keep calm. Come on, look at this whole thing!” He opened his arms and said, “this is fucking awesome and there’s still more to come! This is only a first step on the path”.

Still angry, Anthony Somoza shook his head disapprovingly.

“I’m sure it’s that Ana who you’ve been going on about for the last couple of weeks”, said Anthony, not wanting to drop the topic. “It’s pathetic!”

“Ana Riccoli? The blonde from Troposintesis, the organic creams business?” Carlo looked surprised at the mention of the name, it had not even been a week since he last had sex with her. They were both gym lions in full swing. Nothing serious, only physical and without emotional exchanges beyond the superfluous; only sex and a few lines of coke. The last time had been when that mad policeman pushed him to the ground and stepped on the black pills. Later, at dinner, he and Ana had only exchanged a few words, some polite conversation about the projects that they were involved in. Carlo told her about Synchro, the four hundred million dollars and about Julián and Anthony. Now, that giant-killer blondie was going to make good use of all that information and of the promise of a multimillionaire in the making. This Ana truly knew what she was doing. He scratched his head, thoughtfully.

“Do you know her?” asked Julián.

“A little”, said Carlo, not wanting to get into details.

“Yes, she’s that deceptive blondie with the amazing pair of tits.’ Anthony carried on with his verbal attack.

Julián had bumped into Ana Riccoli several times at the Mex Tec and she had tried to approach him with banal excuses such as: ‘I love your t-shirt’, when he had been wearing a Real Madrid t-shirt, with his name and a number ten printed at the back. Julián, who had noticed her before, had always considered her to be completely out of his league, until that very moment. She was the one who had proposed dinner in the Las Lomas area.