Gregg Hurwitz - Prodigal Son

Evan watched the women giggle. The teenagers joined in on a delay. Except the one in the red blouse.

An electronic chime sounded, and Rishi pulled out his Google Pixel phone and thumbed at it, his log-thick arm flexing. He groaned. The woman in his lap flicked her head to clear her hair over her shoulder and looked up at him. “What?”

“New bullshit out of Sacramento. Look at this shit, Zack.” He showed off the screen to the friend sitting next to him. “Americans love drones. Over there . Kill a bunch of mujis, everyone’s on board. But God forbid a UAV gives you a speeding ticket here . Then it’s all moral outrage and restrictions and the fucking Constitution.”

Evan stepped forward into the guttering candlelight, drawing their attention.

Rishi looked up at him. “No more dudes in our cuddle huddle, man. We’re not turning this shit into a sausage party.”

Evan said, “I’m looking for Molleken.”

“What the fuck for?”

“That’s not your business.”

“He’s my boss. You’d bet your ass it’s my business. Do you know who I am?”

“If you have to tell people you’re important,” Evan said, “then you’re not important.”

The girl in the red blouse said, “I heard someone say Brendan’s prob’ly upstairs in his office.”

“You,” Rishi said. “What’s your name?”

The girl said, “Cammy.”

“I tell you to talk, Cammy?”

She lowered her eyes.

Evan took a step back. Hesitated. Looked at the young woman. “You okay?”

Cammy said, “Yup, fine.”

Rishi laughed. “Got us a nice guy here, boys. A white knight.” He smacked the woman’s ass resting in his lap, and she shifted off him. He looked dense, muscle-bound, a gold s-chain nestled in carefully manscaped chest hair. “These girls are founder hounders.” He spread a hand, a waiter displaying the dessert tray. “They know what they’re looking for.”

“Maybe they don’t.”

“Oh. You’re a mind-reader, right? You know what’s best for the ladies?” Rishi sucked his front teeth, flicked his head at the door. “Go on back to the kiddie table now.”

Evan didn’t move.

Rishi tensed, flicking his martini glass at Evan, the green liquid striping his shirt, his chin, his mouth. A few drops landed on his lips, apple liquor overlaying a grape-based vodka, either Chopin or Finlandia.

He didn’t want to fight Rishi. But the guy was drinking an appletini.

As Evan wiped his face, his OCD ramped up and he breathed steadily to tamp it down. He steadied his gaze at Cammy. “Do you want me to leave?”

Her eyes, heavily made up, darted away. “Yeah. I said I’m fine.”

“Cammy,” Rishi said. “Come.”

She rose and walked over to him.

He reached up and fondled her breast through her top, then grabbed it and pulled her in for a kiss. The whole time he kept his eyes on Evan.

Rishi released her. She was breathing hard and not, it seemed, from pleasure.

“Now kiss Astrid,” Rishi commanded.

Reluctantly Cammy leaned down and kissed the woman who’d previously been in his lap. Rishi pushed the backs of their heads together, laughing. Evan imagined Joey, just a few years younger. His hands had tightened, the buckshot rolling across his knuckles.

Cammy straightened up, wiped her mouth, tried on a laugh.

“Run along, now,” Rishi said.

Evan looked at Cammy once more.

“I’m okay,” she said. “Leave me alone. Just go.”

Rishi’s sidekick piped up, “You heard her.”

Evan left.

Across the floor, up another stairwell. The third-story hall was adorned with display cases showing off a collection of preserved insects pinned to black velvet. Butterflies, beetles, dragonflies.

Evan was so focused on the collection that it took him a moment to notice the two bodyguards at the end of the hall, framing a doorway like pillars, as motionless as the impaled specimens.

“This floor is off-limits,” one of them said, his mouth barely moving.

“I’m looking for Brendan Molleken,” Evan said.

“What makes you think he’s not busy with his guests?”

“If he’s up here,” Evan said, “I’m guessing he’s as bored with the guests as I am.”

A flat laugh issued through the doorway behind the bodyguards. “Finally,” a voice called out. “Someone interesting enough to talk to. Let him in.”

The bodyguards didn’t move.

Evan walked between them, entering a vast high-ceilinged study, and came face-to-face with Brendan Molleken.

44Rorschach Blot

Molleken sat behind an expansive walnut desk, polished sufficiently to reflect his upper body and the panes of the towering window behind him. He wore round spectacles that complemented round, boyish features, a face sufficiently likable to make Evan want to smack it with envy. A rumpled oxford shirt bore his initials over the breast. The lighting was cigar-parlor dim, a few scattered sconces warmed to a dull glow.

Molleken’s elbow rested on the desk, one loosely clenched fist held before his face for no apparent reason. His other hand was placed over what looked like a flat, square computer mouse of sorts, a finger lazily tracing patterns on the sensor screen.

Though the desk was spotless, the rest of the study was cluttered with filing boxes, stacks of computational notebooks, robotics parts, and discarded electronics. The walls held diagrams of various insects, their anatomic parts labeled down to the last seta. Various degrees framed in gold hung to the left of the window, which looked out across the parklike grounds of his backyard.

“Sit,” Molleken said, and Evan entered and lowered himself into a plush leather armchair facing the desk. Only then did he notice Molleken’s unusual eyes, the pupils seemingly forming figure eights.

Polycoria: multiple pupils.

Fitting for an inventor of all-seeing drones.

“You’re ordinary-looking,” Molleken said with a flatness that made him seem either stoned or on the spectrum.

“That’s what I’m told,” Evan said.

“Your eyes. That isn’t a real color.”

“No,” Evan said. “I wear contacts.”

“I don’t know you.”

“No.”

A feminine voice issued from behind Evan, startling him. “Why don’t you ask who he is and what he wants?”

He turned and saw an Asian woman—Korean?—sitting on a worn chesterfield to the hinge side of the door he’d just entered. Her legs tucked beneath her, she flipped disinterestedly through a magazine.

“That’s Soo-jin Kim,” Molleken said. “She’s here to help me interpret social situations.”

Soo-jin didn’t look up. Her sleek black hair draped past the bend of her elbow. She swept it over a swanlike neck and continued flipping pages.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Molleken asked.

“I’m a tech journalist for Medium ,” Evan said. “My name’s Marc Specter.”

Joey had ginned up a profile and thwacked it onto the website, putting Evan’s image and fake name on the byline of a scattering of existing articles.

Something emerged from the loose curl of Molleken’s fist. It crept around his pinkie and then scuttled across his knuckles.

A giant flower beetle.

“And what do you want?” Molleken asked, admiring his pet.

“I’m writing a story on your technology.”

The beetle hopped off Molleken’s hand onto the desktop. His finger moved pointedly on the sensor pad, and the beetle skittered around the desk, adhering to the very edge. As it passed before Evan, he caught a reflective flash from its thorax, a metallic circle no bigger than a dime.

A remote-controlled insect.

When he looked up, Molleken was watching him. “It’s real,” he said. “A living machine. You might think of it as a cyborg. I equipped it with a microprocessor and implanted six tiny electrodes.”