Paranoia (21 page)

One entire shelf was taken up with old-fashioned tin models of cars, convertibles with big tail fins and swooping lines, a few old Divco milk trucks. They were models from the forties and fifties, probably when Jock Goddard was a kid, a young man.

He saw me looking at them and said, “What do you drive?”

“Drive?” For a moment I didn’t get what he was talking about. “Oh, an Audi A6.”

“Audi,” he repeated as if it were a foreign word. Okay, so maybe it is. “You like it?”

“It’s okay.”

“I would have thought you’d drive a Porsche 911, or at least a Boxster, or something of that sort. Fella like you.”

“I’m not really a gearhead,” I said. It was a calculated response, I’ll admit, deliberately contrarian. Wyatt’s
consigliere
, Judith Bolton, had even devoted part of a session to talking about cars so I could fit in with the Trion corporate culture. But my gut now told me that one-on-one I wasn’t going to pull it off. Better to avoid the subject entirely.

“I thought everyone at Trion was into cars,” Goddard said. I could see he was being arch. He was making a jab at the slavishness of his cult following. I liked that.

“The ambitious ones, anyway,” I said, grinning.

“Well, you know, cars are my only extravagance, and there’s a reason for that. Back in the early seventies, after Trion went public and I started making more money than I knew what to do with, I went out one day and bought a boat, a sixty-one-footer. I was so damned pleased with this boat until I saw a seventy-footer in the marina. Nine damned feet longer. And I felt this twinge, you understand. My competitive instincts were aroused. Suddenly I’m feeling—oh, I know it’s childish, but I can’t help it, I need to get me a bigger boat. So you know what I did?”

“Bought a bigger boat.”

“Nope. Could have bought a bigger boat no sweat, but then there’d always be some other jackass with a bigger boat. Then who’s really the jackass? Me. Can’t win that way.”

I nodded.

“So I sold the damned thing. I mean the next day. Only thing keeping that craft afloat was fiberglass and jealousy.” He chuckled. “That’s why this small office. I figured if the boss’s office is the same as every other manager’s, at least we’re not going to have much office-envy in the company. People are always going to compete to see whose is bigger—let ’em focus on something else. So, Elijah, you’re a new hire.”

“It’s Adam, actually.”

“Damn, I keep doing that. I’m sorry. Adam, Adam. Got it.” He leaned forward in his chair, put on his reading glasses, and scanned my HR file. “We hired you away from Wyatt, where you saved the Lucid.”

“I didn’t ‘save’ the Lucid, sir.”

“No need for false modesty here.”

“I’m not being modest. I’m being accurate.”

He smiled as if I amused him. “How does Trion compare to Wyatt? Oh, forget I asked that. I wouldn’t want you to answer it anyway.”

“That’s okay, I’m happy to answer it,” I said, all forthrightness. “I like it here. It’s exciting. I like the people.” I thought for a split second, realizing how kiss-ass this sounded, such complete bullshit. “Well, most of them.”

His pixie eyes crinkled. “You took the first salary package we offered you,” he said. “Young fellow with your credentials, your track record, you could have negotiated for a good bit more.”

I shrugged. “The opportunity interested me.”

“Maybe, but it tells me you were eager to get the hell out of there.”

This was making me nervous, and anyway, I knew Goddard would want me to be discreet. “Trion’s more my kind of place, I think.”

“You getting the opportunity you hoped for?”

“Sure.”

“Paul, my CFO, mentioned to me your intervention on GoldDust. You’ve obviously got sources.”

“I stay in touch with friends.”

“Adam, I like your idea for retooling the Maestro, but I worry about the ramp-up time of adding the secure encryption protocol. The Pentagon’s going to want working prototypes yesterday.”

“Not a problem,” I said. The details were still fresh in my head like I’d crammed for an organic chemistry final. “Kasten Chase has already developed the RASP secure access data security protocol. They’ve got their Fortezza crypto card, Palladium secure modem—the hardware and software solutions have already been developed. It might add two months to incorporate into the Maestro. Long before we’re awarded the contract, we’d be good to go.”

Goddard shook his head, looked befuddled. “The whole goddamned market has changed. Everything is e-this and i-that, and all the technology’s converging. It’s the age of all-in-one. Consumers don’t want a TV and a VCR and a fax and computer and stereo and phone and you-name-it.” He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. He was obviously floating the idea to see what I thought. “Convergence is the future. Don’t you think?”

I looked skeptical, took a deep breath and said, “The long answer is . . . No.”

After a few seconds of silence, he smiled. I’d done my homework. I’d read a transcript of some informal remarks Goddard had made at one of those future-of-technology conferences, in Palo Alto a year ago. He’d gone on a rant against “creeping featurism,” as he called it, and I’d committed it to memory, figuring I could pull it out at a Trion meeting some time.

“How come?”

“That’s just featuritis. Loading on the chrome at the expense of ease of use, simplicity, elegance. I think we’re all getting fed up with having to press thirty-six buttons in sequence on twenty-two remote controls just to watch the evening news. I think it already pisses a lot of people off to have the
CHECK ENGINE
light go on in your car, and you can’t just pop the hood and check it out—you’ve got to take it in to some specialty mechanic with a diagnostic computer and an engineering degree from MIT.”

“Even if you’re a gearhead,” Goddard said with a sardonic smile.

“Even if. Plus, this whole convergence thing is a myth anyway, a buzzword that’s dangerous if you take it seriously. Bad for business. Canon’s fax-phone was a flop—a mediocre fax and an even lousier phone. You don’t see the washing machine converging with the dryer, or the microwave converging with the gas oven. I don’t want a combination microwave-refrigerator-electric range-television if I just want something to keep my Cokes cold. Fifty years after the computer was invented, it’s converged with—what? Nothing. The way I see it, this convergence bullshit is just the jackalope all over again.”

“The what?”

“The jackalope—a mythical creation of some nutty taxidermist, made up out of a jackrabbit and an antelope. You see ’em on postcards all over the West.”

“You don’t mince words, do you?”

“Not when I’m convinced I’m right, sir.”

He put down the HR file, leaned back in his chair again. “What about the ten-thousand-foot view?”

“Sir?”

“Trion as a whole. Any other strong opinions?”

“Some, sure.”

“Let’s hear ’em.”

Wyatt was always commissioning competitive analyses of Trion, and I’d committed them to memory. “Well, Trion Medical Systems is a pretty robust portfolio, real best-in-class technologies in magnetic resonance, nuclear medicine, and ultrasound, but a little weak in the service stuff like patient information management and asset management.”

He smiled, nodded. “Agreed. Go on.”

“Trion’s Business Solutions unit obviously sucks—I don’t have to tell
you
that—but you’ve got most of the pieces in place there for some serious market penetration, especially in IP-based and circuit-switched voice and ethernet data services. Yeah, I know fiber optic’s in the toilet right now, but broadband services are the future, so we’ve gotta hang tough. The Aerospace division has had a rough couple of years, but it’s still a terrific portfolio of embedded computing products.”

“But what about Consumer Electronics?”

“Obviously it’s our core competency, which is why I moved here. I mean, our high-end DVD players beat Sony’s hands down. Cordless phones are strong, always have been. Our mobile phones are killer—we rule the market. We’ve got the marquee name—we’re able to charge up to thirty percent more for our products, just because they say Trion on the label. But there are just way too many soft spots.”

“Such as?”

“Well, it’s crazy that we don’t have a real Blackberry-killer. Wireless communications devices should be our playground. Instead, it’s like we’re just ceding the ground to RIM and Handspring and Palm. We need some serious hip-top wireless devices.”

“We’re working on that. We’ve got a pretty interesting product in the pipeline.”

“Good to hear,” I said. “I do think we’re really missing the boat on technology and products for transmitting digital music and video over the Internet. We really should focus on R&D there, maybe partnering.
Huge
potential for revenue generation.”

“I think you’re right.”

“And, forgive me for saying it, but I think it’s sort of pathetic that we don’t have a serious kid-targeted product line. Look at Sony—their PlayStation game console can make the difference between red ink and black ink some years. The demand for computers and home electronics seems to slump every couple of years, right? We’re fighting electronics makers in South Korea and Taiwan, we’re waging price wars over LCD monitors and digital video decks and cell phones—this is a fact of life. So we should be selling to kids—’cause children don’t care about recessions. Sony’s got their PlayStations, Microsoft’s got its Xbox, Nintendo has GameCube, but what do we have for television video games? Diddly squat. It’s a
major
weakness in a consumer-oriented product line.”

I’d noticed he was sitting upright again, looking at me with a cryptic smile on his crinkly face. “How would you feel about priming the retooling of the Maestro?”

“Nora owns that. I wouldn’t feel comfortable about it, frankly.”

“You’d report to her.”

“I’m not sure she’d like that.”

His grin got crooked. “She’d get over it. Nora knows what side her bread’s buttered on.”

“Obviously I won’t fight you on it, sir, but I think it might be bad for morale.”

“Well, then, how would you like to come work for me?”

“Don’t I already?”

“I mean here, on the seventh floor. Special assistant to the chairman for new-product strategy. Dotted line responsibility to the Advanced Technology unit. I’d give you an office, just down the hall. But no bigger than mine, you understand. Interested?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I felt like bursting from excitement and nerves.

“Well, sure. Reporting directly to you?”

“That’s right. So, do we have a deal?”

I gave a slow smile. In for a penny, I thought, and all that. “I think more responsibility calls for more money, sir, don’t you?”

He laughed. “Oh, does it?”

“I’d like the additional fifty thousand I should have asked for when I started here. And I’d like forty thousand more in stock options.”

He laughed again, a robust, almost Santa Claus–y ho-ho. “You’ve got balls, young man.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll tell you what. I’m not going to give you fifty thousand more. I don’t believe in incrementalism. I’m going to
double
your salary.
Plus
your forty thousand options. That way you’ll feel all sorts of pressure to bust your ass for me.”

To keep from gasping, I bit the inside of my lip.
Jesus.

“Where do you live?” he asked.

I told him.

He shook his head. “Not quite appropriate for someone of your level. Also, the hours you’re going to be working, I don’t want you driving forty-five minutes in the morning and another forty-five minutes at night. You’re going to be working late nights, so I want you living close by. Why don’t you get yourself one of those condos in the Harbor Suites? You can afford it now. We’ve got a lady who works with the Trion E-staff, specializes in corporate housing. She’ll set you up with something nice.”

I swallowed. “Sounds okay,” I said, trying to suppress the little nervous chuckle.

“Now, I know you’ve said you’re not a gearhead, but this Audi . . . I’m sure it’s perfectly nice, but why don’t you get yourself something fun? I think a man should love his car. Give it a chance, why don’t you? I mean, don’t go overboard or anything, but something
fun
. Flo can make the arrangements.”

Was he saying they were going to give me a
car?
Good God.

He stood up. “So, are you on board?” He stuck out his hand.

I shook. “I’m not an idiot,” I said good-naturedly.

“No, that’s obvious. Well, welcome to the team, Adam. I look forward to working with you.”

I stumbled out of his office and toward the bank of elevators, my head in a cloud. I could barely walk right.

And then I caught myself, remembered why I was here, what my real job was—how I’d gotten here, into Goddard’s office, even. I’d just been promoted way, way above my ability.

Not that I even knew what my ability
was
anymore.

36

I didn’t have to break the news to anyone: the miracle of e-mail and instant messaging had already taken care of that for me. By the time I got back to my cube, the word was all over the department. Obviously Goddard was a man of immediate action.

No sooner had I reached the men’s room for a much-needed pee than Chad burst in and unzipped at the urinal next to me. “So, are the rumors true, dude?”

I looked impatiently at the wall tile. I really needed to go. “Which rumors?”

“I take it congratulations are in order.”

“Oh, that. No, congratulations would be premature. But thanks, anyway.” I stared at the little automatic-flush thing that was attached to the American Standard urinal. I wondered who invented that, whether they got rich and their family made cute jokes about the family fortune being in the toilet. I wanted Chad to just leave already.

“I underestimated you,” he said, letting loose a powerful stream. Meanwhile my own internal Colorado River was threatening the Hoover Dam.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Oh, yeah. I knew you were good, but I didn’t know how good. I didn’t give you credit.”