The Reawakening (2/3)

Continued from part 1

In the following weeks I met more of my descendants – liked a handful, felt neutral about most, was irritated by a few – and learned more about my business. The other major shareholders visited individually, behaved respectfully, gave their perspectives on various strands of the business, didn’t push anything too hard and never mentioned any trouble in Canada. My representatives were equally respectful but more direct. They were led by Eleza Cru, a tall, severe woman with a sharp mind and a sense of duty to the corporation. She visited every day for a week to enlighten me on how the scientific and business worlds had evolved, what it meant for my personal wealth and possible strategies for the future. On the fifth day I asked her about any legal problems, especially with Canada.

“It’s still speculation,” she replied. “But I’ve heard that some of the people have been in discussions with one of the major law firms in Winnipeg. I believe something could happen.”

I had learned that Winnipeg had become the economic and legal centre of North America. That made it sound ominous.

I shifted the focus of the conversation, telling her that I needed a few more weeks to understand the intricacies of the business and its markets, but I would soon feel ready to take an active role.

“Are you sure?”

“Are you saying I’m too old?”

“You’re a hundred and ninety-seven.”

She smiled for the first time, and I realised that I liked her.

“I’m fifty-five, and I’m reckoning on staying active for another twenty, twenty-five years, at least. I know the average lifespan has reached a hundred.”

“Forgive me, but there have been assumptions that you would just enjoy your wealth.”

“I enjoy my work. I’m not retiring. And the doctors have told me I’ve made a full recovery from what nearly killed me.”

She smiled again, impressed. I realised I was attracted to her.

“Then maybe I can arrange a series of visits so you can meet key people, see some of the operations. It’s easy to fly across the Atlantic and back in a day.

“Without the jet lag?”

“They found a way of dealing with that eighty years ago.”

I did try out some of the world’s pleasures, usually accompanied by one or two of my descendants. One took me to a concert of naturo music, a type of electro jazz with artificial birdsong and ambient sounds of the natural world. It was popular among highbrow types but it bored me. I was taken to art galleries in which every image changed in shape and colour in a long cycle, or I was led into immersive rooms that either caressed or flipped my senses in a way that was initially unsettling but became amusing. Plays were basically what they had always been – actors on stage in front of an audience – and the couple I saw left me with the same so-so feeling as in the past. I let John take me to a robograpple pit, which entertained me more than any sport during my earlier life, enough to prompt a return visit. And I had some private sessions in a virtual sensations parlour, with simulations of two or three women at a time, imagining faces similar to those of my second wife and Eleza Cru. Overall there was plenty for my hours of relaxation.

I was pleased with what I learned about the fortunes of my business. While the febro pulp had provided the foundation for its growth, it had also built large holdings in wind and wave energy, included solid investments in the electro-neural technology on which Neural Studs were based, and a worthwhile stake in a major service provider of the InfoMesh. The people in charge while I was in suspension had not taken opportunities to get into quantum intelligence or biofusion in a big way, but they had now died and I was assured the corporation was slowly extending into these areas. It had all prompted jealousy among business rivals and anxieties among governments, and there had been noises from China and in North America about forcing sell-offs and imposing special controls. But my representatives had played a series of clever hands with legal defences, promised investments and occasional bribes to keep the threats at bay. The big irony, given the damage caused by the early plantings for febro pulp, was that the corporation also had a major role in providing the environmental cleansing and agricultural technology that had renewed the polluted regions. It had made me even richer by cleaning up the mess my own business had created.

But the new mess wasn’t going away. A few months after my reawakening I was told the rumours about the Canadian natives and the Winnipeg lawyers had been correct and they were preparing a major action based in the city’s Global Business Court.

“How can it be global?” I asked Eleza Cru. “You told me the continents had their own legal structures.”

“They do, but there’s a vaguely worded international memorandum that they’re all required to respect, within the bounds of how they interpret those vague words. It depends on how their governments are minded from one decade to another.”

“So if we lose the case, we might or might not have to pay up.”

“You would definitely have to hand over all the holdings in North America and probably Europe, then the legal battles would begin elsewhere. And I should warn you that sentiment has been running against you since the reawakening. It had been agreed – grudgingly by some parties – that nobody living had responsibility for any of the disasters. But now you’re back they have a target. If you lose it would mean years, even decades, fighting battles in courts around the world. It could go on for longer than any of us survive.”

“And I assume they want a major piece of my business.”

“The earlier rumours were also correct. They want it all.”

I gave myself ten seconds and went through a familiar flash of anxiety, then anger, then graphene-hard resolve.

“So we’ll throttle them. Quickly.”

It proved a harder process than I expected. In my previous life I had a good grasp of any law affecting my business, but there had been changes, with more fluid lines of legal reasoning and ambiguities. I had one line of defence that there had been no scientific evidence that the febro plantations could cause harm when they were planted. The other side’s lawyers had found records of early experiments and claimed there were uncertainties and risks that made the whole operation reckless. My lawyers also argued that nobody affected by the environmental disasters, or any of their children, were still alive. Their side claimed that generations had suffered and there were still dispersed populations suffering all kinds of privations from the damage inflicted on their great grandparents. There was a lot of exaggeration involved but the Winnipeg lawyers were making it serious, and other legal teams in Berlin, Beijing and Brazzaville were preparing to use any judgement in their favour as a precedent. And sentiment on the InfoMesh was against me. Eleza Cru had quantum monitors tracking every news, discussion, chat and entertainment nodule for comment and found sixty per cent against me worldwide, and over seventy per cent in North America. A lot of people wanted me to lose.

I went to Winnipeg for the court hearings, and on the first day the protesters were out in force. We expected a group of native Americans and angry radicals around the steps to the Justice Citadel, but the crowd was large enough to fill the pavements of the final two streets on our route, and they made an angry noise that pierced the reinforced glass of our vehicle. As we walked the fifty yards from road to steps they jostled the security robots, yelled abuse and threw miniature febro moulds of a twisted dead tree, the symbol of their campaign, into my path. I was more than unpopular; I was hated. I entered the courthouse, sat with Eleza Cru to one side and my two senior lawyers to the other, with the full complement of ten others behind us. A glance to my left revealed that the opposition had a matching number of lawyers, including a man and woman with the dark complexions of native Canadians, all of them poker faced and smartly but not expensively dressed.As we sat I managed a quick scan of the public  benches and noticed the selection of senior Febrik employees along with John, Aleezia and two more of my descendants. But there were a lot more unfamiliar faces, many of them natives, and they all appeared hostile. The jury was obscured behind glass – frosted on our side, clear on theirs – to one side of the courtroom. I had been told it was there to prevent any manipulative eye contact. Then the judge entered, a middle aged woman with oriental features, a shaved head and a hard glare, and I sensed it was directed at me.

After nine days my lawyers were acknowledging that things were not going well. Both sides has laid out long, complex arguments, equally complex counterpoints, questioned the relevance and credibility of each other’s evidence, and injected degrees of indignation or appeals for sympathy at appropriate times. As it went on my ears told me the other side was feeling more confident, to the extent the two native Canadians in their legal team allowed themselves a few satisfied smiles. The judge held a neutral expression but I could detect changes in her voice, stiffening as she spoke to our side, softening a little with theirs. It was frustrating that I couldn’t see the jury. I was particularly worried after their team had pulled up evidence that children in the Canadian regions, as well as in parts of South America and South-East Asia, were suffering a hereditary anxiety disorder that could be traced back to the traumas suffered by their great grandparents. I thought it was nonsense, even let out an irritated sigh, then Eleza Cru banged her knee into mine and I noticed that the judge fixed me with a disapproving look. We were losing.

That evening I took solace in one of my chef’s specialities, spiced sea proteins in a guava and breadfruit mix with pilau rice, along with bottle of Norwegian Chardonnay. John and Aleezia had joined me, correctly sensing that I could do with some sympathy and whatever encouragement seemed realistic. I had invited Eleza Cru, feeling she would ensure the discussion remained realistic, but she had pleaded an urgent meeting. John and Allezia both acknowledged the bad turn in the case and were disappointed that I couldn’t tell them that my lawyers had new rounds of ammunition in store. But they were both good at emphasising what I would retain if I lost the case.

“They won’t be able to touch the investments with origins before febro pulp,” John said. “There have been other cases and a principle that they can’t be related to profits from the plantations. Some have become irrelevant, but others are still in good shape.”

“And you’ll still be a wealthy man,” Aleezia added. “You’ll have a comfortable life, three homes, opportunities to travel. You can get out an enjoy the world.”

“That makes sense,” I told them. “But it assumes that I would be fulfilled by whatever pleasures you have in mind. That’s not me I’m afraid. My fulfillment comes from work, and making my business ever more successful.”

I could see from their faces that they were not completely surprised but a little disturbed by my response, and guessed they cared something for my wellbeing – as well as their own self-interest. I assured them that if we lost I would be deeply disappointed but not miserable, and I would find another sense of purpose. We ate a dessert of vegan ice cream with caviar and followed it with large glasses of Newfoundland brandy. I was touching a state of inebriation and decided it was time to end the evening. Then my steward informed me that Eleza Cru had arrived with another guest. I felt a twinge of irritation but agreed to see them. John and Aleezia were on their feet when Eleza Cru entered the room, accompanied by a tall man in a sharp suit who was unmistakably a native American.

“This is Makwa,” she said. “He has something important to say.”

Continued part 3

Image by David S. Soriano, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0