Reborn. Lance Erlick
are everywhere.”
He nodded and climbed out.
One video clip ended and another began.
Dr. Machten walked down a brightly-lit hallway. He marched erect, his face self-assured. Not seeing anyone outside the conference room, he opened double doors and was picked up by another camera, apparently from the company’s security system.
Machten stepped inside the room. Mostly men sat around a large table in front of dog-eared meeting-review packages, all turned toward the end. He froze mid-step. His eyes narrowed. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “The meeting wasn’t to start until ten.”
An intense man with sharp, recessed eyes got out of his seat and approached Machten. “Your meeting begins now.” Machten’s business partner, Hank Goradine, had the demeanor of a bulldog, with a tough face that had aged beyond his chronological years. News reports from two years earlier mentioned a heart condition and a pacemaker. His intensity at the moment risked provoking another incident.
Machten glanced at the six other board members. Most of the men stared at their review packages on the table. One stared right at Machten and shook his head. The only woman on the board looked past Machten, as if implying he should leave. Even Ralph McNeil stared down at his hands.
“The board is relieving you of your position,” Goradine announced. His face adopted a mechanical grin that looked rehearsed and lingered like a mask.
“You’re firing me?” Machten got into Goradine’s face, glanced around, and backed up. “My name’s on the building. This is my company.”
“Not anymore,” Goradine said. “If need be, we can change the name.”
Machten looked from one board member to another for any element of support. “Why? Why are you doing this? I’m the brains of this organization.”
“We’re terminating you for cause,” Goradine said. He seemed to be enjoying this.
“Cause? You have no cause, you crook.” Machten rubbed his neck, but held his ground. “If you do this, I’ll see you in court.”
“As you wish.” Goradine shrugged and grinned. “In court, you’ll have to address how you stole company assets and cash. We have the evidence to land you in prison. Our attorneys will see to that.”
“I built this company,” Machten said. Even as he stood defiant, his shoulders sagged.
“Nonetheless, you’re driving it into the ground. That stops today. The agreement on the table is generous under the circumstances. It expires when you leave this room.” Goradine pushed a thick contract on the table toward Machten.
Machten glanced at the stack of paper and at the board members. “You can’t let him do this. We’re close to a major breakthrough.”
“You’ve been saying that for months.” Goradine moved to block Machten’s view of their third partner, McNeil, who looked tortured by the verbal exchange.
Machten opened his mouth to say something, perhaps about his discoveries in artificial intelligence. Instead, he clenched his fists. “If I don’t sign?”
“We’ll take you to court and grab all of your assets. In either case, you’ll lose your ownership in the company. I suggest you take the contract. If it was up to me, you’d get nothing, but the board has been persuasive.”
Machten stared out the window and clenched his fists. Then he picked up the contract. The room remained silent, with all eyes on him. He skimmed the pages and plunked them down on the table. “This is a joke, right?”
“No joke,” Goradine said.
The other board members stared at Machten. He stared back. “You’re taking all of my stock with no compensation?”
“Compensation is agreeing not to pursue legal action against you for the thefts.”
“There’ve been no thefts,” Machten said. “You know that, you blowhard. Admit it, this is an old-fashioned coup.”
“To be clear, if you disclose any of this contract’s contents or any confidential information about the company to anyone, even by court order, there will be penalties.”
“That’s not even legal.”
“Our attorneys confirm that the way we’ve worded it, the penalties are.”
“You’re an ass. You demand all of my patents? That’s my work.”
“All work done while an employee of the company is work for hire. We own the intellectual property.”
Goradine placed a thick folder on the table before Machten and gave his forced grin. “If you have any doubts about our case against you, review the file. I think you’ll find it convincing. We want to avoid the embarrassment of a trial, as I’m sure you would. That would ruin you financially and destroy your reputation.”
Machten thumbed through the file. “This is nothing but a bunch of lies. All fabrication.”
“We have evidence that you’ve removed proprietary components without signing them out,” Goradine said. “Valuable inventory vanished.”
“I’m EVP of engineering. I’m working on—”
He didn’t get to finish his thought before Goradine interrupted. “What? You haven’t produced anything of value for three years. The company is hemorrhaging cash and you’re stealing from us. Either sign or we’ll press criminal as well as civil charges.”
Dr. Machten studied Goradine and the others. He picked up the file, thumbed through it again, and tossed the papers across the table.
“Sign the agreement and all of this goes away,” Goradine said, pointing to his stack of evidence. “Sign it!”
“You always were a money-grubbing SOB.” Machten picked up the contract and dropped it on the table. “Go to—”
“Do you really want this conversation to end?”
Machten picked up the contract, slapped the stack of papers against the table—as if that would change anything—and then signed it. He’d come to the meeting deep in debt over his work in his private, underground facility. He’d expected to share his latest discoveries and have the board bail him out with new financing. That didn’t happen.
Two beefy security guards entered the room and escorted Machten to the front door. In the lobby, the older of the guards approached the receptionist.
“This man no longer works here,” the guard announced, loud enough for three men waiting nearby to hear. “Make sure that he’s denied access from this point forward.”
The receptionist appeared ready to cry. She nodded and fumbled with something on her desk. The guards hustled Machten to the front door of what had been his company.
The next video clip showed Machten leaving the building. A black sedan waited at the curb. Machten took out his cell phone and started to make a call. A dark SUV pulled up.
A tall man in a business suit climbed out of the SUV and approached. “You’re Jeremiah Machten?”
“That’s right. Who are you?”
A beefy man climbed out of the black sedan. He held out a stack of papers and an envelope. “Here, these are for you.”
Machten took the offering and glanced at it. “What’s this all about?”
“I’m Stan Durante,” the tall man said. “This is Deputy Parker. We’re hereby serving you with divorce papers from your wife.”
Machten glanced toward the building. “You son of a bitch.”
The deputy handed over a second, thinner envelope with papers sticking out. “I’m hereby serving you with a restraining order to stay away from your wife and kids. You’re to appear