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.CHAPTER(THREE) - Part 2/2

Jacob leaned back in his chair. "Are you sure you're alright John?"

"I'm fine," John said. He stood his ground by the window.

Jacob shrugged. "I do worry about you. People of our positons cannot afford to let their guards down."

"There something I should be worried about?" John scoured Jacob's immaculately tanned face for a hint of a threat. If Jacob had somehow found out about his investigation into inmate 26319, nothing showed.

"I saw a survey the other day. Said executives were the most detested group in the country. Even fucking Congress was ranked more favorably. Believe it?" Jacob rapped his knuckles across the desk. "We used to admire success, aspire to it. Now a man can't even provide for his family without making enemies."

John caught his lingering glance. "I'm not your enemy."

"Of course not John. We're friends." Jacob's plastic smile returned. "But you're naïve. And that makes you more dangerous as a friend than any enemy I could make." John's disagreements with the board, and particularly with Jacob, had grown more heated, in recent months, but this was the closest Jacob had come to outright threatening him.

Perhaps Vance Tactical, the company that originally cloned inmate 26319 under mysterious circumstances, had learned of someone from Quantum snooping around and had tipped Jacob off. Jacob was testing him if so, looking for cracks. "Perhaps I'm less naïve than you think," John said.

Jacob chuckled softly to himself. "You always were stubborn, even in the early days. I suppose most visionaries are." John could not help but look up, and instantly realized he had fallen for Jacob's trap. "But that wasn't really you, was it? You weren't the John Quantum who built this company. You look like him, sound like him, enjoy what his hard work earned. But you aren't him, are you?" The corners of Jacob's mouth tapered slightly upwards. "We must always remember where we come from John. It's what keeps us grounded, remembering the pain we've endured to earn what we have." He leaned back nonchalantly in his chair, folding his hands together. "Would you say you feel grounded John?"

John swallowed. His whole purpose had been to inherit someone else's legacy. The good and the bad had all come along with it, and whether he was lucky or cursed, either way it would never be really his.

Jacob's smile widened as he sensed John's hesitation. "Have you ever given any thought to what a brand clone truly is? What you truly are, down at your essence?"

There was no way out of it now. Whatever Jacob was getting to, he would just have to put up with it, not let it get to him. That was exactly what Jacob wanted. He couldn't give him that satisfaction. "I'm the continuation of our founder's legacy," John said. "The human element to what would otherwise be a faceless company."

"Human element? You think that's why you're here?" Jacob motioned up and down the length of John's body as he spoke, as if to leave no doubt he meant the very fact of John's existence.

John held still, doing his best to not give any visible reaction. "I control the company," he heard himself say, his lips moving on their own. The regret was immediate.

"Yes, but don't forget John, we control you." John looked down at his hands. He did not recall having clenched them into fists. "There was a lot of money to be saved in procuring Quantum Computing's favorable startup tax status, still run by its founder," Jacob said.

John wanted to hit him so hard it would take six hours of fusing new dental prints to his jawbones before Jacob could wear his stupid fucking smile again.

"That's your real purpose, your value. The difference between costs of development and maintenance, and the incurred tax savings," Jacob said. "So you see, you should appreciate the board's proposals more than anyone John, because all you really are, when all is said and
done, is a living piece of financial engineering."

John took a single step forward and suddenly stopped. Something held him back. The vague sensation solidified within him.

Fear.

He was afraid of what Jacob could do to him, what any of them could do to him. People like John and inmate 26319 were nothing to men like Jacob, could only ever be nothing as long as they stayed beneath their creators' heels.

He could no longer feel his legs. He felt as if they had been hacked off and all the blood and organs in his chest were spilling down and out of him.

"You'll remember that for tomorrow morning I trust," Jacob said. John stared down at the marble floor, unable to move. Perhaps his legs really had been severed beneath him and his mind was in shock, still processing the trauma. "Right John?"

John licked his lips. "Yes." His eyes never left his feet as he stumbled towards the door. Somehow, he made it into the hallway. The heavy wooden door slammed shut behind him.

"John," said a voice. Still dazed, he glanced up to see Arthur standing in the hallway off to the right, tucked into the alcove of the doorway to another conference room.

"What do you think you're doing?" Arthur asked when John had gotten closer. "Do you know what they'll do when—"

The door to the main conference room swung open. Jacob passed by, crossing perpendicular to the hallway John and Arthur had huddled in. Just before disappearing from sight, he turned his head and spotted them.

Arthur opened his mouth again to speak.

"Arthur," Jacob said from somewhere around the corner. "I almost forgot, I have something for you to look over with me."

"We'll talk soon," Arthur said to John. He gave John a look that was something between pity and reprimand and then turned and paced back towards the elevators. A moment later there was a chime and a soft click of the elevator doors closing. John was alone.

His legs were still numb as he trudged into the restroom at the end of the hall. The room had a citrusy, chemical smell, as if it had just been cleaned. He placed his hands on either side of the sink and leaned forward towards his reflection, shifting the weight off his useless legs.

There was no forgetting the threat he had heard in Jacob's voice. Maybe Vance Tactical had already learned of his investigation into 26319. But if that were true would they really have gone through Jacob? Perhaps Jacob had found out on his own about what John had discussed with Anya. There was no way Anya would have told anyone, years of a working relationship that had grown into friendship and mutual respect made him certain of that much, but there were other avenues available to man like Jacob. Maybe the board had sensed John's growing sense of frustration with being treated as corporate property. Perhaps his worst fear was finally materializing before his eyes.

It had occurred to him before that the entire concept of a brandclone was only valuable if it provided a consistent, timeless persona to embody the company's founder. And there was only one way John could think of to keep the face of the company timeless. Whether it was because they had begun to sense they were losing control him, or for some reason he did not yet know, whenever they no longer viewed him as fit to champion the company he would be of no value to them. And just as they had done to inmate 26319, they would go to whatever lengths necessary to avoid facing the consequences of having created him.

John ran his index finger along the barely perceptible scar behind the base of his ear. When they wanted to strike, they would know exactly how and where to find him.

If he stayed in public view maybe he stood a chance. But that would only buy him time. There was only one scenario he could think of that work out for him long term.

The company whose name hebore had made him, and now, whenever they wished, they would unmake him. Butonly if John did not unmake them first.