An Excerpt from The Take-Us

Prologue

"The offer is one hundred million dollars," Bradford F. Givings said, speaking in that nasal, East Coast upper-crust way. He coaxed a chair out from under the table and sat down heavily in the room without a view.

John looked at him, targeting the man's eyes. "Why that amount?" he asked, wondering why it wasn't $99,000,000 or why not $107,777,777? That would surely be lucky . . . all those sevens and all. He placed the pistol on the table and joined Givings, sitting down cautiously.

"We have determined that the value of your invention at this time, is exactly that," Givings said and then softened his tone. "That is a great amount of money. It will solve all your problems and make your dreams come true." Givings glanced at the other end of the room.

"What do you know about my problems?" John asked and then thought it would solve all his problems — except the one he was trying to solve. Thirty pieces of silver for a soul would —

Givings continued, ignoring the question. "If you were to take that money and deposit it, in, say, your savings account at El Dorado Bank, and received just five percent interest per ann—"

So, they already know I have a savings account and the name of the bank, he thought.

"um — that would net you, say, five million a year in interest, or about thirteen thousand seven hundred dollars each and every day." Givings pointed the gold pen he had delicately balanced between his tidy fingers at the sheet of paper lying in front of him.

John asked the obvious. "What if it's a leap year?"

"Leap year? . . . What? Well, I guess it'd be the same, or maybe more, or less." He peered down and tapped his high-dollar pen.

"Mr. Givings, did you go to Harvard?" John asked, studying the lawyer's face, noticing the smooth, slick ice had a few cracks in it.

Givings looked up from his notes. "Yes, I did; however, I am uncertain what that has to do with this transaction? This is not about me."

"Which school?"

"Well, law. And I have an MBA in business," Givings added, just a little too proudly.

"Who's we?"

"I'm sorry, I don't understand?"

"You just said we determined that my invention was worth a hundred mil. Who's we?"

"I'm sorry. I can't tell you that."

"Sorry? Let me get this straight." John reached onto the table and spun the pistol. It was still spinning when he said, "You want to write me a check for a hundred million and I don't even get to know who's signing it? Maybe you're just a sorry lawyer."

Givings watched as the pistol slowly came to a stop, pointing neither toward nor away from him, and quietly exhaled. "It would come from my office."

That was lame, John thought. Several long minutes passed. The only sound was their breathing, both of them trying to keep it deep and slow, not allowing panic to break the silence. The smell of perfume still hung in the air. John looked up at the cheaply papered wall a few inches above Mr. Givings' head. He knew this game; after all, he had bought used cars before. The first person to speak loses most of the time, unless of course you attack. He had no intention of losing. "Mr. Givings, what's the interest at five percent on a billion dollars?" He placed his hands on the table, palms up.

Givings looked up and smiled, smelling blood. Now that the parameters had been set, it was just a matter of negotiating the price. "Well, John, I don't know how much the interest is, but our offer is less than that amount, but it's still a considerable fortune."

It was the way he said "John" that struck him. Every time he heard it said like that, he knew he was in trouble. He had served in ’Nam where one of those little bastards had shot him. "Look out, John!" his buddy yelled just before disintegrating into a pile of smoke and yuck. He'd ended up coming home on a stretcher, unceremoniously carried out of the ass end of an Air Force C-141 Starlifter with a big red cross on its tail. He'd been "looking out" ever since.

"I went to a different school than you did," he said, looking straight into Mr. Bradford F. Givings' dark, darting eyes. "The school I graduated from was the School of Rock Hard Unforgiving No Bullshit, with a major in Gonna Screw You before You Screw Me. My diploma was a purple heart and somewhere along the way it taught me that a billion is ten times more than a hundred million and so the interest is ten times more —"

Mr. Givings started to interrupt him. John raised his hand to silence him, and being a good little lawyer, he promptly shut up.

"I don't know who your we is, but I can imagine. They know as I do that my invention, the Take-Us, will change the power structure of the world. Companies that made a combined six hundred billion in profit last year will go broke. The powerful will become powerless, and wars that are ongoing now will fizzle out. However, I also know that I will be personally responsible for other wars starting and many, many thousands of people getting killed . . . I've had this invention in my thoughts for over twenty years and have thought through all the ramifications." Surprise, clearly evident, broke across Givings' poker face. "I know that if you offed me a hundred billion dollars that would be a great deal for your — what did you call them? — we."

"Listen, Mr. Christenson, er, John," Givings spoke quietly as though he were afraid to be overheard, "you might think that you know the extent of the we; however, I don't think you have the slightest idea how wide and deep it goes. They could pony up a hundred billion and not even blink. Nevertheless, I think they might try to go the cheaper route and just eliminate the problem. Why don't you just take the money and have a good life?"

"A threat?" John sat back down and subconsciously picked up the pistol, knowing it would boil down to this. Like dark after light. Inevitable.

"Take it as a warning," Givings said, blowing out a deep breath. "You're a zealot, you know. You with your crazy blue eyes, trying to change things. You'll probably just die."

"I've almost died many times." Hearing the echoes of a thousand acrid souls, John said in a voice so loud that even the Evil One couldn't miss it. "Death doesn't scare me."

He remembered how it was back in the beginning.

It has always been living he had more trouble with.