Читать книгу Delirious - Daniel James Palmer - Страница 11

Charlie glanced at his watch just as he arrived at the cafeteria. It was 11:55 a.m., and the cafeteria was already nearly full. This wasn’t his campus building, so Charlie wasn’t surprised not to recognize a single person seated at the rows of cafeteria tables, nor did anyone in the lunch line recognize him.

He was a bit surprised that Anne Pedersen came right up to meet him, hand extended. Her badge was turned around, so he couldn’t see her photo ID. The IDs had employee numbers, which would have helped Charlie gauge how long she’d been working there. She was a slender, attractive woman in her early forties, with shoulder-length dark brown hair and playful dark eyes. She wore a formfitting blue blouse and a knee-length black skirt that accentuated what he assumed were runner’s legs.

Charlie made sure to look directly in Anne’s eyes as he gave her a firm handshake. It was one of the few lessons his father had taught him before he disappeared: never look away when you shake somebody’s hand. “It’s a sign of weakness,” he’d always say. Anne seemed tense, her gaze shifting and avoiding Charlie’s eyes.

“I’m glad you could come,” she said. Her voice was deeper than Charlie had expected. He liked it. It made her sound assertive, which he found attractive.

“How could I pass it up?” Charlie said. “You made it sound like it wasn’t really an option.”

“It wasn’t,” Anne said. “Let’s get our food before I fill you in.”

Anne ordered a Buffalo chicken wrap and got the chips instead of fries. Her fit figure was apparently the result of exercise and good genes, not a rigid diet. Charlie went with a small salad, vinaigrette dressing, a whole wheat roll, and a bottle of Poland Spring lemon-flavored water. Since he seldom ate lunch, he wasn’t sure how a hearty meal in the middle of the day would impede progress on the list of things he still had to do.

They found a circular, raised table with three stools toward the back, away from the crowds at the long tables.

“Your product is in real trouble,” she began.

Charlie looked up from his food. “How do you know?”

“Listen, Charlie, I’ll be candid with you. I know you don’t know me, but I used to work here years ago and came back to SoluCent only because I had to. I just got divorced.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Charlie said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Anne said. “Anyway, I just got divorced, and I have two kids at home and an ex-husband who doesn’t understand that working means getting off your butt and doing something for money.”

Charlie leaned back on his stool, surprised by her hostility but attracted by her candor. “We all do what we have to do.” It was the only thing he could think to say, but it felt awkward.

“Well, if I’m here for the long haul, which it looks like I am, I don’t want to be stuck under Jerry Schmidt one day longer than I have to be.”

“Oh. Jerry mentioned there was some dissension in his ranks,” Charlie said. “I suppose he was referring to you.” Charlie grimaced inwardly at the white lie, but it accomplished two things. First, it made Anne believe Charlie was a person with insider knowledge. It also made a point of not corroborating her opinions of Jerry. It was common knowledge that Jerry Schmidt was an incompetent baboon, whose math and science prowess had stopped developing somewhere around the eighth grade. But he was still two levels higher than Charlie and in tight with Leon Yardley, the company’s CEO. Jerry Schmidt was not somebody he wanted to upset.

“Interesting that Jerry’s caught on,” Anne said with a smile. “To be honest, your product was my way out of Jerry’s group. Caroline Ramsey is positioned to be the head of InVision marketing. She loves me, and I want nothing more than to work for her. We know each other from a past life at TechTime. Anyway, I see InVision as being a major force for SoluCent in the coming years.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Charlie said. “SoluCent tracked my company for a while before they swooped in and made their offer. I know it’s a significant part of their growth strategy.”

“Well, Jerry thinks it’s garbage, and he’s preparing some presentation to the executive steering committee to try and convince them to back away from the GM deal. He’s certain we will lose our shirt on this one because of contingencies they’ve put in the contract specific to our InVision product.”

“GM is a terrific deal for everyone!” Charlie snapped. “What we have is light-years ahead of their current in-car entertainment and navigation system.”

“Well, I’m sure Jerry’s just concerned about what InVision will do to his Ultima digital music and DVD players.”

“Ultima is a fucking dinosaur!” Charlie reddened and looked around for anyone important who might have overheard. Assured of their privacy, he whispered it again, this time leaving out the expletive. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

“Because,” Anne said, “I want out of Jerry’s group more than you know. He’s oppressive, arrogant, and most of the time flat-out wrong. But for some reason Yardley loves the guy. If Jerry gets his way, I’ll be working on Ultima until my kids go to college.”

“What’s his argument? Why is he so against InVision?” Charlie couldn’t help but think of the Magellan Team and what shutting down InVision would do to them. Many had uprooted their families to be part of Charlie’s executive management team at SoluCent. Losing InVision would be a crushing defeat for all involved.

“First of all, he doesn’t understand the technology. No matter how many times I’ve tried to explain it, he just doesn’t get it. I’m sure that his PowerPoint attacking InVision is riddled with flaws. He’s just playing the fear factor, capitalizing on all the unknowns to keep InVision stuck in R & D and to continue marketing and selling Ultima. That’s his bread and butter. It’s how he’s made his millions.”

Charlie grimaced. “What are you suggesting?” he asked.

“I’m not technical enough to understand all the data in his presentation. I’m sure he doesn’t understand it, either, but if I were to give it to you without anybody’s knowledge—and if I were to forward you an invite to the meeting where Jerry is presenting his plan to Yardley—would you be interested?”

Charlie bit his lower lip. Going against Jerry meant risking everything the two-year-old acquisition had bought him. If he won, he’d advance the cause of InVision and the patents that SoluCent had paid a princely sum to acquire. If he lost, it would tarnish his credibility and potentially doom him to middle management.

“I want out of Jerry’s group,” Anne said. “The only way I see that happening is through InVision. I need your help and you need mine. We both know what’s at stake.”

“You want me to crash the meeting,” Charlie said. Anne nodded as he continued. “And you want me to bring data that counters the arguments Jerry’s concocted in his PowerPoint.”

Again Anne nodded.

“And you want me to risk my neck and career that what you’re telling me is true.”

At this Anne stayed motionless. “We all come to crossroads, Charlie.” She slid her hand across the table and lifted it to reveal a USB storage key.

Charlie assumed Jerry’s presentation was on it.

“You let me know what you want to do. The meeting with Yardley is this Tuesday,” Anne told him.

“Not much time to prepare for battle,” Charlie said.

“This isn’t a battle, Charlie,” Anne said. “This is a war.”