Pacific Station Vigilante (Book 1): The Negative Man (City of Chaos) Read Free Page B

legal bums figure it out?”
    “So, you did that on purpose?”  Color me confused.
    He opened the file.  “Of course I did!  I work my ass off down here and everyone just takes credit without ever even coming to me!  Do I ever get a good job?  Or do they even come down to get an explanation?”
    Ahhh… “So you did this just to see how observant the legal team was?  And to see if Mr. Wonderton even personally looked over everything?”
    “Exactly!”  He popped out of his chair.  “Tell me Jericho, was it you that noticed?  As an intellectual peer, that would be most obvious.”
    “Yeah, Legal dropped it off with me to take on for approval.  That’s when I noticed the design.”  Was I lying?  Yes.  Was this my way in?  Yes.
    Jenkins closed the file and dropped it in his trashcan.  He pulled another file out of his desk and handed it to me.  “This is the real prototype.  So new that it wasn’t even in the servers yet.”
    This piqued my interest.  I opened the file and was blown away.  “Whoa, this is incredible!”
    Just from my initial quick glance, I could see Jenkins was taking the normal parameters and expanding them exponentially.  The phone’s processor was going to be faster than anything on the market.
    I closed it and handed it back to him.  “What’s the name of this top secret project?”
    “In a nod to my French heritage,” he looked as French as a guy named Wonderton, “I’m calling it Project Trefles.  It sounds very fancy and expensive that way.  The population won’t be able to resist.”
    Say it adds to my nerdiness, but I’m fluent in three different languages (not counting binary), including French.  Trefles is their word for ‘clovers,’ which is also what they refer to the ‘clubs suit’ in cards.  This just furthered my assumption.
    Smiling, “Would you like me to take this to Mr. Wonderton for approval or does it need more time?”
    Jenkins was itching to get this project out to the open, you could see it in his eyes.  He refrained though, for whatever reason.  “Not yet, I’d like some more time to work on this.”
    “I don’t know what you could do to make this even better, but I’m excited to see.”
    His eyes lit up at the praise of a fellow tech head.  “Between me and you, gl-O-bal Labs’ Owen Walker has reached out to me, wanting to know more about this.”
    “How does Walker know about this?”  I asked the question quietly, like I was excited to hear more.
    Picking up on my enthusiasm, “He read my thesis on cellular acceleration a number of years ago and we’ve remained in contact ever since.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m loyal to Wonder-Tech, but having a friend like Walker’s nothing to sneeze at.”
    DL was going to have a heart attack.  “I’d keep that between us okay?  I don’t think the big guy or Legal would be thrilled with that association.”
    Jenkins nodded and I got up.  As I was getting ready to leave, “I thought you were just Wonderton’s yes man.  I think I was wrong about you Jericho.”
    “I appreciate that Jenkins.  Maybe one night after work we can grab a beer.”
    He looked down and typed out a quick text.  An answer came back almost immediately.  “Yeah, we definitely should do that.”

Chapter 4 –
Thursday Evening; Johnny Mulligan’s
     
    The rest of the day went by uneventfully.  I sent DL an email to his encrypted account detailing my conversation with Jenkins.  He responded later with the thumbs up to continue my investigation.  For the time being, he’d stay out of my way.  When the five o’clock alarm sounded, instead of going home like all the rest of the smarter people I worked with, I went to the secret floor.  DL was going to patrol the streets tonight.
    My work station had just about every piece of tech one could think of.  Police scanners, three of the fastest computers you could find, and a whole workshop with tools and materials.  Before I got to checking on any