“They told me you called,” said the voice. It had a disguise filter laid over it, but this could not conceal the faintly foreign accent.
“How did it go?”
“We are still doing the math,” said the other voice. “But the initial results look very close to our original projections.”
“Good,” Phil said. “When will the second wave roll out?”
“Within the next two hours. We don’t want to give them more time to recoup than necessary, but we have to run our own checks also, to make sure that our own systems’ channels into the Omnitopia system are not blocked.”
“Fine,” Phil said. “Give me a call when the second wave starts.”
“All right.”
Phil punched the off button, looked out to sea. The waves rolled in, roaring. Out on the water, somebody’s little fishing boat chugged along against the horizon, its toothpicklike mast and angling rig swaying, as it made for Montauk and the game-fishing waters out past the Point.
I hope this doesn’t destroy him personally. I’d never want to do that. I want him working for me, sure, so I can teach him what real winning looks like . . . but this needs to be a wake-up call, not a deathblow.
He stood quite still there for almost a minute, looking out to sea as the little fishing boat turned slightly southward, angling down toward the southeastern end of the Great South Bay and almost invisible now as the brightness of the misty and indefinite horizon started to swallow it. That invulnerable pride of his, Phil thought. That certainty. Can he possibly give that up without a really, really big kick in the pants? Bigger than I honestly want to give him?
Because I am still his friend, even if he isn’t mine.
The little boat vanished. Phil swallowed, trying to imagine what the eventual phone call from Dev would sound like. The first feelers won’t be from him, of course. Probably from Tau or Jim or one of the other inner-circle types. They’ll hate it, of course, but it won’t matter. Dev will let them know what he wants them to do. They’ll fall in line as they always have. And then . . .
Phil shook his head. He couldn’t imagine what Dev’s voice would sound like, when the call came at last—it had been so long since they’d spoken, since he’d heard that voice doing anything but commercials and interviews. How many hours did we spend in our college years, talking all night? Phil thought. How many conversations, how many bull sessions . . . and I can’t even remember what it sounds like to hear him just laughing, or muttering at himself the way he used to when he thought he’d done something dumb . . .
Phil swore softly. What would be coming to Dev shortly was going to be bad enough. Dev’s staff would soon be explaining to him what had happened to Omnitopia. And when it had sunk in, when he realized what had happened to his company’s stock, Phil’s phone would ring, and there would be that voice saying what he’d been waiting to hear for all this time: I’m sorry, you were right all along, let’s just—
That was when the wave ran up the beach and poured itself all over Phil’s feet.
The cold of the water filled his Gucci loafers and sank in to the bone. Phil stepped back, shocked out of hearing the voice that would have spoken to him, shocked out of the moment by a universe that seemed to be making fun of him—
As it always did where Dev was concerned.
Phil stood there, just breathing hard for a moment—then swore again. He looked at the phone in his hand, and then he brought up the contact listings and scrolled down to the Manhattan number with no name attached, and punched the dial button.
The ringing at the other end stopped; the line picked up. There was no message, just the beep of a voice mail program.
“Final confirmation. Go,” Phil said, and hung up.
Then he turned and started walking back up the beach toward his house. Behind him the ocean roared, just another voice unheard.
No one could remember who coined the usage “Castle Scrooge” for Jim Margoulies’ main offices, but whoever it was, the name had stuck even though no building less like the site of Scrooge McDuck’s famous Money Bin could he imagined. Omnitopia Financial Affairs was probably the closest building on campus to the real world, overlooking the front