“What about facial recognition?” Simon asked, leaning forward in his chair as Beau walked through how the product worked. “Patterns of all kinds, right? Can you demo that?”
Beau shifted in his seat. “InfoSynthcanbe applied to facial recognition, yes. Any pattern, really. But that’s not the point.”
Simon leaned in, eyes sharp. “It could be a major revenue driver. Government contracts alone—”
This made my head snap in Simon’s direction. “Government—”
“I didn’t build this for surveillance,” Beau cut in, his tone smooth but firm. “The vision is bigger than that. InfoSynth is made for applications that serve people. If all you want is facial recognition, there are plenty of companies already in that business.”
The air between them tightened. Simon’s smile stayed tranquil, but his knuckles whitened where they pressed into the tabletop. There were other companies, yes, but Beau’s product was better.
Everyone in this room knew it. So did every wide-eyed intern who passed by the conference room to steal a glimpse oftheBeau Walker.
Simon leaned back, recovering quickly, and his voice slipped into the smooth cadence I’d heard a hundred times before. “Of course, of course. But with Redwood’s scale, we could take InfoSynth global in months. Double your users. Triple your revenue. We have enterprise pipelines, infrastructure already in place. You wouldn’t have to compromise the vision. You’d amplify it.”
Simon was in pitchman mode. I could hear it in the grand and irresistible intonation of his voice. He could make a hurricane sound like a spa treatment.
But this wasn’t the pitch I’d brought Beau here for.
“What about the alignment with our users and early detection for home health emergencies?” I asked, too quick, too hopeful. I wanted to salvage the meeting, of course. But I also wanted to understand where I had lost the thread.
Enterprise pipelines weren’t what Simon and I had talked about. We’d talked about integration. Making InfoSynth the engine to improve home safety for our users—monitoring movement and health signals to detect when someone has had a medical event.
Simon was pitching something different.
When did I stop knowing everything Simon Avery was thinking?
Simon didn’t glance in my direction. “That’s not the play here, Este.” His tone was dismissive, and the flick of his hand stung.
He was already back on his pitch, chasing contracts and scale. Beau’s jaw twitched as Simon retook the floor, spinning a future from thin air.
After a few more seconds, though, Beau reached forward and pulled his laptop closed with a soft click. The sound was so final I flinched.
“That’s not what I built this for,” he said, and the air in the room went dead.
Simon froze, and his posture became rigid. I knew that look. He was scrambling for a save. But the meeting was already over.
Sitting between them, I felt the bottom drop out. The deal had imploded.
“Thanks for the invitation, Este,” Beau said. As he slid the laptop into his bag, I caught a glimpse of the corner of a worn black sticker. It was peeling at the edges, but a faded Creative Commons logo was visible.
My pulse hiccuped. Creative Commons was a nonprofit dedicated to making knowledge and creative work more freely shared. A favorite cause for activist coders.
It suited Beau perfectly. But it clashed with everything Simon stood for. Simon was a capitalist to the bone. To him, everything was for sale at the right price.
So why did Beau take the meeting?
Before I could ask him myself, Beau zipped up his bag, and his gaze caught mine, steady and certain. The world tilted. Admiration for his conviction ignited a second wave of heat that curled through me, sharp and dangerous, and I forced myself to look away before Simon noticed.
Then Beau left without another word. The door whispered shut behind him, leaving only Simon and me in the glass box.
Simon gathered his papers with clipped movements. “We’ll regroup,” he said, the smile gone now, his voice tight. And then he was gone, too, striding out without waiting for me.
All I could do was stare at the empty chairs, feeling the weight of failure settle over my shoulders.
Chapter 17
Five Days Before the Hurricane
