Cortez Tim Van Hook Arrival of Hernan Cortez by Diego Rivera in the Palacio Nacional, Detail “It’s just business.” Van Hook / Cortez / 2 Copyright © 2020 Tim Van Hook about 110,000 words POB 190 Casco ME 04015
[email protected] Cortez by Tim Van Hook Part One Chapter 1 Startup Lem levered his fingertips under the metal disC on the baCk of his head and pried off the Cortez headset, the Bug, they Called it. Working alone in the lab to improve the clarity of the images that the deviCe Captured from his mind, he reviewed the session. Shapes wavered on the sCreen like a TV channel that hadn’t been paid for. He had visualized his daughter Annie, his Cortez-Cofounder Peter, and the smile of his first-ever lover, Janie, but what played back instead he only vaguely reCognized. Take a break. Upstairs in Lem’s CubiCle, Peter slouChed in the spare Chair, his white jeans and zippered half-boots sCissored straight out on the carpet. He dressed like a fastidious disco danCer. Slim and hairless forearms Curved from his wrist to barely bigger upper arm. Behind him, the blaze of the simmering mid-morning sun bleaChed the parking lot and adjaCent beige offiCe building, shimmering under the pale blue North Carolina sky and filling the wide-blinded window. “I don’t know who they are, but I know they’re watChing me,” Peter said. Lem swiveled slightly in his plastiC mesh offiCe Chair to faCe Peter. Frank Claimed he got a great deal on the fit-up, the monoxide-gray fabric partitions, the sickroom-gray plastic desktops and suspended storage cubbies, the galvanized-gray Chairs, from a portfolio Company the investors had shut down, and thereby reCyCled their old losses into new equity.