Free Shimmer by Eric Barnes

voice seeming to echo even before he spoke. “Eighty thousand per box,” Trevor said, “with an annual service fee of twenty thousand.”
    The head of IT sat back, eyes getting wider. The controller very slowly licked the end of the pencil in his hand.
    Meanwhile, I had lost the ability to breathe. My stomach had gone stiff. All light in the room was turning bright yellow. Never in my life have I had to urinate so badly. If I’d had a way to reach Trevor without standing, I would have shoved his head into the conference table.
    If I’d had a way to speak, I would have dropped the price immediately.
    â€œWell,” I heard the controller say, his voice drifting toward me through the swirling, fading vortex into which I had sunk, “at that price we’ll only be able to take delivery of ten boxes this year. But I think we can budget for another twenty in July.”
    And so it began.
    The pricing was set. The boxes were in production. The expansion was in motion. Over the next three weeks, Trevor and I pitched another ten companies, each time running the same demonstration. Six of the companies said yes on the spot, two took just a few days to respond, and the other two—a California-based insurance company and a Boston-based pension-processing center that each bought thirty Blue Boxes—wrote us down-payment checks before we left the building.
    â€œCertainly this will get you to the front of the line,” Trevor said, shaking the hands of everyone in the room, thanking each person individually, making a joke tailored to some line or bit that each person had revealed during the meeting, ultimately leaving not as a salesman but as a revered ambassador sent to help that company.
    He was brilliant. And I was in awe.
    I remember flying back to New York after that tenth meeting, the two of us sitting in first class, a previously unheard-of luxury that, this time, Trevor had insisted on. I remember each of us replaying the day’s presentation. I remember Trevor running his long fingers acrossthe two down-payment checks—$300,000 sitting on the tray in front of him. I remember talking about plans for hiring a whole new staff of sales and customer service reps, network administrators, programmers, a marketing department and more. We would have to find larger office space. We would have to consult with bankers, lawyers, a new accounting firm. I remember Trevor making a toast to Fadowsky, who had made it all possible. I remember us smiling, the two of us laughing, these young men in fine suits so happy with the world.
    I remember Trevor saying we would want to take the company public as soon as we possibly could.
    And I also remember the blue and white fabric covering the seat in front of me. Remember the flight attendant passing by, remember each line and turn of her round face, the tray she held in her thin hands, remember the sound of the woman behind me clearing her throat, remember Trevor’s eyes so black and wet and bright, remember the lights above us flickering for a second as I heard Trevor say that we would definitely need the money from an IPO. We would definitely need as much money as we could possibly get.
    â€œBecause now,” I heard him saying, “now you’ve got to figure out how to make these Blue Boxes work.”
    I turned to him.
    He smiled wide.
    I said to him quietly, “You told me they worked.”
    He was still smiling. He nodded slowly but eagerly. “Yes,” he said slowly, “but I lied.”
    I felt myself breathing carefully, speaking but not sure I was making sound. “About how much?”
    â€œAll of it, Robbie,” he said quietly. “All of it is a lie.”
    â€œThe demonstrations,” I heard myself say. “How?”
    â€œThe information was sent to a couple of mainframes,” he said. “In India, as a matter of fact. They processed the information, then sent it on to the destination.”
    I