Free The Eternal World by Christopher Farnsworth Page A

the West Coast, he played the idiot boy, spending money, wrecking cars, chasing whores. On the East Coast, he’d played the disapproving father, managing the day-to-day affairs of Conquest—which grew only more challenging over time—and letting himself age.
    The others didn’t have to be quite as careful, or take such elaborate measures. They weren’t the public faces of the company. The last time they had “died” had been in a faked plane crash during a corporate retreat in the Bahamas.
    Antonio had been in Europe at the time, and felt left out. He couldn’t act as part of the group in public anymore. It would have looked too suspicious—and foolish—for the boys to be out partying with a friend of their fathers’. “I wish we could find some way to make the change all at the same time,” he said. “This sort of imbalance breeds division, and we cannot afford that, with our numbers so few.”
    “Perhaps we can arrange for you to be murdered, Antonio,” Simon said as he took his seat. “Would that satisfy you?”
    “What? Who? Who was murdered?”
    The voice came from a speakerphone placed at the seat next to Antonio and hooked into the room’s hard line for the occasion. Carlos had not appeared in person at a meeting in nearly twenty years. He moved constantly, from stronghold to stronghold throughout Latin America. Simon honestly had no idea where he was right now.
    Simon held back a sigh of frustration. The line was capable of carrying an ocean of data. A phone call was a mere trickle compared to that. It was Carlos’s hearing—or his attention—that was the problem.
    “I was making a joke,” Simon said. “We’re all here now, Carlos.”
    “We need to talk,” Max said. “Antonio has some disturbing news. And we need to discuss the Robinton decision—”
    Simon gave him a hard look. There were rules. Protocol had to be observed.
    “My apologies,” he said.
    Simon nodded.
    “Calling this meeting to order,” Max said. He opened a beautifully bound leather journal on the table in front of him. “Simón de Oliveras y Seixas, presiding. Also present, Maximillian de Cortez y Anquilles, Sebastian de Hernandez y Quinto, Pedro de Alvarez y Fonseca, Antonio de Ortega Montez, and Carlos Gaspar de Valenzuela.”
    Simon stood and took the pitcher from its place. He filled his own glass first, then carefully filled the others’, with movements like a surgeon’s in their precision. He did not spill a drop.
    They all stood. Each man raised his glass solemnly. The water inside appeared completely ordinary—save, perhaps, the slightest blue tinge. But that could have been a trick of the light.
    “El agua es vida,” Simon said.
    “The water is life,” the others repeated.
    They all drank, draining their glasses.
    It was a maintenance dose, nothing more. Still, they all shuddered slightly, as if downing eighty-proof vodka.
    They waited in silence for a moment.
    The moment was shattered by Carlos. “What happened? Did we lose the feed again?”
    This time, Simon had to restrain himself from laughing. He couldn’t help it. He was in a good mood today.
    “You didn’t lose the feed, Carlos. Are you drinking with us?”
    “Yes, yes, yes,” Carlos snapped. “As much as you’ll send me, anyway.”
    Simon doubted that. Carlos sounded peevish and irritable. Old. He’d have to send someone to check on him in person.
    He sat in his chair again. The others took their seats as well.
    “First,” he said. “Any old business?”
    Max’s patience, however, was at an end. “There’s always old business. Too much of it. You need to listen to Antonio.”
    Simon nodded. The mark of a good leader was allowing his subordinates some leeway. He turned in his chair. “Antonio, what has Max so upset on such a fine day?”
    “Shako.”
    The word. The name. Two syllables. And such a terrible weight they carried, Simon thought. He could feel it, coming down over the entire room. For a moment, it felt as if they