Free Coming of Age: Volume 2: Endless Conflict by Thomas T. Thomas

refuses to do a reinstall? Do I talk to his boss?”
    “He doesn’t have one, except the Tallyman Systems chairman. No, if he won’t authorize a reinstall, I’ll send Antigone down to talk with their legal staff.”
    “Why not send her in the first place? Leave Richard out of it?”
    “No, you must go because you’re family, and you have a special message to communicate, one that neither Antigone nor the Winston girl can give. Tell him it’s from me. Use my name. Tell Richard to cease and desist, to leave Praxis Engineering and Callista alone. Tell him this goes beyond computer tricks or legal tricks, even beyond blood and family ties. Tell him he’s in danger.”
    “Will he believe me?” Brandon tried to smile.
    “How many men have you killed?” His grandfather asked quietly.
    Brandon sighed. “Too many. But that was wartime—and a period of civil unrest.”
    “Just show him the face you’re wearing now. He’ll believe you.”
    * * *
    Two days after the meeting with Brandon and Penny Winston—close enough to just miss being a coincidence—Callie Praxis received a call on her smartphone sometime after midnight, waking her from a troubled sleep. It was Uncle Matteo, and during the initial old-world pleasantries his voice betrayed nothing out of the ordinary.
    “We know what your brother has done to your company,” he said finally, coming to the point. “We are deeply disturbed by this.”
    “Thank you for your concern,” she replied. “But we’re handling it.”
    “Your business is our business. And now a third party has access to it.”
    As she came more awake, a question occurred to her. “How do you know this?”
    “Madame Kunstler reported it. She was tardy with the information.”
    “Where is the Spider Woman these days?” Callie asked.
    “That cannot be your concern. She is gone. That is all.”
    “Maybe she paid to put in those hooks? Sounds like something she’d do.”
    “She only arranged to have access, to keep an eye on your brother. But now she is out of the picture, and we are left with a problem.”
    “We will get the software removed,” she said. “Seal the breech and—”
    “Do you know what he has already taken?” Matteo asked.
    “No, just that several downloads have occurred.”
    “He shared one with her—not the others.”
    “Yeah, we’re worried about that, too.”
    “We are prepared to help you ‘seal the breech.’ Permanently.”
    “That won’t be necessary. This is a family matter, and we’ll handle it as such.”
    “It is a ‘family matter’ in more ways than one, Contessa. We insist on maintaining the confidentiality of our relationship.”
    Callie could hear finality in his voice, the death she had spoken of behind closed doors, in privacy, but only to her father and her nephew. Spoken rashly, she had since come to realize.
    “No—no—please don’t involve yourself,” she said now. “We’ll handle it.”
    “I give you a week, Contessa. And I will need proofs, printouts, a data dump—you understand?”
    “Of course, Matteo. We’ll get the information back.”
    “See that you do.” And the connection went dead.
    * * *
    Half an hour into his appointment with his uncle in Houston, Brandon Praxis knew he wasn’t getting anywhere. When he described what he and Penny had found out about the Stochastic Design and Development ® software, the older man just blinked.
    “There must be some mistake,” Uncle Richard said smoothly. “Your super-intelligent application—this what? ‘Rover’? one of those artificial intelligences?—must be imagining things. They do that, you know. The Tallyman Systems package is used in many different contexts and companies and has never created a problem.”
    Brandon knew for a fact that theirs was the only copy in use, because that had been a key point in their marketing strategy. However, he plowed on over the lie. “It’s our contention—that is, Grandpa’s and Aunt Callie’s—that the software you