Page 105 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Overtime

according to his notes, have a history of recommending executives to
large companies and then getting a payback in contracts those people
award P&L at inflated rates. Some of that excess comes back again to
the contractees under the table—if Kates is right, and the money trail
in such cases can usually be uncovered in an unbiased outside audit;
that is, one not conducted by P&L’s auditors.”
“The guy sounds like a real paranoid,” said Beau, shaking his head
sadly. “He wisely kept all this nonsense to himself, it seems.”
“That remains to be seen,” replied Labelle. “He might have been
waiting until he had an airtight case to present to the press or the
board of directors, or he could have been looking to blackmail the
people he concluded were the culprits.”
“Bizarre!” Beau idly fiddled with his computer. “You know, that
sounds like some of the fantasies that kids come up with when they
spend too much time with our virtual unreality generator,
TimeWarper Three-point-oh. Have you ever tried it? Most adults
haven’t, but our employees get free samples, and Kates might have
been too unstable to deal with it. Here: this is one of them.” He
picked up one of our helmets from the table and punched a few
buttons. “Try it.”
Amazingly, Labelle let him slip the unit over her head. It
completely covered her ears and eyes. Indicator lights began to flash.
“Be right back.” I turned and Bendan L. Beau was moving away
from us briskly, at even greater speed than usual, his laptop, still
open, under his arm. Then a series of electronic beeps brought my
attention back to Labelle. I had no idea what was going on; the
company’s products were an alien species to me. The generation gap
was too great. I had a top and a yo-yo when I was a child, and
mastering them was difficult enough. A computerized headset
designed to alter temporal as well as binocular and binaural
perceptions to the point of sending its user on a legal “trip” into
uncharted realms of the imagination was not something I had any
desire to try.
Maud Lynn ran over to us. “What did you do to Beau? He has a
meeting in five minutes!” Then she looked at Labelle. “Are you
crazy?” she screamed. “That TimeWarper is set on maximum
distortion in all dimensions! That should only be attempted by a

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