Chapter 32
When Derek is this pissed off at the world, he requires garage time. He is not a fan of the so-called man caves permeating the cultural conversation. He doesn’t need a cave. The whole house is—should be—his castle.
Given the less-than-buoyant stock performance and the underbidders nibbling away at his client base, he wonders how long he will be able to keep the house, or at least the toys he has accumulated.
Like the lineup of vintage Porsches in the detached five-car garage he built along the south side of their lot.
That’s the thing with the tech sector—it’s a constant battle to stay relevant, to maximize for efficiency and cost, to keep a quarter step ahead of the competition.
A thoroughbred race with everyone riding tech that’s smarter and more powerful than the humans who are allegedly steering it.
Derek’s ire about the performance dip lands disproportionately on Mark, even though Mark is clearly the most talented of the chief product officers—maybe because Mark is the most talented.
Derek expects more from him, just as he expects the most out of himself.
It doesn’t have to do with the fact that Alexa tried to make out with him once, or that Mark is stalwart in a way that Derek slightly envies.
The jungle of e-news is not for sissies. When it comes to content optimization, it’s a wolf-eat-wolf world, a constantly changing, algorithmically powered process of evolutionary selection. Miss a step, and you’re extinct.
And they’ve been missing a lot of steps lately.
That’s why Derek needs to be out here to clear his head, away from the laptop that keeps him tethered to disappointing Nasdaq news and the endless complications of keeping a public company on track.
Away from Alexa, too, and her incessant needs and drives.
She is in the bedroom right now, enjoying their recharged N0RM LLC unit, and he is happy to let her satiate what she needs satiated so he can be out here working out what he needs to work out.
That is one of the best benefits of the unit.
It allows them to see to their individual needs more completely.
The dank garage smells of rubber and chemical solvents, gasoline and motor oil. Derek loves it, this smell of virility, which reaches him even through the full-face respirator with replaceable filters on both sides.
He is geared up.
He likes this part.
He wears 3M folding earmuffs for soundproofing, ear plugs beneath those, heavy duty gloves, and a PVC-coated rubber apron. He looks like a meth cook ready to break bad.
Last week at an estate auction he got a rusted-to-shit 1948 356, one of Porsche’s first production automobiles. Hose in hand, he stands before the bubble coupe now. It is classic as hell, strong Connery-Bond vibes. It still runs, badly but consistently.
At his side is the Dustless Blasting DB500, a massive green-and-black compressor. Its silver belly holds water and recycled bottle glass. He loads the compressor with 40/70 grit recycled glass, which looks like sand until you spread it in your palm, and the ambers and greens twinkle to life.
The hose is the most powerful he has ever held, firing at 120 pounds per square inch. He will use it to blast off the rust, Bondo, primer, and old paint, bringing the car back to fresh steel.
He lies flat on his back, bracing himself before initiating the dead-man trigger.
The hose flexes and fills behind him, python-like, and when the blast comes, the force nearly slides him across the oil-slick floor.
Shoving his boots against the concrete, he holds on and directs the jet of glass-flecked water at the side of the Porsche.
His entire torso is engaged, a massive upper-body workout.
It’s like an auto machine gun emitting a constant stream of lead.
In stages he acclimates to the roar of the compressor. As he inchworms himself along the floor, stripping the coats off the steel body, the jet engine rumble lulls him into complacency.
He does not notice the masculine form walking across his front lawn at a leisurely pace.
Nor does he notice when it enters the garage.
Derek is busy straining and flexing and aiming and sweating.
Bare feet approach. A shadow falls across him, but he cannot notice, not through the respirator.
He doesn’t even sense the tug on the hose, just enough to whip the nozzle across his thigh.
The bite of crushed glass awakens him, shooting through the apron, his jeans, his flesh, drilling neatly down clear to the bone of the femur. At first he feels only a dreadful pressure.
He releases the nozzle, the dead-man switch shutting off the unit.
And then comes the blood, gushing from the gunshot-neat hole. If he has nicked his femoral artery, he is dead.
It is very, very close.
He is forgetting to breathe. He cannot see, the respirator fogged up. He shoves at the straps but cannot get the device off his head. Rolling onto his back, he feels the first premonition of discomfort, and then pain comes on, freight-train hard, the damaged limb screaming.
Writhing in pain, he catches a glimpse of something near his head. A shadow? A form? A man? It is hard to see, given the static dotting his visual field.
There is not much time. He must reach his phone. He must get help.
The form steps calmly around his head.
The door to the coupe opens and closes.
Derek’s vision gets worse, everything swimming, choked with snow. He struggles to stay conscious.
The Porsche backs out of the garage, nearly crushing Derek’s head.
As it drives off, he is still grappling beneath his apron for his cell phone.