Page 56 of The Heiress

Walking back into Excel Research felt like returning to the real world after a year lost in the jungle. Everything was the same but it all felt different. In reality it was me that was different. My desk looked smaller. My office felt incredibly tiny. Even David looked…different. I couldn’t explain why.

“And how was it?” he asked, leaning against my door frame. We’d been in contact maybe half a dozen times since my DNA test. I kept adding to the list of things I was asking him to research.

I finally gave up on trying to find a place to set my things and just tossed them in the middle of the desk. “The other half are loaded, David. It’s like the ridiculous shit in the movies, only this isn’t fiction.”

He chuckled and I realized I really missed his calm and level headed approach to everything in life. “They say there are three worlds that always coexist. The underworld where there are no rules, the overworld where there are still no rules but everyone is so rich and powerful they might as well be gods, and then—”

“And then us mere mortals who exist in the in-between, wandering around like blind little mice, keeping the world running while everyone above and below does whatever they want.”

He flashed me a smile. “Something like that.”

Were Jace and I destined to live in the extremes? Could I go back to being a mortal when I knew what the gods were doing up on Mount Olympus? This is why Greek myths existed—to warn off people like me who thought they could get away with playing with fire. Remember what happened when Icarus decided he could fly anywhere he wanted to?

“Is there a plan? Or are you back for good?”

I sighed heavily because it felt like the weight of the world had permanently taken up residence on my shoulders and chest. “I have been informed that it’s an all or nothing deal. I either stay here and renounce my crown or I go back and take the throne, leaving all of this behind.” I left out the part where my life was possibly in danger and that I had a bodyguard walking the perimeter outside.

“Big decision.”

“That’s why I’m here. You have information for me?”

He pressed up from the door. “I do. Are you ready?”

“Yep. Let’s do this.”

He stepped away. “I’ve got everything in my office.” Literally under lock and key in his safe. He closed and locked his office door then opened the safe and pulled out the files and a data drive. “I asked Luca Anders about Roark’s interests in space programs since he interned with a small aerospace company specifically working on lunar prototypes. He brought the SST&T division to my attention.” He put up a hand to stop me from asking what SST&T was. “Specialized Space Travel & Technology. Roark Corp purchased it two years ago. They were developing the prototype for what is now the Roark lunar shuttle.

“And?”

David kind of shook his head and half shrugged. “He said the company was a co-op of scientists. They were a pretty tiny operation and their goal was to work on advancing scientific boundaries. The shuttle was still in fairly early stages of development when Roark swooped in and made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. I checked, and that division of Roark has gone from a budget of $10 million a year to $1billiona year.”

I whistled. “Nice growth curve.”

“That’s not a curve. That’s a spike. That’s a massive capital investment. I get that all the big guns are trying to carve out their piece of the space pie these days, but this is a huge shift for Roark.”

“They want to own the moon.”

“And Mars, and all the satellites, public and private flights, and research. They—the tech billionaires of the world—see space as the next frontier. If they carve out their spaces now they get to dictate everything. Until recently, Roark was behind. But between their defense contracts, and the purchase of this SST&T company, they’ve not only put themselves right back in the thick of things, they just might be frontrunners soon.”

My stomach flipped. I remembered sitting in my college history classes learning about the empires of the world. Alexander the Great, the Quin Dynasty, The British Empire...the horrors of Manifest Destiny. As a student I could barely conceive of the hubris it took to want to remake the world or seize whole swaths of it for your own.

And yet now I could put a face to the name. Roark. Feyereisen.

David sat back, folding his hands over his stomach. “I’m going to give unsolicited advice now.”

“It’s what you do.”

“It is. Roark Corp is as powerful as any government. Maybe even more so. They have the money, the resources, the influence…and they do some pretty shitty things with it.”

And this is where he was going to tell me to run far and fast. To escape the corruption. That getting involved would make me just as bad as everyone there who fed into the abuses of company power.

“You need to go back.” He looked me right in the eye. Calm. Steady. He sat forward. “You need to go back, Sam. If you don’t, the company will never change. It will build space stations and monopolize every shipping channel, every potential mining operation. Hell, they don’t even have to look off the planet with that kind of access. Maybe we never go to Mars or wherever next. Maybe they just use that virgin real estate and global access to monopolize communications.”

“You make it sound so science fiction-y with a splash of dystopian.”

“Yeah, well, cell phones sounded like science fiction until they weren’t and now we can’t live without Star Trek-style smart phones and watches. The people in position to take advantage of each new technological advance get to make the rules.”

“They get rich.” The Stromans and Roarks weren’t ahead of the wave, and they didn’t invent the computer or the cell phone, but they took over that space by becoming the most innovative. And now Roark wanted to be first into the next new era.

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