The Griffon, Chapter 2

The commute by subway from the district in which my office is located – the Commercial District – to Nash Automotive Works’ Martian HQ in Research District 2 took almost 45 minutes. A taxi, or a car, would have been quicker but I didn’t feel like shelling out for a cab and I don’t own a car. Naturally, I have a license to drive, most New Londoners do. We like to think of it as a right of passage.

However, the split between the numbers of people who own a car in this city to those who do not is around 50/50 due to the fact that cars are pretty pricey here. Space is limited inside the domes. Therefore, none of the corporations with factories in the Industrial and Manufacturing (IM) District can produce on a scale like they do on Earth or any of the other Earth-like planets colonized by us humans. So the supply of cars is much lower than the demand. And we all know what happens to prices when that happens.

At any rate, Nash produced cars in the IM but their executive offices were elsewhere. No one kept their offices in the IM if they could help it. The place was too depressing and, at times, downright scary. Instead, they would have offices in one of the nicer districts, like Research District 2 (RD2), or the Commercial District (CD) if they didn’t want to pay for a RD2 address. The uber successful could even set themselves up in Research District 1 – New London’s version of the City of London or Manhattan. But like I said, Nash was anchored in Research District 2 and from the looks of their building, they were successful all right; maybe just not uber.

 ***

I walked through the front doors into a spacious, atrium-style lobby. Light flooded in from walls made of glass and the place felt welcoming. Flanking a long, narrow carpet that led up to a massive reception desk were two cars on rotating platforms.

The car to my left, as I walked passed them, was a Nash model that I had seen before. It was a sporty, two-seater convertible in cherry apple red and looked like one of those spiffy touring cars that you might see Kelly or Grant driving along the coast of Monaco in one of those 1950s Jetset pictures.

When I turned to look at the car opposite the roadster, I literally stopped in my tracks. It was a midnight blue sedan unlike anything that I had ever seen on the streets of New London. With its flared wheel-arches and low-slung curves, it looked sleek, yet menacing. Sophisticated and yet like it knew how to handle itself in the corners. Like something that had driven straight out of the 1930s but there it was right in front of me, all shiny and new and in the 22^nd century.

Prior to that moment, I never really thought of myself as a car man. A car was a car. It took you from one place to another. But standing before the beauty on the rotating pedestal, I was smitten. It was like the materialization of every dream that I had ever had. I stood there and watched it spin around and around before my eyes for longer than I can actually remember. Eventually, I pulled myself away from it, vowing to save every credit I earned until I could afford one, and made my way to the reception desk.

“Good morning. Can I help you?” asked the synthetic female sitting at the desk.

I sized her up quickly. In general, she looked very authentic and I guessed that she must be a newer model. These more recent varieties are much more human in appearance and behavior than the older ones (such as my office assistant, Pam), which look a bit rubbery and are fairly easy to spot. Makes it a tad trickier to know what you’re dealing with at first encounter. Not that it mattered a whole helluvalot, except that small talk was wasted on an android.

“Morning. I’m here to see Mr. Haynesworth. The name is Daniel Helmqvist,” I replied as I leaned forward on the desk.

“Of course. One moment please,” she said and then typed something into her computer.

“Mr. Haynesworth said that he will be right down and that you can make yourself comfortable while you wait,” she announced after a few seconds’ delay.

I found a couch near the reception desk and took a seat. While I waited, my gaze kept drifting over to that midnight blue car glimmering in the sunlight. After about five minutes of waiting and daydreaming, I heard Elias Haynesworth call out my name as he approached.

Coming toward me was a man a shade over 180 cm tall and between 80 and 85 kg. He had no hair and his bald head reflected the morning light with a waxy brilliance. Haynesworth wore a dark navy suit with a silk waistcoat and an innocuous matching tie. The suit looked like it was handmade, or at the very least it had been professionally tailored to fit him perfectly.

I stood up and walked over to meet him.

“Nice place you have here,” I said after we shook hands.

“Thank you, Mr. Helmqvist. Business has been good to us lately,” he replied with that odd butler accent that I heard over the phone.

“Would you please follow me?” he tacked onto his greeting before I had a chance to say anything else.