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Nick was a confident person and prided himself in rarely being wrong. However this time he was wrong; very wrong.
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“In conclusion,” Nick was thankfully winding up his speech. “If we do not insist on a change of behaviour in every man, woman and child on this planet, we will soon not have the planet upon which to stand.” He backed away from the lectern, mopping his brow. The pen from the interactive white board clattered to the ground, rolling away from him. He chased it down to a few titters in the audience; evidently Dr. Charleston’s clumsiness was well-documented.
With the real doctor helping out through a well-placed webcam fed by Nick’s microphone and head set, he fielded questions for thirty minutes, scrutinizing everyone carefully.
As people left, Bert’s voice rang in his ear. “I don’t get it; the doc here recognized every single person there. Not a single unknown.”
“And I’m still alive,” whispered Nick as he gathered his laptop under his arm.
“Dr. Charleston, will you be joining us for lunch?” Nick looked up into the face of one of the German scientists. The rest of the room had emptied.
“Ah. Lunch,” responded Nick as if he had not thought of food. “You are?”
“Von Taube,” filled in the younger man. Nick noted that although shorter than he was, this man was fit and strong.
“Ah, yes, Von Taube.” Nick shifted his laptop bag from hand to hand as if he were thinking of something. “Lunch. You go ahead. Perhaps I’ll catch up with you there,” he said vaguely. He started to move away, but Van Taube grabbed his arm and Nick felt something pressing into his ribs.
“I told you not to come,” the German hissed at him.
“And you’re going to kill me now, after my speech?” Nick sensed the other man’s nervousness and wondered if he really had a gun.
“You’ll never give another speech again,” threatened the man.
“Before you kill me, tell me why. You owe me that much.” Nick put as much fear into his voice as possible. Idly he wondered if he could learn to sweat on command.
“You’ve always been a step ahead of me with your research. Just when I discovered the problems with the ice core samples in the Arctic, you publish your article about it. Then I’m about to break my news about the changing tree line, and presto, you are interviewed about it for Scientific American.”
“I cannot help I’m a better scholar than you are.” Nick could not believe he was being held by a jealous scientist. What happened to the Siloviki, the Russian mob, or just plain greed? He almost felt cheated.
“But you aren’t. You bumble around and stumble on these things. It’s not fair!”
Nick turned and gently removed the weapon from Van Taube’s shaking hands. It was a toy phaser made for Star Trek fans several years ago. Turning it over in his hand, he pointed it at the scientist, pushed the button and listened to the tinny noise. “A phaser? Really? This one must be broken since you’re still standing.” He checked the setting, changed it and tried again. “Better give this back to Scotty to fix.” Raising his eyebrows, he looked at the embarrassed man.
“I never meant to kill you, only scare you. I was hoping you wouldn’t show up, and I’d be asked to give this morning’s address in your place.” Thoroughly beaten, the scientist’s cheeks flamed beet red.
He was so pitiful, Nick almost felt sorry for the man, but then remembered the effort and time that had gone into this operation. Half a world away the real Charleston was fretting while Nick had to play scientist because of this man’s jealousy. Handing back the toy, he said, “Better hang onto this; you never know when the Klingons are going to attack.”
Reaching into his mouth, he removed the padding and flicked them into the garbage can. He stood tall and put on his most menacing air. “You fool. Your behavior is criminal, and you’ve wasted a lot of time and effort.” He towered over the man. “Now it’s time for you to make this all better, and then maybe, just maybe it won’t cost you and your university a whole shitload of money.”
Von Taube actually wrung his hands, frightened at the change in this man. He nodded rapidly. “Anything, anything at all. Just don’t send me to jail.”
Nick thought fast. “I can’t promise that, since that’ll be up to Charleston and his university. But this is how you can start to show how sorry you are. You are going to tell your colleagues the truth about what you did. Then you are going to facilitate the real Dr. Charleston’s participation in the rest of the conference. It’ll take some audio/visual stuff, which I’m sure the hotel can help you with.”
The red face turned pale. “No, no, I couldn’t.”
“Then I guess you’ll be paying for my security company’s involvement in this?” Von Taube turned even paler and finally swallowed hard and nodded in miserable agreement.
“Excellent.” Nick slapped the man on the back. “Did you hear that, Doctor?” he said into his microphone. “Now you’ll be able to participate and I can stop pretending to know as much as you do.” While Bert and Charleston congratulated him on the quick conclusion of the case, Nick took the unfortunate Von Taube by the elbow and marched him to the lunch room.
After a wonderful lunch, Nick excused himself. Since his room was still paid for that night, he decided to take a break and tour the rest of the facility.
An hour later, having changed into his own more comfortable clothes, Nick left the hotel walking quickly past the storage shed and into the woods beyond. Although he refused to carry a sword, he had made sure to keep himself fit and ready for a fight. He might not be comfortable with his new immortal status, but he also wasn’t suicidal. So far, his methods had worked and he could not imagine why they would not continue to do so.
It was odd to be so far north that there were no trees. From the speech he delivered that morning, he knew the tree line was actually moving north, with trees growing further north than in any time in recorded history. Before setting out, he looked at the piles of snow shoveled off the compound grounds. Several chalets, the warm hotel, garages and service sheds dotted the white landscape. His boots squeaked on the dry snow as more snow drifted down while he skirted the compound to disappear behind the piles of snow. If he attached himself to a tour, he’d be able to see most of the hotel made of snow and ice. Maybe he would see if he could get a room there for the night.
The sound of other boots crunching in the snow alerted him to approaching people. Squatting behind a small pile of snow, Nick observed a flurry of men who could only be security guards. As one himself, he recognized the drill; looking through bins and cans, searching outbuildings, looking for anything that could pose a threat to the person they were guarding. Nick wondered who that was.
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