Page 13 of Tooth and Nail

That time Eoghan laughed. “Anyway, he left the colony in 1973.”

“Please back up a second. What is this trypho…whatever?” Ari asked.

“Tryphophobia,” Eoghan replied. “It’s basically the fear of small holes. Think…seeded fruit like pomegranates,sunflowers, even an English muffin once it’s separated…you get the idea.”

“Oh…the honeycomb,” Ari said. “Well, shit.”

Eoghan nodded. “Now you’re getting it. Anyway, Derwin, it seems, was a bona fide genius in the brand new and emerging tech field. He started off working at IBM after leaving his colony in the early 70s and eventually met Steve Wozniak at some corporate event.”

“Wait…the founder of Apple?”

“He was one of them…along with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne,” Eoghan said. “Anyway, to hear Derwin tell it, he went to work for Apple where he invented the personal computer and presented the idea to his boss.”

“This Derwin honeybee shifter invented the personal computer?” Ari asked, sounding amazed.

“That’s the story. Anyway, Steve Jobs promptly stole Derwin’s idea and took credit for it. Then to discredit Derwin, Jobs claimed the honeybee was some sort of corporate spy after creating false evidence to prove it to his partners. He gave Derwin the option to go away quietly and shut his mouth with a bunch of Apple stock as a payoff or having Jobs report him to the FBI where he’d be charged with corporate espionage. Either way, he was going to be fired. He could go quietly or make a stink about it. Derwin was afraid that FBI or police involvement would get back to his queen who’d send someone to end him for the sin of drawing attention to himself, so he took the stock and ran.”

“If true, that totally sucks,” Ari said.

Eoghan shrugged. “Maybe. He lost a career at Apple, the recognition of inventing the personal computer, but he avoided the publicity of doing that and became a multimillionaire off the Apple stock to boot. He later learned that Jobs quietly blackballed his name with other techcompanies after he left, starting a smear campaign. As it turned out, Jobs was afraid he’d go to another tech firm, come up with a better idea, and Apple would lose its competitive edge.”

“Jobs was playing dirty,” Ari said.

“Yes. Poor Derwin couldn’t understand why he kept getting turned away from other tech companies until he learned that Jobs was talking behind his back. Once he realized he wasn’t going to win, he finally gave up working in the industry and got his teaching credentials. He worked as a computer teacher at high schools for decades.”

“It doesn’t sound like an idyllic life. Although he was rich, probably didn’t have to work at all. How’d he end up in WITSEC?”

“To hear Derwin tell it, for fifty years Silicon Valley called to him. Watching tech companies grow the industry he loved and had been a pioneer in, just about killed him…worse than if he’d just let the queen send out assassins to end him. About ten years ago, when working remotely was just getting started, he finally went back to tech. Jobs was dead, and Derwin figured going back to Silicon Valley was safe.”

“You’re still not telling me why he was put into WITSEC. What happened?”

“About four years ago, the company he was working for decided to eliminate remote work and came up with a new solution to write off some insane profits. They compelled their remote work employees to live in corporate housing, paid for by the company. The communal living would have shops, restaurants, and fitness centers the company would maintain. They said communal living would make their employees happier and more productive. Although how that would work for a bunch of introverted IT people, I don’t know. But I thinkthe tax break was the main reason. They said they were taking care of their employees’ health and well-being.”

“So, what was the problem?”

“The corporate housing was designed to be individual pods,” Eoghan said.

“Pods…are we talkingpeashere?” Ari asked.

Eoghan laughed. “It was stacked housing…basically several floors of twelve-by-twelve-foot pods with nine pods per apartment…all stacked on top of one another. Picture it from an overhead satellite view. If the building lay on its side and we could look down at it from a bird’s eye point of view, you’d see a geometric configuration of square pods large enough to have twelve hundred and ninety-six square feet per pod. For someone like Derwin—a guy with tryphophobia—the very idea of living in what amounted to a pod city, regardless of the size of his own living quarters was hell.”

“And it really wouldn’t matter how big the pods were if you’re a guy with tryphophobia,” Ari said. “I get it. It felt like a honeycomb to him. So, what happened?”

“He lost it when he saw the pod he was supposed to live in and stung three employees before we got involved, snatching him when his queen turned to us for help. When we learned his whole story, we put him into witness protection.”

“His queen? Jesus.” Ari rubbed a big hand over his face. “Okay, so why didsheturn to us? Did she want our help to capture him? Was she calling Derwin a fugitive from honeybee justice?” He snorted a laugh. “I can’t believe I just asked that.”

Eoghan chuckled. “In short, the answer is no, she didn’t want him captured and returned to the colony. She tried to tell us he was a psychopath and that he’d hurt or kill more humans if we let him live. She warned us to put him down using lethal force. That’s why Wordy has the bangsticks. The queen’speople gave them to us to deal with Derwin once we caught up to him.”

“But the I.S.R. didn’t want to do that,” Ari surmised.

“That’s right. It’s not our job to kill rogue shifters or vamps or for that matter, aliens, when they stray. In Derwin’s case, a sympathetic worker bee contacted us and told us where he was hiding out. She knew someone who worked for us, and that we didn’t go around randomly killing shifters. We have a good reputation among different clans. She told us his whole story, explaining that Derwin was a good drone, all about his condition, and how he’d left his colony behind and ended up living with humans to begin with.”

“Lemme guess. His colony is a hive?” Ari asked.

Eoghan frowned. “Really?”

“Sorry…go on with your story, partner. It’s just…fucking funny. Sorry. Go on.”

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