Page 7 of Dark Sky

“Steve Price was a billionaire before he was thirty,” Allen said. “That was before he invented ConFab. Now he’s a multibillionaire—one of the wealthiest men in America. And it’s all happened really fast.”

“Okay,” Joe said. He couldn’t tell where the conversation was leading.

“My people have learned a little about Steve Price,” Allen said. “He’s absolutely brilliant, but he’s a nerd. He’s a unique talent and he’s very quirky, like a lot of those tech moguls. He eats weird, drives weird cars, has weird friends, and he believes in all kinds of new age voodoo crap. But one thing very interesting about Price is that he’s into self-improvement. He’s pledged to himself to try to learn everything he can about everything. He wants to be the wisest human being on earth, and he thinks he can get there by devoting himself to learning new things.

“Every year,” Allen continued, “Price focuses on something he knows absolutely nothing about and he tries to master it before he can move on. One year he spent learning Mandarin Chinese until he could speak it fluently. Another year he decided to seek out and eat every kind of pepper grown anywhere in the world. He doesn’t ever want to die, so he poured millions into research two years ago and learned everything there is to know about extending the aging process. He spent an entire year walking door-to-door in Iowa, talking to farmers so hecould get a better understanding of ‘how Middle Americans think,’ as he put it.

“Do you want to know what his newest thing is?” Allen asked.

He answered his own question before either Ewig or Joe could guess.

“Steve Price is spending the year producing all of his own food. He’s got his own garden, his own cows and goats, and even a brewery and distillery. When I say ‘producing,’ I mean he does everything himself. He dug up the dirt, planted seeds, watered and weeded, and harvested his own personal crop. When he wants protein, he kills one of his herd and butchers the meat himself. He’s vowed to consume nothing this year unless he produced it himself.”

“That’s kind of admirable,” Joe said.

“Crazy, is what it is,” Allen said. “But he’s a billionaire, so who can argue? Anyway, to complete his journey, he wants to hunt and kill a big-game animal with his own hands. He wants to process the meat and eat it. He wants to get his hands dirty and really understand the relationship between wild animals and human beings who kill and eat them. So when Price’s people reached out to us about setting up the perfect big-game hunting experience, I came up with a brilliant idea, if I do say so myself. And that, gentlemen, is where you come in.”

Governor Allen pointed directly at Joe. “More specifically, Pickett, that’s whereyoucome in.”

To which Joe responded, “Why me?”

Allen deflected Joe’s question with a wave of his hand and continued on.

“Aloft, Inc. is in the planning stages to build the largest server farm in North America. It’ll cover miles and miles of ground, and the whole thing will be powered by the biggest single renewable energy project—wind, solar, all that crap—in the world. It’s a multibillion-dollar venture.

“What Aloft and Price haven’t determined is where to locate this monstrosity,” Allen said. “Everyone assumes it’ll be Texas, Nevada, California, or Washington State, but the determination hasn’t been made.”

“You’re thinking it should be here,” Ewig said.

That’s what Joe had concluded as well.

“Damn right,” Allen said. “We’ve got the land, we’ve got cool temperatures to keep those servers running, we’ve got cheap labor with all our unemployed energy workers, and we’ve got...me! I’ll do just about anything to land that project, with or without our do-nothing Cowboy Congress.”

This would be his big win, Joe thought.This is what Allen thinks might propel him to reelection, despite his unpopularity.

“We need to get this state on Steve Price’s radar,” Allen said. “We need him to love us. Most of all, we need a commitment to get those construction dollars and new jobs before the peasants decide to revolt or the legislature shows me the door.”

Allen said to Joe, “I asked Rick for a recommendation on who should take Price elk hunting. I said I needed someone rock-solid. Despite my well-known feelings about you, he saidyour name. I know you have a ton of elk in those mountains of yours.”

Joe said, “There are plenty of actual hunting guides I could recommend. Good ones.”

“I thought about that,” Allen said. “Then I dismissed it. I don’t like the idea of some local rube taking him hunting. What if the local says he doesn’t like the Internet? Or what if he says this server project is ridiculous? That could screw up our chances. No, I need someone who works directly for me. Someone who’ll say nice things about me and the state and be totally accommodating.”

“Someone you can fire if it doesn’t work out,” Joe said.

“Exactly. And not only fire, but defund his entire state agency in these dire days of budget cuts.”

Joe glared at Allen.

“Could you live with the knowledge that your actions resulted in the unemployment of hundreds of colleagues?” Allen asked.

Joe felt his face burn.

“There are plenty of yahoos in the legislature who would support cutting entire state agencies,” Allen said. “Especially ones that some people feel have gotten too big for their britches.”

Joe closed his eyes and reopened them. He had a real urge to throw himself across the desk and throttle Colter Allen. Unfortunately, what the governor had said about some lawmakers wanting to defund state government had more than a grain of truth.

“We don’t really have a choice here, Joe,” Ewig said softly. Now Joe knew why the director hadn’t clued him in beforehand.

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