Ash Ketchum: Rise of Galactic

Ch. 21 The Board's Decision

"I hate boats," Cyrus said, wiping his forehead with a gold-monogrammed handkerchief. The boat he said was hating was a superyacht with all the luxuries befitting a $450 million vessel: a helipad, two current-jetted swimming pools, and an art gallery that included two van Goghs, three Escher lithographs, and a Rembrandt (the chairman had a penchant for Dutch artists). There were luxury suites for eighteen and an exclusive dining room with crystal chandeliers and scarlet wool carpet interwoven with twenty-four-karat thread. The yacht also featured some less luxuriant but interesting add-ons, including radar, sonar, and surface-to-air missiles.

   Cyrus was prone to seasickness, and although he understood the necessity of moving the Galactic corporate headquarters to international waters, he would have preferred the ship to remain docked in some obscure bay off the coast of Africa or the Philippines. The two electric teens seated next to him in the waiting room looked at him sympathetically.

  "Would you like me to help?" Selene said, tapping her temple. "I could make you feel better."

   Cyrus shook his head. "No. I've got to keep my wits about me. I'm sensing trouble."

   Selene had traveled with Cyrus and the rest of the kids from Pasadena to Rome, where they left the others behind, helicoptering to the Galactic's yacht a hundred miles north of Sicily—in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The other teen, Alain, had joined them in Rome. Alain had spent the last nineteen months on assignment in Peru and, at Cyrus's command, had flown directly to Italy.

   Selene knew Alain—all the Galactic teens were familiar with one another—but she hadn't seen him in a long time and he had changed. His skin was darker from the South American sun, and his hair was cut much shorter from what she last saw him, with it reaching his shoulders. His personality had changed as well. Something about him frightened her.

"How long will we be here?" Alain asked, his hand extended toward the hundred-gallon saltwater aquarium built into the wall in front of them.

"Only as long as we need to," Cyrus said.

"Stop it!" Selene said.

"Stop what?" Alain asked, grinning.

"You know what. You killed the fish."

Alain had boiled the water in the aquarium from fifteen feet away. Two exotic angelfish were now floating on top of the water.

  "They're just fish," Alain said. "Same thing you ate last night."

  "Actually," Cyrus said. "They were rare peppermint angelfish, found only in the waters of Rarotonga, in the South Pacific. I gave them to the chairman as a gift last year. They run about twenty-fife thousand dollars apiece."

   Alain frowned. "Sorry, sir."

  "Ask next time."

  "Yes, sir."

   Cyrus looked at him coolly, then asked, "How long did it take you?"

  "About forty seconds."

  "Good. I want you to get it down to twenty."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Then ten."

  "Yes, sir."

   Cyrus nodded. "At ten you'll be unstoppable."

  "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

   Cyrus went back to his e-reader. He'd been reading a book on mind control written in the late fifties by William Sargant, a British psychologist. He had already read the book several times. He was fascinated with the subject and had studied all aspects of mind control from hypnosis to suicide cults.