“Sorry we took so long, James,” Chairman Vine said, his voice wavering. Hardwick had no idea how old he was, but he thought there was little chance the Chairman was under eighty-five.

“No problem, Mr. Chairman. It’s always better to take as much time as needed in matters like this.”

The Chairman looked like he was about to say something, then stopped himself for a moment before speaking again. “He said to give him a few minutes.”

The him the Chairman was referring to would be Hardwick’s boss, Mr. Kidd. He was the only council member who had yet to leave the conference room. “Thank you, sir.”

The Chairman smiled, then turned and followed the others down the hall. His footsteps echoed in the marble hallway, growing fainter and fainter until the corridor fell silent again.

It was a full five minutes before Mr. Kidd called for James to come into the conference room. Without being asked, Hardwick closed the door behind him after he entered.

His boss was sitting in a chair near the end of the large oval table that dominated the room. It was made of mahogany and stained to a dark reddish-brown. Inset into the top of the table in front of each of the fifteen chairs was a computer screen. Only the one in front of Mr. Kidd was on, but Hardwick couldn’t see what was on the screen.

The room had no pictures on the walls, no windows. Here was a place where distraction was not tolerated. Where focus on the issues at hand was all that mattered. The business of the council had been conducted that way for decades. In fact, it was in this very room where the master directive was fleshed out more than fifty years before, the plan members of the LP had been working on since that day. All the original members were dead now, but their vision remained. And it was for the fulfillment of this vision that Hardwick had developed his proposal.