As they were finalizing the major points, Ami paused. “There is one more thing. Alistair Finch.” Richard’s expression hardened. “Consider him handled. The Sterling-Whitmore legal team will be reviewing his consultancy contract, and our contacts at the Metropolitan Museum will be receiving a full report of his academic and professional misconduct. His time as a giant is over.” Justice, it turned out, could be as swift and decisive as a corporate memo. The meeting concluded not with a formal signing, but with another handshake. This time it was a handshake between three partners, three architects of a new, more thoughtful kind of empire.
As they rode the elevator down, Clara felt a sense of dizzying unreality. “Did that just happen?” she murmured, looking at her reflection in the polished steel. Ami smiled. “It did. Welcome to the team, Dr. Doors.” “I think,” Clara said, a slow smile spreading across her face, “that I prefer Clara.” When they stepped out into the bright afternoon sun of the lobby, Clara felt the warmth on her face as if for the first time in years. She was no longer invisible. She was no longer a ghost. She had a voice, a purpose, and a future she had thought was lost to her forever. She had walked into a restaurant the night before as a waitress, expecting nothing more than sore feet and a few tips. She was walking out as the director of an international cultural foundation, a key player in a global partnership, and the friend of an heiress who had seen her worth when no one else did. It was, she thought, a turn of events more dramatic and unbelievable than any text she had ever studied.
Six months later, the setting was another exclusive restaurant, this one in Tokyo, overlooking the Imperial Palace gardens from the forty-fifth floor of a glittering skyscraper. The table was large, round, and set for a celebratory dinner. The atmosphere, however, was the polar opposite of that night at Ethelgarde. It was warm, vibrant, and filled with respectful conversation. Ami Tanaka-Hayes sat at the head of the table. She looked different. The guarded, fragile poise had been replaced by a relaxed, confident aura. She laughed easily, engaging with the board members from both Tanaka Corp and Sterling-Whitmore who flanked her. Across from her sat Richard Sterling. He too seemed changed. The cynical armor was still there, but it was less pronounced. He listened more than he spoke, and when he did speak, it was with a newfound consideration. He had even, to the astonishment of his own team, begun taking Japanese lessons.
But the most remarkable transformation was in Clara Doors. She sat to Ami’s right, an honored guest and an essential partner. She was in the midst of a spirited debate with Tanaka Corp’s lead engineer about how the principles of fourteenth-century ink-wash painting could be applied to virtual-reality interfaces. She was animated, brilliant, and completely in her element. Her exhibition, The Soul of the Machine: Kaito Tanaka and the Art of Modernity, was set to open in New York in two months, and it was already being hailed by critics as a landmark event. Alistair Finch had quietly retired, his reputation in tatters.