Martian Leather

It was a bright and sunny afternoon on Mars above Paradigm Incorporated. It was entering into the late afternoon and Ezekiel Cross had one final tour to take care of before he could call it a day. He took a breath and downed the last of the water bottle he'd been favoring for the past hour, tossing it into the nearby recycling port in the wall. He straightened, adjusting his cufflinks, and walked out to the main lobby.

The initial hologram introduction program was finishing up as he strode up behind it. It stood about fifteen feet tall, the size of a small billboard, and automatically played on loop in the lobby's vast, open space. However, it was keyed to recognize the resonance key emanated by guest security clearance badges, which triggered it to start over from the beginning whenever a new one came in range of the sensor, unless a group of five or more were already gathered. There were currently six people passively watching, or just listening, to the introduction rolling over the screen now, presented by his father's upper torso and soft, firm voice.

In many company lobbies, the introduction and guide holograms had replaced personal tour guides like himself, and indeed most guests in the Paradigm headquarters lobby did end up fending for themselves with the help of a map superimposed on their ExtraLens and an incredibly polite humanoid program.

However, the six people in their lobby at this time had a net worth of over 2.2 trillion dollars. Ergo, Ezekiel was going to be giving them the grand tour, the sales pitch, and, ultimately, sucking whoever's dick he had to in order to secure their investments.

Normally he was averse to being overdramatic, but it had been a long day and Ezekiel was tired.

"...the wealth of opportunities here at Paradigm, as presented by our very own Ezekiel Cross."

Ezekiel stepped through the far side of the hologram, to the left of the scaled-up torso of his father, who held a miniature of the completely terraformed Mars in his hands. The hologram shivered and rippled as his passage disturbed it. It settled behind him, the images re-forming into a new backdrop when they detected his ID badge. The hologram now showed space, specifically, their little corner of it. The Sol Major solar system turned gently in the vacuum of stars over Ezekiel's shoulders as he straightened his shoulders and took a breath.

"Welcome, ladies, gentlemen, and otherwise. It is an honor and a privilege to stand before you all on behalf of my father. The things he has accomplished here on Mars has established for our family a legacy of enormous opportunity and responsibility in the scientific frontiers. And today, it is my duty to share these opportunities with you all. Please, regard our tiny Mars..."

Ezekiel reached out to the small holographic solar system and pinched his thumb and forefinger against the floating screen, spreading them out to zoom in on the small red planet, the one that they, in Paradigm's headquarters, now stood in. Beneath his deft movements, the rest of the solar system faded into the background, while Mars became the size of a golfball. With a flourish, Ezekiel pushed his black-gloved fingers a little ways into the floating, immaterial screen of light, captured the little red sphere, and then - pulled it free of the hologram.

There was a ripple as his small, but extraordinarily valuable audience expressed their surprise and delight. Hologram sciences had only succeeded in generating holos that could free themselves from their light pedestals recently, in select few circumstances, and it often still required a light pedestal source of some kind. The main holo's light pedestal was embedded in the floor, between the cracks of strategically placed tiles, but the small red Mars replica Ezekiel now held in his fingertips hovered there with no apparent assistance. He turned, placing his body between it and the rest of the hologram, confirming the small, glowing red ball of light was indeed independent.

Ezekiel walked towards his audience with confident, sweeping strides, smiling his single-dimple grin, his groomed blonde hair tousled in the precise way that showed he, too, enjoyed a good time, but was still in control of every aspect of his appearance. He held the Mars out before him for his guests to behold, then, stopping a few feet in front of them, left it hanging in the air before them.

This was always a little bit of risk. The feat was impressive, enough that it could distract his investors from his pitch. But Ezekiel knew what he was doing.

"Amazing, isn't it?" he asked, not really asking, as his audience beheld the little red globe. "Look at it there. All by itself." Ezekiel snapped his fingers, and the Mars scaled up by ten, now big enough to show places of greenery on its surface. Ezekiel swirled his finger upright in the air and the mini-Mars began to turn, slowly, showing itself off. "Remarkable. Fifty years ago, our ancestors set out, not with an ambition, but a declaration - we would make Mars habitable. And now, here we are - " Ezekiel stepped away from the globe, turning, arms spread, gesturing to not only the lobby, but in a grander sense, the whole of Mars. "Isn't it something? Our ancestors took a barren, miserable, desert rock, and raised cities on it. Plowed fields. Filled rivers, and scaled mountains." He turned back to face them again, and snapped his fingers. The sphere of Mars unraveled into a series of scenes, showing happy human Martian citizens, playing on beaches, plucking perfect, vivid vegetables from rich, loamy garden soil. One scene even showed people skiing.

Ezekiel smirked. Their attention was back on him again, as they sensed he was winding up.

"Overall, Mars has not even realized its full potential yet, but it can not be denied that we can only go up from here. My friends, Mars has reached what we professional terraformers like to call the Golden Hour. It has reached the point where its minimum necessities are being met and exceeded. So much so, in fact, that at this time next year, our appraisers expect to be seeing no less than tripling profits in agriculture, mineral extraction, and, of course, real estate development."

There was a murmur, a good murmur. That was the murmur of people who were thinking, ah, that's it, here comes the interesting stuff.

Ezekiel snapped his fingers again, and the playing images disappeared. He waved a hand, and the solar system behind him whirled, resetting to its original position. He walked back over to it and reached out again, zoomed in again, this time on another planet altogether. Saturn grew to five times the size of his head, its rings a dazzling array of icey splendor, its skies dotted with the faces of its moons.

The young man reached out again, repeating the same maneuver he'd used on Mars. This time, his selection was Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and held it up for them to see. Again, he expanded the size of it, but this time, with a tap of his finger, Ezekiel sent the moon floating through the air towards the crowd while remaining where he stood.

"Paradigm has not been idle, during the past twenty or so years of prosperous growth. As the pioneers who lead the way in biodome technology during the founding years of Mars's first colonies, we have been preparing our next step out into the stars just as we have prepared Mars to spread its wings and declare self-sufficiency. And as of today, I am proud to announce the first colony of Titan landed on Titan Pearl 1, the first biodome on Titan, at oh-six-hundred hours this morning." Ezekiel waved a hand and Titan spun, its clouds parting to reveal a small gleaming dot on its surface. With a gesture Ezekiel summoned a small video clip that rose out towards the audience from the gleaming dot, a recording of the colony crew all standing inside the windows of Pearl 1 on one of her top decks, waving at the drone hovering outside as it had taken the video.

Ezekiel waved his hand a third time. The video clip disappeared, Titan lowered itself closer to the floor, and from it a series of low-poly rendered animations sprang up, depicting various stages of growth. Above these, a graph appeared, with an optimistic arrow declaring an uninterrupted rise towards success.

"Our experiences during development on Mars were, each and every one of them, invaluable lessons," Ezekiel declared, "successes and mistakes alike. We have, here at Paradigm, tirelessly refined and streamlined our biodome program in the years since the Mars project achieved open-air, to the point that our predicted timeline for open-air inhabitation on Titan is no more than..." Ezekiel paused, letting the animations and graph fade out of the air. Only when he knew for a fact that his audience was holding their breath did he finish: "...ten years."

There were cries of astonishment and some were of outright disbelief, of course, but Ezekiel was rolling now, he was tired, and he wanted this over and done with.

"In another five years, it'll be ready for people, buildings, a whole new colony. Ladies and gentleman, Titan promises to be such a success, that not only are we offering you the chance to purchase real estate on the planets surface starting immediately after this demonstration, but we are offering you the opportunity to invest in any of our current and upcoming projects..." Ezekiel waved his hand. Titan disappeared, then reappeared on the screen behind him, along with a collection of five other moons and planets. The young man smiled, leaning forward on his toes, and spreading his arms in a welcoming gesture.

"...for only two per cent down."

Ezekiel collapsed in his chair, yanked open his desk drawer, and reached for the bottle of gin with full intent. However, his fingers stopped short of the bottle by a few inches as his jaw clenched. His face expressed an inner turmoil of some kind. Finally he growled, and slammed the drawer shut, leaning forward over his desk and cradling his head in his hands.

Almost there. He was almost there. Another hour, a few reports to sign off on...he could do this. Ezekiel took a slow breath in through the nose, and then let it slip out through his lips. He ran his fingers through his hair, tousling it just a bit out of control and leaning back in his chair. It felt nice, sometimes, to let his hair sit out of place. His rich blue eyes slid closed, and Ezekiel enjoyed a moment's respite.

A sharp rap on the door had him upright in a second, fingers expertly twitching his hair back into place.

"Yes?" he answered, trying not to let his irritation show through. The door opened, and the PA his mother had hired him slipped into his office.

"Mr. Cross," she said, "I'm sorry to disturb you-"

"More signatures?" he asked, his head throbbing in protest.

"Yes. One of the investors changed his mind, last minute. ...I'm sorry, sir."

Ezekiel regarded the young woman, probably more harshly than he needed to, trying to decide if she really was sorry. She was pretty, with modest, wavy brown hair tied back in a ponytail. Letting it loose would probably give her some allure, but from the way she avoided making eye contact, he doubted that was something she wanted. Her makeup was scant, just some mild foundation, a hint of mascara. She had the kind of face that didn't really need much.

The young woman walked toward him hesitantly, the files in her arms, and laid them on his desk. She didn't go out of her way to spill her tits over the mahogany, which was a blessing. The last thing Ezekiel was in the mood for was pretending to tastefully admire boobs.

"This is fucking great," Ezekiel growled, aloud, without realizing the profanity had made it out with the other words. He glanced up and caught her flushed face as she stepped backwards, looking at him anxiously.

"Is there...anything I can do to help, Mr. Cross?" she asked, shyly tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

Ezekiel looked up at her, thinking about all the things that could help him right now. There were precious few. His investor could help by not backing out of the contract at the literal last second with some bullshit excuse about his fortune teller's tarot cards. His father could help by not being a monumental shitbag who would undoubtedly lose his absolute mind when one of his underlings reported to him that his imperfect son had, yet again, failed to ensnare all the investors. It didn't matter that it was only one investor who'd backed out. It wasn't all of them. Oh, and his mother could help by not being a suffocating control freak who seemed more concerned with the genetic husbandry of her own offspring than actually interacting with them as if they were people with thoughts and feelings.

"No, thank you," he finally said. "Do you have anything else for me?"

He expected it to be a "no, sir" and be the end of it. That was all he could handle right now. But no, of course not.

"Actually, um..."

He'd already been sifting through the paperwork he needed to sign to annul the portion of the agreements that the investor had already agreed to before he'd retconned his money over some stupid superstition like a stupid, superstitious...asshole.

Ezekiel sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He was tired, he was running out of insults in the freedom of his own mind, and now his PA wanted something.

"Yes?" Ezekiel asked, struggling to conceal his tiredness.

"Well, I...I noticed the other day... " the PA gestured to the stack of books on the end of his desk. "You...enjoy Pride and Prejudice?"

"Oh," Ezekiel said, surprised. His mother had put that there, for some reason. It irritated him, but he'd learned a long time ago that he didn't have any spaces anywhere wholly under his control. So he'd left it, and forgot about it. "I'm...it's not-"

"It's okay," she said, lacing her fingers together and blushing. "People make fun of me, too, for liking them. The books."

Ezekiel stared blankly at her, chewing the words in his tired mind. She started to get nervous as she waited for his answer. Ezekiel finally gave up and shrugged.

"I...I don't think you should care what other people think," he said lamely. "There's...I mean, books are great." This was going terribly. He needed to get her out of here. Ezekiel glanced at the book that was prolonging his suffering, and an idea struck him. He got up, reaching across his desk, plucked the book from the edge of it, and hurried around the other side, holding the book out to the PA. "Here," he said, "you can have it."

"What? Oh, no, I-" she stepped back, waving her hands before her, but Ezekiel persisted. It was moving her towards the door, which was what he wanted.

"Please. Really. I insist. I - I don't have time to really read anymore, so you should have it." Take the book and go. Please.

"Oh - well, I'm sorry you don't have time to read -" she was opening her hands to accept the book.

"Yeah, it's awful. One of these days, though, you know-" Ezekiel shoved it into her hands, by which point he'd back her up to the door, which slid open when he gestured at the sensor. "Anyways, thank you, so much, I appreciate it. Have a good weekend."

"Thank you!" Blushing, the PA ducked out.

Ezekiel collapsed back in his desk chair, his head throbbing harder.

He pulled the stack of documents in front of him, summoned his laser pen with a half-hearted flourish, and began to initial and sign.

"Get those results on my desk by Monday morning, Beckert," Ezekiel instructed one of his managers as he adjusted his grip on his suitcase while waiting for the elevator. "I need those numbers ready to show our shareholders on Wednesday." The man shot him a barely concealed dirty look. Beckert was a prick, and everyone knew it. He was one of the oldest second in commands at the company, and he'd flaunted it ever since Ezekiel had been visiting his father at work as a kid. He was a good target for Ezekiel to take out his frustrations on when he was in a bad mood.

"I'll have to come in on the weekend for that, sir."

"Very proactive of you, Beckert. Check with security at the front desk on your way out to make sure they grant you permissions to come in tomorrow and Sunday. Wouldn't want you to set off the alarms. Again."

So help me if you do, Ezekiel mentally threatened the man, not bothering to wish him a good weekend as he stepped through the opened elevator doors. The man would just hate him more for it anyway.

Leaving at the end of the work day was never so simple for Ezekiel as simply packing up his suitcase, getting on the elevator, and walking out through the groundfloor lobby. His father had entrusted the entire headquarters in his hands during the man's two-year hiatus, and despite the occasional mistake here and there - like a single potential investor backing out at the last minute - Ezekiel was getting the growing awareness that his father's hiatus may be less of a personal research trip to Titan, and more of a test run to see how Ezekiel could handle things. His father would die hunched over a microscope before he ever retired, but he did have a tendency to get bored with his projects(and children) once he felt he'd perfected them. Paradigm was practically its own animal now. Daniel Cross's two year hiatus, relatively uneventful, had proved that. Whatever the man had his sights set on next, he'd be ready to move on past Paradigm soon, and when that happened Ezekiel had no doubt that the entire company would come to rest squarely on his shoulders.

Where it would sit for the rest of his life.

Ezekiel swallowed hard and stepped off the elevator onto floor 29, where he did a brisk walk-through of the IT department to check in with the department head, who had recently joined the team after Ezekiel had had to fire the last one of five years a week or so ago. The man had been discovered to be using the company's premium internet connection to torrent porn. Disgraceful.

Satisfied the new department head was settling in well, Ezekiel next stopped on floor 21, to do a round in the microscience lab where they tested miniature ecosystems for terraforming projects. This was mostly just habit as he'd done it with his father growing up. His father always had something to say or an observation to make about the activity visible in the small, steamed-up glass globes of varying sizes and a-bustle with various simple life forms. Ezekiel wasn't much in the way of a scientist, but there was a small bit of peace he found in watching tiny organisms squirm in the dirt of their wholly encased homes, reliant on nothing, safe from everything.

Finally he stepped off on floor 7 to check in with security. For his own peace of mind, Ezekiel liked to be assured, personally, that all was well before he left. Especially if that idiot Beckert was going to do something stupid over the weekend, which Ezekiel had a feeling he might.

At last, Ezekiel made it to the lobby and stepped out into the cool, fresh air of the Martian night. Stars twinkled in the blue-black velvet overhead, and at this time of year Earth was a vividly shining star in the red planet's sky. The view from his penthouse would be beautiful tonight. Ezekiel couldn't wait to get home, kick back, and -

"Ezekiel! Hey, Cross!"

He hesitated, wondering if he should just summon his car, keep walking, and pretend he hadn't heard. But it was too late - the footsteps closed in behind him and a hand clapped him on the shoulder. Ezekiel resisted the urge to flinch away, though he went rigid as he anticipated how this was about to change the course of his evening.

"Hey, Allens," he said, twisting to nod at one of his employees over his shoulder. Though he was technically the man's boss, Ezekiel had only just been promoted by his father a few months ago, and Daniel Cross had always encouraged his employees to treat his son as an equal when he had, in fact, been an equal. Now, the familiarity was beginning to rankle as Ezekiel tried more and more to shift out of the after-work frat party lifestyle, but Allens was older than him and carried a natural sort of confident authority, and Ezekiel wasn't really sure what to do about it.