“Chester is developing an app with a hidden feature that tricks people into linking the location tracking part of their phone to a central command center,” Quincy explained. “It seems harmless on the surface, but with information aboutwhere everybody is and what they might be doing, Chester, and Senator Salisbury by extension, will be able to control all sorts of aspects of people’s lives.”
Again, German shrugged. “So? All sorts of apps have backdoors these days. I’m surprised people dare to use their phones at all, to be honest.”
Doubt rushed in where confidence had been so certain in me up until that point.
“This technology could easily be used to manipulate the upcoming gubernatorial election,” I said.
“How would it do that?” German asked.
“Do you want me to record this conversation or write this down?” Schubert whispered by German’s side, holding up his cell phone.
“No, of course not,” German told him with a dismissive wave.
Schubert sagged and lowered his phone.
“Chester Monk has billions of dollars,” Quincy said, an eager light in his eyes. “We were once together, a long time ago, and back then, he told me all about his ambitions to make more money than God. We know that he’s contributing to Senator Salisbury’s campaign. Between you and me, I think he has the technology to hack into the voting system to change people’s votes. I also think there’s something in this app that Senator Salisbury is helping him to push that will enable even more election fraud. Plus, it seems almost definite that Salisbury is planning to hand Chester all sorts of government contracts once he’s in office.”
“That’s illegal,” Schubert said, eyes wide behind his glasses.
German glanced over his shoulder at him like he wondered why he’d hired the man.
He turned back to me and asked, “What do you want me to do about all this? It’s a story, yes, but also the kind of story that my paper would suppress before I so much as typed word one.”
“We don’t necessarily need you to break or print the story,” I said. “We just need you to use it as a threat to hang over my dad’s head.”
German scowled. “Why? Why would you do that to your own father?”
I stepped back and reached for Quincy’s hand.
“He doesn’t approve of my choice of omega,” I said, smiling down at Quincy and probably looking like a dope.
“Aaw,” Schubert said, tilting his head to one side with a dreamy smile.
German rolled his eyes, then stared right at me. “So let me get this straight. You want me to threaten to expose your dad’s shady dealings with a tech superstar so that he’ll let you take pinky here to the prom?”
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. I knew German was hungry for a good story, but I didn’t think he’d be this rude and dismissive.
“I want out from under his control,” I said. “I want to show him that I have the power to get away from him, even though he thinks he has the power to force me into whatever mold he wants me in.”
“You want to prove you’re a big boy by showing Daddy that you can play hardball?” German asked, arching one eyebrow.
Maybe he was right. Maybe this whole thing was silly and impossible after all.
“I’ll do it.”
I gaped at German. “Did you just say?—”
“I’ll do it,” he repeated with a shrug. “Salisbury is a schmuck. All politicians are crooked, but he’s as rotten as they come. To be honest, I don’t really care what you want to do with an omega your family definitely wouldn’t approve of—” he glanced Quincy up and down with a sneer, “—but I don’t mind the ideaof Senator Salisbury, and possibly Governor Salisbury, thinking I have the power to ruin him if he doesn’t dance to my tune.”
I blinked, a little disgusted by the implication behind what German was saying. Politics was a dirty world, but the media was just as nasty, when you got right down to it.
“Great,” I said. “So we’ll gather all our resources, and when Monk gives his keynote speech this afternoon, you can stand in the crowd and ask him a pointed question about all this.”
“Got it.” German nodded.
“And after the speech,” Quincy picked up where I’d left off, “we’ll confront him with our ultimatum and get his word that he’ll let Jack break away from him.”
“If that’s how you want to play it,” German said.
