Chapter 16

David Hagen had been a security guard at James Labs since the company had been formed from

the ashes of James Manufacturing and Holdings.

He had been a worker in the old plant and managed to keep a job even as the operation

became more complicated than anything that Ian James's forebearers could have imagined.

The new company was perhaps the foremost research and development laboratory in the country,

and was growing fast in spite of hard times.

There was an optimism within these walls that was shared by few outfits in the city,

and every worker knew that he was part of a business of tomorrow.

Hagen sat up straight in his chair as young Wentworth James approached, looking preoccupied as he often did. The younger Mr.

James did not stand on ceremony the way his father did. He did not imagine that every man who drew a

salary within his family's plant was some sort of indentured servant. Indeed, if Hagen had stood

up as James' father would have expected, it would have drawn an embarrassed jib from the younger man.

But like most who worked at James Labs, Hagen knew it was Wentworth James's genius that had saved

the company when so many others had been lost to difficult times.

However much his father might downplay Wentworth's contribution,

his son did not merely gather the deference that was due to the heir to the crown.

He was given the respect men feel for their true leader.

"'Evened, Mr. James,' Hagan said with a touch of his cap in spite of himself.

"'On the way to check the new power plant?' James looked up, surprised, as if he had just noticed Hagen sitting there at the security checkpoint.

"'Oh, excuse me,' the young man said, slapping his pockets as if searching for his security credentials.

"'It must have left the darn things up in my lab, he said, flustered.

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