Chapter 6: Gilded Cage

The words to the ribs. "Who are you?" It was the question he'd been asking himself, voiced by the person whose thought had ever mattered most. The stunning, intimidating cityscape through the jet window appeared to mock him, every shining skyscraper a reminder of a choice already taken away from him.

The aircraft came down softly at Teterboro, a private airfield well away from the commercial chaos of LaGuardia or JFK. The engines roared down. The door hissed open. Alan Price waited, as always, a reassuringly familiar, impeccably dressed presence.

Welcome to New York, Mr. Ekon. The car awaits you. Price's look was detached, running over Davidson's duffel bag and the threadbare stuffed bunny still clutched in his fist. He said nothing. "Mr. Brian is expecting you at the office by ten. Leave your belongings at the house."

The unwelcome home. Not 'your apartment'. The language was deliberate, reminding him of his transient, owned status.

The journey into Manhattan was a sensory assault. The simple height of it, the pressure of bodies, the constant energy—it was the very reverse of the Texas plains. Davidson felt insignificant, anonymous, and utterly exposed. He stared at his phone, at Melissa's message, but had no response to send her. Any response would be a lie.

The car drove under a trendy awning on a lined street in the West Village. The building was ancient but immaculately maintained, the brick surface whispering of old money and quiet discretion. A donator in a starched uniform saluted Price and pushed open the heavy door.

The apartment was on the top floor. Price unlocked the door with a keycard, and the room gave life to Davidson's lungs. It was a spacious, ascetic, light-filled room that took up the room with floor-to-ceiling windows and a postcard-pretty view of the Hudson River. Furniture was sparse—a charcoal-colored sofa that clung to the floor, a solitary abstract painting on the wall, a kitchen that seemed not to have been used with appliances still unblemished. It was not a house, but an installation in a museum titled "A Place to Live." On a spotless concrete table near the entrance stood a brand-new computer, a set of keys, and a black credit card with his name on it.

Your company property," Price said. "The Wi-Fi password and security keys are in the welcome package on the laptop. Mr. Brian does not like to be late. I would suggest changing and being downstairs within fifteen minutes.".

Price left, closing the door with a soft thud. The cold, suffocating stillness in the room was oppressive. Davidson's duffel bag looked like a dirty smudge on the spotless hardwood floor. He set Mr. Hoppington on the sterile kitchen counter, the toy's beady little eyes seeming to scold.

He got dressed in his wedding outfit in the master bathroom, larger than his first apartment. His reflection in the endless mirror was that of a stranger—a man all dressed up in clothes that didn't suit his nature.

Fifteen minutes had gone by, and he returned downstairs. The town car cut through the crowded streets with reckless accuracy, depositing him at the foot of the black glass skyscraper. The lobby was as daunting as before, but this time, he was familiar to the guards. Security nodded him through to the private elevator. His palm was scanned. The trip up was just as stomach-dropping.

The windows opened onto Joe Brian's office directly. The man himself was not at the window. He was standing over a large table, studying a high-definition topographic map of an ocean bottom.

He raised his eyes as Davidson came in. His sharp eyes took in the suit, the tense slope of Davidson's shoulders, the absence of any Texas dust. He nodded curtly, approvingly.

“Ekon. Good. You’ve seen the Gulf data.” It wasn’t a question.

“Some of it, sir. On the flight.”

“The primary geological survey is flawed,” Brian stated, tapping a spot on the map. “Their core samples are too shallow. They’re missing a significant sediment layer that could contain unstable methane hydrates. Drilling there, as planned, would be like building on quicksand.”

Davidson took over, his engineer's mind instantly kicking in, setting aside his personal frustration. He ran a sweep with the map, the target drill sites. "The pressure readings in the general area support that," he marked, following a line of points. "There's a small but consistent anomaly. Everyone's been putting it down as equipment failure."

Brian's blue eyes twinkled. "Everyone sees. Few look. I have a video conference with the project managers in Houston in ten minutes. You will inform them their schedule is dumped. You will tell them why."

Davidson turned cold-blooded. "Me, sir? They're senior VPs. They've been working on this project for a year.".

"And they forgot the one flaw that is most critical," Brian said bluntly. "Experience can be a liability if it makes them see only what they already know. You have new eyes. Now, see. This is not a debate. It is your first mission."

Nine minutes and the boss's chair was his, the conference table shining like a backdrop for him now, a massive screen wall coming to life. A dozen or so faces appeared on the screen, men and women in Houston executive suites, their faces impatient and curious. They knew him, a new, unfamiliar face in the boss's chair.

Alan Price stood in the corner, a quiet observer.

Joe Brian leaned back against the window sill, arms crossed, looking at Davidson. Not the screen. Him.

The gray-haired head of the Gulf project, Daniels, cut into the silence. "Davidson? We weren't told you'd be chairing this call. Is Joe there?"

Davidson's dry mouth. He felt the burden of their collective skepticism. He recalled Melissa's text. Who are you?

He cleared his throat. “Mr. Brian is here. But I’m running this meeting.” The words came out stronger than he felt. “We have a critical issue with the primary geological survey for the Gamma site.”

Daniels’s face tightened. “What issue? We’ve vetted those reports a dozen times.”

“The core samples are insufficient,” Davidson said, his voice gaining confidence as he fell into the language of engineering. “You’re drilling based on data that stops at 1,500 meters. The pressure anomalies at the periphery suggest a large, unstable sediment layer of methane hydrate between 1,500 and 1,800 meters. Your current drill plan will puncture it.”

A wave of deprecating grumbles rolled off the screen. "Those irregularities are statistically insignificant," a woman snapped. "We discounted them as sensor drift. The projected yield of that structure is too valuable to waste time over a ghost reading."

Davidson felt a flash of anger, the same one he got when a roughneck flouted a safety protocol. "A 'ghost reading' is not going to give you a repeatable 0.3% pressure differential across twelve individual sensors," he shot back, leaning forward. "It is not a ghost. It is a bomb. And if you do cause it to explode, you won't be witnessing a delay. You'll be witnessing a catastrophic rupture that will be on the front page of all the wrong papers and will send a five-billion-dollar platform to the bottom. The yield will be zero. Forever."

There was silence at the video conference. Daniels looked over Davidson's shoulder at Joe Brian. "Joe, this is a matter for more investigation, not an impulsive choice from a. a unique perspective."

At the other end of the room, near the window, Joe Brian did not move. His voice was low when he did speak, but cut through the room with precision.

"The breakdown is complete," Brian announced. "The verdict is given. You have your new orders from Mr. Ekon. Your only question now is how fast you can carry them out."

The 'Mistering' was intentional heightening. A cue. The faces on the screen changed, the skepticism giving way to an immediate, cautious reevaluation. They were being taught, and the lesson was being taught by the man in the suit who was unknown to them.

Daniels swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. "Understood. We'll. We'll resubmit the drilling plan immediately."

"See what you do," Davidson told him, tapping into a cold reserve he hadn't known he possessed. He hung up.

The screen went blank.

The room fell silent. Davidson's heart pounded, adrenaline coursing through his system. He'd just directed a roomful of executives to do his bidding. He'd been right.

He looked over at Joe Brian.

Brian pushed away from the window and walked in his direction. He stopped at the table, his eyes fixed on Davidson's face.

"They did respect you," Brian remarked.

"They were afraid of you," Davidson corrected, his breathing strained.

"Respect is a type of fear," Brian remarked, the corner of his mouth twisting. "You gave them a truth they had renounced. You presented it with conviction. That is the source of power.".

He grabbed the remote and flipped on the big screen. It wasn't a video broadcast. It was a live news channel focused on finance. The ticker at the bottom yelled: BREAKING: BRIAN ENERGY SUSP.

Alan Price, uttered not a word throughout, spoke from the corner, phone pressed to his ear. "The market's responding. Our share's down two points on the news."

Brian did not glance once at the screen. His eyes were still on Davidson, solemn, inquiring.

A short-term loss for a long-term gain," Brian said bluntly, as if he were describing the weather. "They're experiencing a decline. I'm experiencing a crisis avoided and a lesson learned." He stepped forward. "How does it feel?

Davidson recalled the outraged expressions on the screen. The plummeting stock value. The sheer, naked power to make a multi-billion dollar decision based on a hunch with facts. The adrenaline was an addicting drug, a strong one running through his system.

"It feels…"

he began, searching for the appropriate term.

The news anchor’s voice on the screen cut him off, her tone shifting to breaking news urgency. “And we’re just getting this in—a major development in the Brian Energy story. Prominent family values group, The American Covenant, has just issued a statement condemning the sudden halt of the Gulf project, calling it ‘a reckless decision by an unaccountable leadership’ and citing ‘concerns over the influence of a new, unknown advisor recently brought into the fold’…”

There was a grainy, softly out-of-focus photo next to the anchor's head. It was Davidson's photo. Taken from the rig. In his coveralls and hard hat.

The anchor continued. ".a fellow named Davidson Ekon, an engineer of middle rank and no executive experience to speak of. People are asking questions about his precipitous, meteoric rise and the details of his association with the famously withdrawn Joe Brian."

Davidson's blood turned from boiling to ice-cold in a split second. The adrenaline wore off, replaced by instinctual fear. The nature of his relationship.

Alan Price was already typing desperately on his phone, his face serious. Joe Brian's face remained the same, but his eyes clenched, flashing like flint when he glanced at the screen.

The anchor cut back, but the ticker continued to scroll: …GROUP QUESTIONS BRIAN ENERGY APPOINTMENT… EKON BACKGROUND CHECK…

The world wasn't just watching the share price. They were watching him. And they were already connecting the dots, putting together a picture far darker than any corporate scandal.

The golden cage had been rattled. And the first howls of the coming storm were beginning to wail.

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