There alpable air of excitement in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel』s Starlight Roof. It was so thick you could slice through it with a khe room had filled up and there was a bank of TV cameras from the major broadcasters lined up at the back of the auditorium like a firing squad. The lenses of the robotic cameras and the huge le microphones were aimed at ter stage. Some of the cameras were going through an intricate puter-trolled dance routine of automatining, swooping and zooming.
The members of the audience had tired of admiring the ornate deliers, appraising the intricate artwork on the ceiling and perusing their itineraries. They had had enough of fiddling with their translation maes awking at the robots w the isles. A thousand whispers, murmurs, tête-à-têtes and polite versations coalesced.
Professor Yao was waiting in the wings backstage. On the opposite side at stage right stood Wendy Bruckheimer, flowing red hair lit up gloriously by the harsh stage lights. A small oriental man with what could only be described as minimalist features was carrying out final checks on the presentation equipment. The professor only had a few slides to show anyway, so the ces of teical glitches were low to zero. The power of the breakthrough would speak for itself. The man was wearing a black World Teology Forum T-shirt and ill-fitting o slacks. There was something vaguely familiar about the slight stooping posture of his neck but Professor Yao was focused on the presentation at hand.
Wendy Bruckheimer was shufflily through a small deck of flash cards. The professor had still not recovered from the casual way she had informed him of Dr. Joplin』s death. As though it was one small glit an otherwise perfectly anized event. The show had to go on. Poor Dr. Joplin. He had been one of the richest men in academia with several ercial patents under his belt, a man who sat on the boards of several high profile corporations. Yet, he had been generous with his money and his knowledge, grants and scholarships to students from poor backgrounds who had dedicated themselves to the pursuit of excellen various areas of puter sce.
What had the MIT professor known that had got him killed and did the professor know he was going to die? And why had the daughter disappeared without a trace? Something that Bruckheimer, ever practical, jectured suggested either her guilt or the guilt of parties at MIT w in cert with the daughter. But what kind of sixteen year-old with a healthy trust fund would murder her own father for more money?
Jolted from his reverie by a female voinoung: 「The session will start in two minutes」 in dulcet tones. Handel』s Messiah started blaring out over the music system, which distributed the maestro』s work by shifting ns of air around the room.
The tei jumped off the stage and headed back, through the aisle, to the bank of elevators at the back of the room. One of the TV cameras panned in his dire and the man tilted his head and attempted to shield his face with his left hand. For a man that small, his movements were smooth and assured but somehow alien to the enviro. Once again Professor Yao had a feeling of déjà vu. There was something about the fluidity of the man』s movements that reminded him of something he had seen before. But he couldn』t for the life of him remember what it was. As he racked his brain to make the association, Handel faded into the background and the room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop, b