Chapter 41 - Betrayal

John was beginning to feel discontent. He didn't know why, but he wanted more. Maybe that was a failing of human nature. He had to admit he had a interesting job with a lot of autonomy. But the novelty was starting to wear off. He had felt boredom at other times and had tried finding himself an exciting woman. However such women tended to do what they wanted and not what he wanted. Compliant women were however fucking boring. Then he had landed the new job and life got exciting again. But he had reached the stage where his world had been reduced to two kinds of projects. The doable but boring and the flat out impossible. Since he was the best they could find the flat out impossible ones didn't go away.

Things looked as if they might change for the better when Lü Zhi found those weird shit teenagers. But they avoided him. Not that he could learn from them. Imogen had a gift not a skill. It wasn't something you could pick up from her. As for Daniel he didn't say much. He had the strange feeling that wasn't Daniel's fault. He couldn't figure out whether it was because of Lü Zhi or Imogen. Either way he was slowly being pushed to the fringe and the hate and paranoia was slowly encircling and tightening its grip on his peace of mind. He had made friends with his counterparts from competitors at the NASA seminars. Maybe a little industrial espionage would make the world a fairer place.