Page 93 of The Session

“That’s disturbing. Who do you think it was?” Mark asked.

“That’s the problem. It could be a lot of people—an individual, a rival company, a foreign government, for all we know.” She lowered her voice. “It could be somebody on the inside too. See, Eduardo Bolsonaro, the guy who left and took some of our people with him? He might still have allies inside the company. It wouldn’t surprise me if he tried to pull something like this.”

“To get what’s inside the Vault,” Mark prompted.

“There are a lot of things in there,” she echoed vaguely. “Maybe some of it shouldn’t be, but some of it is actually pretty helpful.”

“Helpful?” Mark asked skeptically.

“There’s been a ton of research conducted over the years into personal performance, relationships, communication. It’s probably the single largest source of longitudinal data you can find on information like that. That’s why my dad stuck around. He wasn’t crazy about everything Max did, but he could also see the value. And we’re talking about information people offered willingly. Mostly. I think we underestimate how little we know about what works when it comes to improvement or other strategies. Part of my dad’s dream was to make use of this so we could really figure out the ultimate tech—the tech that actually works.”

“Do you think whoever did that could be connected to what happened to me in Haiti with the flyer?” Mark asked.

“Anything’s possible. Which is why I wanted to talk to you. We’ve decided to have you focus on passing the exam and the Session. Going beyond that to establish credibility right now probably isn’t the most practical thing,” she counseled.

“But are people going to take me seriously?”

“There will be a vote among the top earners to see if you get added to the executive committee. I’m going to go around and see how people are leaning and what can be done.”

“What does that mean?” Mark asked.

“Plan A is to let you get appointed on your own merit. Because if you don’t, it’s not going to matter. You won’t have any real power. Plan B is getting Max and my dad to gently suggest to people it’s a good idea.”

“That doesn’t give me a lot of confidence,” Mark said.

“If you do well on the exam, that helps,” Tru pointed out.

“I thought I just had to focus on Max’s stories and get a pass.”

“That would normally be enough. But in this situation, I think we need you to do more than that.”

Mark thought about the textbooks and other materials he was going to have to get through. He was more of a hands-on kind of guy. He did well enough on tests, like when earning his paramedic certification, when he could connect what was in the books to the real world. A lot of what Max Lightman talked about was much more abstract. If they expected him to turn into a genius scholar, they had another thing coming. But given his circumstances, it was either that or try to convince them to let him go into some other hot zone to prove his worth for something he still questioned.

“I’ll do my best. Although I don’t know if this is the best place for me right now.”

“There are a lot of eyes here,” Tru whispered.

“That’s certainly part of it,” he said.

Study Hall

Later that afternoon, Mark found himself in the one coffee shop on the entire island that wasn’t part of a resort. Ricky’s Beanery was an aluminum shack on wooden stilts at the end of a gravel road; if you leaned your head far enough off the wooden deck, you could spot the ocean. Mark borrowed an electric bike from the resort and brought his bag of books so he could study free of watchful eyes.

Everyone at the resort was helpful and friendly, but with no active retreat at the moment, he was one of the few nonstaff members walking around. Already in a paranoid state, he wanted to get somewhere he could feel somewhat anonymous, even if only two other people—besides Ricky—were drinking coffee at the café.

Mark was on his second Americano, making notes on a pad of paper as he tried to outline key terms along the way. Lightman’s books were filled with jargon and acronyms. Mark wondered if the tech was really just a scheme to trademark as many phrases as possible.

Along with the textbook were smaller booklets describing activities to reinforce the lessons. Mark noted that this was where some of the real value seemed to be found, particularly in the courses on communication. Without that experience, it felt like taking a class on public speaking without ever having to give a speech. If all Summit Strategies had to offer was dry coursework, they wouldn’t have become as successful as they were. He had some limited experience with corporate training and certification classes, which he found excruciatingly boring. By contrast, activities like “see who yells the loudest unintentionally” or “human lie detector” at least sounded fun.

Mark reached into the backpack to look for another book and spotted the hand-bound proposal for using the tech in schools, written by the superintendent of the Port-au-Prince New Teachers College, Jean-Pierre Allard.

Mark flipped through the manuscript, taking a closer look at how Allard had broken down the tech into a course for high school students. He’d written a number of asides and callouts explaining why he thought the ordering should be changed, using different stories and allegories to make his points. Mark had read enough of Max Lightman’s work to understand that, while there was lots of gold to be mined from it, his dad’s storytelling often took center stage or gave way to what seemed like scientific gobbledygook. Allard, on the other hand, cut to the chase with specific examples and created a number of exercises—both for the solo student and the classroom—that seemed as engaging as the ones Mark had seen in the official Supernova coursework.

He flipped to the front of the manuscript. Allard had left his mailing address, email, and a phone number.

On a whim, Mark dialed to see if Allard would pick up.

The phone rang once. A man answered. “Hello?”