Conrad Fired Me Before the Buyer Opened the Warranty Schedule

Conrad slid my dismissal letter across the table at 8:12 on a Thursday morning. The sale was set for noon.

"We've reached the stage where we need people who support decisions," he said.

I pressed a fold into the scrap of paper between my fingers.

"You mean the decision to promise a temperature we haven't measured."

"I mean the decision to move forward."

Through the glass wall, Houston looked gray and wet. Brake lights filled the West Loop below our office. Someone had brought breakfast tacos for the closing team. The smell of warm flour reached the room, and my stomach hurt.

I was thirty-three, a Haitian American woman, and the lead geothermal reservoir modeler at Crescent Kiln Energy. I had dark brown skin, close black curls, and a thin pale scar through my left eyebrow. For six years, I had spent my days making our underground temperature forecasts less wrong.

Conrad was a tall white man with silver hair, a narrow face, and cuffs that never seemed to crease. At fifty-one, he had learned to deliver bad news like a waiter describing a lovely dessert.

"You'll receive four weeks of pay. Nineteen thousand two hundred dollars. Sign the release by five."

"What about my written objection to Schedule Four?"

"Your position is being removed. Your concerns have been considered."

I folded the paper's two corners toward the center.

He watched my hands.

"That little boat habit won't help you now, Nadège."

My father had taught me to fold boats while we waited for pumps to settle at test wells. He said busy hands could keep an angry mouth from making a bad choice.

I set the boat beside the unsigned release.

"Neither will a false bottom-hole temperature."

Conrad smiled without showing his teeth.

Our buyer, Alder Span Power, was about to pay $48 million for our geothermal assets. The deal included Cedar Draw, a planned project near El Campo. It also included a $12 million warranty tied to the heat available beneath that land.

Our sales deck showed 188 degrees Celsius.

The best field readings supported something near 151.

"My employment agreement assigns the models I build," I said. "It doesn't replace the field-data agreement."

"Everything you made here belongs here."

"Please ask counsel to read both documents."

He stood, which was how he ended discussions.

"I've already paid lawyers to settle this."

That was the trouble with Conrad. If a person agreed with him, he called that person sharp. If a person checked his work, he called that person difficult.

An office manager waited outside with a box. I handed over my laptop and badge. I didn't send myself files. I didn't pull a drive out of anything. My notebooks about company work stayed in the office.

The small blue folder in my purse had never belonged to Crescent Kiln.

It held the agreement my mother had made me bring that morning.

Before I joined the company, my parents' small business had measured old Gulf Coast wells. They had bought records, kept sensor checks, and paid for repeat temperature logs. Their business, Baptiste Field Records LLC, owned that collection. I now managed it with my mother.

Crescent Kiln had licensed the collection for $180,000 a year. We needed it because a temperature measured while drilling could be far colder than the rock around it. Time, flow, and sensor drift all mattered.

The model code belonged to my employer. The calibration records did not.

At the elevator, Conrad's assistant called after me.

"He wants the blue folder left behind too."

"He can request a copy from the named owner."

I rode down with my box against my ribs.

Outside, rain ticked against the building's covered entrance. I called my mother.

"He did it," I said.

"Did you sign anything?"

"The receipt for the laptop. Nothing else."

"Then read page nine. Slowly."

I already knew page nine. My father had asked for that clause when his hands were still steady enough to sign his name.

Any transfer of the licensed records required written consent from Baptiste Field Records. Before giving consent, we could require an audit of the proposed use and any claim of validation.

At a coffee shop off Richmond Avenue, I used my own phone to open the family company's mail. I sent the notice to the addresses listed in the agreement, including the buyer's counsel.

I attached the signed contract and one page of terms. Existing permitted use could continue. Transfer consent was withheld pending the stated audit.

I asked them to preserve the logs and identify the reservoir used in the sale demonstration.

At 9:06, a number I didn't know lit my screen.

"Nadège? Farah Qureshi, Alder Span. I'm the acquisition engineer."

"Yes."

"I just received your notice. I tried to reproduce the demonstration."

She paused.

"Why did they show me Pelican Bend when we're buying Cedar Draw?"