But Max wasn’t that type. You start letting people disappoint you, and you’re never not disappointed. “What everyone fails to understand is I don’t want to work in the mining company.” He heard but could not seem to excise the condescension in his voice.

“I don’t want to work in the mining company either, Max,” Seb snapped.

What? That was the last thing Max expected his brother to say.

“But someone has to do it,” Seb added, and his little-brother martyrdom irritated the hell out of Max.

“I don’t want any part of it,” Max said, and he didn’t care if he sounded self-righteous. “It’s a terrible industry.”

Seb looked at him for an uncomfortably long moment before saying, in a much quieter tone, “The way I see it, if I don’t do it, Father will get someone else to. If I’m doing it, at least I can try to limit the environmental damage and fight for better conditions for our employees. Did you know that last year we were set to begin winding down the Rudna mine and laying off five hundred people? Did you know that I talked the board into delaying the closing for two years and committing a pile of money to a retraining fund? Do you think any of that would have happened if I hadn’t pushed for it?”

Max didn’t even know where the “Rudna mine” was or what was extracted there. “I had no idea. How did you get Father to agree to that?”

“Well, I got Elias on my side, so that helped.” Elias was Aquilla’s CEO. “I made a presentation showing that we could employ a percentage of the retrained employees in a call center I was proposing we build,” Seb said, “and that since they already knew the company there would be less turnover.”

“Why didn’t I know about this?” Max also had no idea why a mining company needed a call center, but that wasn’t his primary concern at the moment.

“You didn’t have any idea because you don’t pay attention,” Seb said. “You cover your ears like a child when you’re confronted with something unpleasant.”

Not a flattering assessment.

“And when you do pay attention for long enough to absorb something, it’s all black and white.” Seb’s voice was getting louder. “Mining is bad. Well, yes. But the world needs quartz, for example. What would you do without your precious iPhone? Also, we employ a great many people. Do you know how many?”

Max did not know.

“Nine thousand and change,” Seb said, not waiting for Max to answer. “And forty-seven percent of them are in areas where the mine is the major, or only, employer. We’re it. We close, and what will happen then?”

Another rhetorical question that made Max ashamed he didn’t know how to answer.