Mad Worlds Collide (2 page)

Many dog owners felt a Bull Mastiff was too big but Robert had wanted one since childhood. He had decided that life was too short to hold back on the things he’d wanted. He saw Buddy in the local pet store and decided immediately.  Susan complained about the Bull Mastiff puppy since Bull Mastiffs had potential problems. She’d readthat they had difficulties like snoring, drooling, flatulence, bloat, hip dysplasia, eye problems and gastrointestinal disorders.

Robert had a tough time communicating with Susan, and only saw trouble after he said to her, "He’s got the same problems as you, honey, and I didn’t kick
you
out of the house now,
did I
?"

Susan shut up and continued her iceberg watch onboard her Titanic. Robert bought Buddy, and now at two years of age Buddy had eaten his way up to a hundred and twenty-five pounds.

"Go get ‘em Buddy!" yelled Robert through the woods. 

Yelling felt good, and the smell of fresh pine trees opened up his nasal passages. Robert scanned the woods, pretending to be calm. Funny how a death threat makes people think differently about things, like sounds in the woods.

Buddy ran through the path’s undergrowth making snapping sounds. Ahead stood the MicroIntel Security Compound entrance. If anyone could fit the profile of a hit man, a guard had the right educational background, but hell, anyone smart enough to hack the main server would have a much better job. Shit, thought Robert, they must have the money to hire one of those screwballs working in security. Stop thinking of all this stupid shit.  It’s just a hacker fucking with you. Relax
.

Ring…Ring…Ring…
Ah shit! ...Just the cell phone. Robert pulled out his miniature PocketPal phone from his shirt and hit the
On
button.

"Hello, Robert speaking."

"Hi Robert, it’s Susan. Where are you?"

"I’m walking the dog, what’s up?  Where are you?"

"Oh, sorry to bother you, just Lisa and I are at the mall and I was wondering if you wanted anything."

"I’m fine honey."

"Well you don’t have to be rude, I was just wondering if you needed anything, I was just trying to make you look nice at work. You know that the top guys are always dressing---"

"Honey, I’m fine. I appreciate the call, but I don’t need anything. Look I have to go catch Buddy-- he’s running away." Women-- always buying stuff—it’s a disease, he thought.

"Nice try Robert.  You know Buddy has a leg problem added to all his other problems.  If you don’t want to talk to me just say it."

"Honey, I’m having a tough time at work, I really need some private time."

"Well, what do you call the two weeks with me and the kids? That wasn’t good enough? It’s fine you don’t want to talk to me. You never want to talk!  It’s always you or your job! Don’t worry about Lisa and me. We’ll be fine." 
CLICK.

Robert looked at his cell phone as if he was holding a miniature nagging wife. He dropped it on the ground and crushed it to pieces with his Chippewa steel-tipped boots. Goddamn thing’s a fucking electronic leash, he thought. Never liked them, and I don’t care anymore. This new attitude toward the hacker’s e-mail was like a breath of fresh air. After years at the helm of software development, Robert wanted something besides the corporate life, and he was slowly realizing it.

Buddy ran proudly toward a black crow encroaching on his path. The bird flew to the safety of an oak tree. Buddy turned back, wagged his tail, and farted. He had a gastrointestinal disorder.Robert had one too. Buddy passed gas as often as he ate and Robert passed gas whenever he had to work with Gill, the President of MicroIntel.

"It’s OK Buddy boy!Get it all out. If you can’t catch them, gas them." Robert petted Buddy. Robert knew that Buddy’s chances of catching a bird were the same as those of Robert getting a better boss.

Robert and Buddy walked past security guards dressed in phony police type uniforms.  The guards reminded Robert of Nazi soldiers.  That was MicroIntel: a worker’s concentration camp, but Robert had new plans and a new mindset, and he didn’t give a shit anymore.

Buddy ran toward the guard named Fred Junket. Fred petted Buddy as the dog wagged his tail, jumping around Fred’s feet.

"Hi Fred, how are you doing?" asked Robert.

"Hey, my man, Robert, doing fine, doing fine.  I just got my stitches out last week—only a small scar.  I think I’ll just put a tattoo on it, it’ll match the one on the other arm. Have you seen the one on my right arm?"

"Yeah, the one with the mermaid and ‘Mary’on top, yeah that’s a nice one." 

Fred pulled a stick from Buddy’s mouth. "Yeah, I’m having Mary’s name covered over though.  We broke up on Sunday."

Why the fuck would you put somebody’s name on your arm?  "Don’t do that just yet Fred, maybe your next will be named Mary too.  Or, maybe you’ll get back together."

"Hey Robert --that’s right! No wonder everyone says you are the smartest guy in the company."

"I’m sure that’s not
all
they say.  Hey, sorry about the trouble the other week."

"No trouble, just those nasty Dobies -- you know they can sense anyamount of fear.  The arm is healing fine."

Though Robert had heard Fred had once shot himself in the balls going frog hunting, he’d finally given in to Fred’s relentless requests, and allowed the guard to watch Buddy for a day.  Fred’s partner Jimbo, another Seattle frog hunter, let Buddy into "Doberman Run" during a lunch break but couldn’t get him back out. Fred tried retrieving Buddy who was easy to spot as an overgrown brown Bull Mastiff with half an ear missing mixed in withsmaller black Doberman females.

Fred never trusted the dogs as some were in heat.  Fred knew not to fear dogs, because he’d been told as a kid that if they sensed fear they would eat his balls.  With one shot off, this axiom became more relevant.  Fred got Buddy out of the pen, but not before a Doberman took a chunk out of his arm.

Robert walked over to Buddy and grabbed his leash. "Gotta get back to work Fred."

"Take care Robert, and be careful next week.  It’s hunting season here and a few of my buddies will be looking for deer.  I might join ‘em."

 "Hunting? Ah...sure…thanks Fred, I’ll keep that in mind---good luck with the deer and the new tattoo." Well if he shoots off his other nut, he’ll remove himself from the gene pool, thought Robert, maybe even save a few deer by shooting his partner Jimbo.

Robert walked around a MicroIntel compound that included company housing, shopping malls, and even a movie theater. The three hundred-acre private enclave was unofficially nicknamed
MacVille
,
like the hamburger empire. No-one would be caught alive saying that to Gill. The nickname drove Gill nuts.     

As Robert passed his home he saw a billboard of the MicroIntel President smiling, wearing bookish horn-rimmed eyeglasses. The poster said:  "Remember that the world trusts MicroIntel and MicroIntel trusts you."

Another crock of shit, thought Robert. Trust me? Was Gill taking drugs?  The damn world was filled with too much bullshit.  I wonder what that lying motherfucker is doing right now---wonder if I can trust him to tell him about the hacker in the main server…wonder…fucking wonder.

Gill sat home at the Applebee Ranch eating his breakfast of Natural Wonder
.
While watching the Financial News, Betty, his Filipino head maid sat in the kitchen watching the stock quotes with Gill.  She cheered every time one of his companies moved up. When a stock went down Gill looked pissed, and Betty comforted him saying, "You know, I’ll bet a year from now that stock will be up. Warren Buffet used to say: ‘never sell your stock’."

Gill drank some orange juice with his eyes fixed on the twenty-four foot Sony GalicitCom home center screen. "Well I know Warren’s son Phil, and I think his father said that so no one sells
his
company’s stock, but Phil sold ten million shares of MicroIntel last year to buy some stupid baseball team and knocked our price down two bucks that day."

"Well Mr. Applebee, I’m not an expert on stock but I know there’s more to life than making money.  You and Mrs. Applebee make a great couple and you have a great son. For most folks that would be a gift from heaven."

Most of Gill’s rich friends never got excited about money. Money came, money went, but mostly it just seemed to flow inward, like a golden river from investments managed by professionals.

When Gill’s company, Intrix, licensed the world fastest chip, the IN2010, (thanks to Robert Davichi), Gill took over a struggling chip-making company called Intel. The early years of 2010 to 2020 were years of stumbling companies being devoured by voracious lawyers like Gill. After gaining control of the CPU market, Gill took over a large software behemoth called Microsoft. Microsoft had fallen into legal hassles even greater than normal in 2006. After entering the computer gaming and neural net programming market, controlled by Intel-Intrix, the company’s stock had crashed and burned in 2011.  A merger with Intel-Intrix was the only way to save the original Microsoft.

The original Seattle office needed a strong partner and Gill was the man.

The first thing Gill did was put aging President Bill Gates into early retirement. At a private Board Meeting known in the news as "Bill Gates’ Last Gasp", Gill was privately quoted as saying, "Only the strong will survive, and now we have Microsoft. Mr. Gates will now have the resources to finish his degree at Harvard and we’ll finish the job of running a business like it should be run."

With 5% of MicroIntel and a net worth over 20 billion dollars, nobody felt sorry for Gates.

 Gill had about thirty-five per cent of his billions managed by professionals.  This had a steady and stable return. Gill’s other assets included his MicroIntel stock and money invested in a few other companies. Gill could lose over ninety-nine per cent of this money and still live as a multi-billionaire for the rest of his life. The ups and downs of the firms excited Gill not because of the actual money but because of the game. The idea of staying the richest guy in the world made Gill feel immortal.

Gill chewed his cereal, and focused on the report on a pharmaceutical company called Ero-X. Suddenly he stopped chewing and the spoon dropped into his bowl. As if hypnotized, Gill stood and looked at the new price. "It’s gone up ten dollars!" The report from the financial analyst said the company had just received FDA approval for a new wonder drug for infertility that allowed the choosing of a child’s gender. China was expected to be a big buyer with its one child policy.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! Yessssss!"  Gill moved from his chair and knocked over his orange juice and another stool, and, ignoring everything around him, ran toward the Sony GalicitCom Home center screen. Gill looked like a kid in a movie theatre standing too close to the front. Betty had seen this a hundred times. If it weren’t for the guesthouse the size of a four-bedroom ranch she would have gone back to the Philippines a long time ago.

"Look, it’s still moving up.  I’ve got ten million shares Betty, I just made a
hundred million dollars
!"

"It’s an unrealized gain, just paper... unless you sell it of course," said Betty wiping up the orange juice.

Gill continued to ignore her, and everything around him.

 "It’s predicted to go up fifteen dollars, I’ll make a
hundred and fifty million today
!"

 Gill only watched the Financial News, Discovery, and the Cartoon channel.

Owning stock in over a hundred companies made the Financial News Gill’s favorite show. Most workers at MicroIntel had no idea of the scope of Gill’s investments, but Gill liked owning things. Companies were like stamp collections to Gill. The nice thing about companies was that most of them couldn’t manage for shit, so Gill bought them, fixed them and fired the things that couldn’t be fixed. It was also a great way to get rid of lawsuits from competitors: buy enough stock to get on the board, and if that wasn’t enough to juice up the relationship, buy controlling interest.

"Another orange juice Mr. Applebee?" asked Betty.

"No thanks Betty, the driver’s been waiting and I’ve got to run. Please tell Cynthia I’ll be home around 11:00 tonight. I have a late meeting."

"Have a nice day Mr. Applebee."

 Gill walked out of his fifty-million-dollar ranch house, which was built on a hill overlooking a small farm. Fences lined the forty-five acre plot. In front stood an eight-foot red block gate protected by cameras and three security guards. The home had protection similar to that of the White House except at his ranch, the guards got twice the pay. 

Gill walked out to his driver, Mike, who opened the door to a custom, extra large version of the Lincoln Continental limousine.

"Good morning Mr. Applebee," said Mike, helping with Gill’s personal notebook, and stack of papers.

             "Morning, Mike. Thanks, I’ve got it."

Gill sat on the soft leather seat and grabbed a mineral water from the car’s refrigerator. Mike closed Gill’s door, then got into the driver’s seat.

"Directly to the office Mr. Applebee?" asked Mike, pulling down the long cobblestone driveway.

" Yeah, and no calls please, unless it’s Cynthia.  I need to check out a report."

"Yes Sir, Mr. Applebee, if the Mrs. calls I’ll put her through."

Gill wanted to examine a report stating that Guilianni Labs stock had risen twenty percent as a side effect of Barnacle Bill. How the hell could a side effect for a
hard-on
drug move the stock up?  If it went up more than twenty-five percent, Guilianni Labs president Jimmy Guilianni would become the richest guy on the planet, kicking Gill to number two. That thought, although not important to the course of world events, distressed Gill to no end.

Gill turned on the news to check out the report on the WebTele. It was a McDos commercial. Out came a clown who lived in a made-for-TV town called
MacVille
eating a McDos hamburger with a bunch of school kids. The burger turned Gill’s stomach.

People in the press called the MicroIntel campus a burger farm, saying MicroIntel was to software what MacVille was to burgers. And the nickname stuck.