World of Eternia: The Complete Collection (26 page)

Suddenly, the door to
the bar opens quietly, and a man walks in. He, too, looks out of
place from the crowd as the man is dressed in sharp, light gray
business attire. The newcomer instantly draws attention with his
tall, stout build, dark brown eyes and meticulously groomed short
brown hair. Appearing to be in his early thirties, the businessman
stays at the door while scanning the room. Locking his stern eyes on
the man at the bar, the newcomer strolls in confidently while easily
navigating his way through the throng of young, half-drunk patrons.
Without a word, he takes a bar stool next to the other businessman.

The bartender quickly
walks over to the newcomer. “What would you like, sir?” the young
looking man asks as he sets a piece of square shaped white napkin in
front of the patron.

The newcomer looks
directly at the bartender. “Whatever he’s having,” the man
says.

The bartender pauses
for a moment to remember what he served the other guest. The
bartender remembers that it was scotch, nods and quickly turns
around. He examines the impressive array of bottles of alcoholic
beverages along the wall behind the counter. He takes the bottle of
scotch, and retrieves a clean shot glass. Setting down the glass
gently in front of the customer, the employee adroitly pours the
strong scotch until the glass is two thirds full. Seeing the fiver on
the table, the bartender takes the bill and leaves a dollar change.
Reading the tense atmosphere between the two taciturn patrons despite
their physical proximity to one another, the young man makes a
beeline for the kitchen to grab a bucket of ice and leave the two men
alone.

Smart
boy
, the newcomer thinks with a wry grin. He reaches for
the shot glass, and takes a tiny sip of the bitter liquor, savoring
the burning sensation on his tongue.

The other patron
observes the tasting with amusement. "I see you finally learned
to handle strong scotch, Charlie," he remarks.

"I've learned to
handle a lot of things, Richard," the newcomer replies. "So
let’s cut this pointless chit chat, shall we?"

"Patience has
never been your strong suit," Richard T. Gibson says, pointedly
ignoring the request.

"Nor is your
listening skills," Charles Winter retorts.

Richard sighs. "We've
known each other for how many years? Fifteen? It's quite sad how our
friendship has devolved into such open animosity," he laments
sadly. The two have known each other since junior year in high
school, when they met in a computer gaming club.

"Well, you know
the reason behind it," the newcomer hisses.

"What's that?"
Richard asks coyly.

Charles turns sharply
to face his former friend, grabs Richard by the collar of his shirt
and pulls the other man closer until their faces are two inches
apart. Charles stares with burning anger into Richard's cool eyes.
"You're a backstabbing thief. You know you stole my source code
for a new gaming engine for your precious game," he spits out.

Richard smiles smugly
at the old accusation.
The man
simply can’t move on, can he?
"That's not how
Professor Tullen saw it. We submitted a joint project to him in our
game design class, and he gave us both an 'A-' for the assignment. If
you felt the code was your quote-unquote 'personal' property, you
should not have submitted it to him as our joint assignment," he
reminds Charles while deftly removing his former friend's fingers
from Richard's collar. "Besides, I made major improvements to
the source code for the engine, and stabilized it for commercial
application. I don't think you're giving me the credit that I
deserve," Richard adds while shaking his head softly.

"Without my source
code, you would have had nothing," Charles snarls.

"Without my
modifications, your code would have been useless," Richard
answers back. "Anyway, you took advantage of my modifications,
without giving me any monetary compensation, and utilized the
modified game engine to launch your own gaming company and released
commercial software for the personal computer (“PC”). If
anything, I should be the angry one here," he points out.

"In the meantime,
you launched a rival gaming company, and even released a virtual
reality game using the same engine," Charles retorts.

"It's not my fault
you didn't try to capitalize on the wave of interest in virtual
reality," Richard shrugs as he takes a sip of the scotch. "The
early bird gets the worm and all that," he notes while wagging a
finger at his old friend.

"Anyway, I didn't
call you here to reminisce on past history," Charles changes the
subject as he loosens the top button on his collar. "My Board of
Directors has floated the idea of buying out your Eternia Development
& Entertainment, Inc., and they asked me to put out feelers with
you for this proposal."

"No," Richard
says flatly as his calm demeanor suddenly turns serious.

"No as in you
won't consider a merger of some sort with my Virtuous Gaming Co., or
no as in you won't sell, period?" Charles asks for
clarification.

"EDE has no
interest in being bought out by anyone. I didn't spend years of my
precious youth building up my company just to cash out quickly,"
Richard replies. “I think Virtual Reality based Massive Multiplayer
Online Role Playing Game (‘VRMMORPG’) is the next big thing in
the gaming industry, and it would be foolish for me to exit the stage
and cash out when I’m just getting started.”

Charles drums the
fingers of his left hand on the table. "It's interesting that
you raise the issue of cash. Rumor has it that your company is
running out of cash, Richard. Your VR equipment is still too
expensive for the casual gamer, and your annual tab for cloud
services is astronomical. True, you are working on an expansion and
that will bring in some needed sales revenue for EDE. However, if
there is a shortage of consumers for the base package WoE game and
equipment, then how many copies of the expansion will you be able to
sell? Small wonder that venture capitalists are declining to make
further investments in your company," he remarks. “I almost
feel sorry for you, old chap,” he sneers.

"I appreciate your
concern, old friend," Richard replies coolly, not bothering to
refute these observations since they are a hundred percent accurate.
I need to find the leaks in my
company
, he realizes immediately. The issue of venture
capital funding is private and EDE’s difficulty in raising
additional rounds of funding is not well known. Richard sets the
mental note aside to deal with the present problem. "EDE has the
appropriate resources and personnel in place to continue developing
the market for virtual reality gaming. There is no need to consider a
merger with your company. Besides, your company’s product niche is
in casual gaming for social media platforms. There is no fit between
our companies," he points out. Richard finishes his drink and
starts to rise from his bar stool.

"If you change
your mind, you know how to reach me," Charles says.

Richard gets up and
leaves without acknowledging the comment.

Charles watches his old
friend leave the bar. He turns back to the shot glass in front of
him. He takes the remaining scotch in one gulp. "That went just
about as expected," he remarks.

A beautiful woman with
platinum blonde hair takes the newly empty seat next to her employer.
"Are you sure this was necessary, sir?" she asks.

"But of course,"
Charles grins.

“Was it wise to tip
him off to your true goal?” Priscilla asks, as her doubt is
apparent on her beautiful face.

Charles lifts a hand to
get the young bartender’s attention. He holds up his empty shot
glass, and motions it towards his lovely female companion.

The bartender nods in
understanding, and quickly turns to retrieve another shot glass.
Holding an empty glass in one hand and a bottle of scotch in the
other, the young man walks over to the end of the table. He sets the
glass and bottle on the table, and places one paper napkin in front
of each patron. He places the shot glass in front of the female, and
pours her a shot of scotch. He then refills the male patron’s
glass. Seeing a twenty dollar bill on the table, he takes it.

“Keep the change,”
Charles says as the young man starts to move toward the cash
register.

“Thank you sir!”
the bartender replies happily, and quickly moves on to serve the next
patron at the bar.

The pale looking, but
handsome man turns to face Priscilla. He reaches for her shiny,
smooth hair with his left hand, and gently twirls her strands of
lovely hair with his forefinger. “You need to have more confidence
in me,” Charles chides her mildly. “I’ve known Richard Gibson
for some fifteen years, and more importantly I know how he thinks. He
is a ruthless control freak. He believes in making meticulous plans
and executing them,” Charles explains.

The beautiful woman
shakes her head. “How can he expect everything to go according to
plan? Isn’t life full of surprises and unexpected occurrences?”
she blurts out her doubt unexpectedly.

Charles smiles at the
questions. “During senior year in high school we took the same bus
for our commute, and we would pass the time by playing Old Maid. He
won nine times out of ten. He would run a lot of scenarios in his
head, and strategize how he would organize his cards. I suspect that
he would also gauged my demeanor and mood to make an educated guess
on how I would pick out the blind cards from his hand,” he looks at
Priscilla and sees that she is paying attention to his reminiscence.
“Knowing Richard, he probably anticipated the possibility of some
third party looking to buy out his precious company. And it’s
likely that he has been approached many times already,” he
speculates.

“If that is the case,
then what good result from your meeting with him at this bar?” She
is totally befuddled now.

Charles grins and
stares into Priscilla’s eyes, revealing his strong determination
and spirit. “He fears me,” he says. Seeing the questioning look
on her face, he continues. “Out of all the people that he has known
in his life, I am the one person that Richard fears. He respects my
intellect, my determination, my stubbornness, and if I become fixated
on something, Richard knows that I will stop at nothing to get it,”
he explains.

“In other words, you
are purposely putting pressure on him, hoping to coax Richard into
making a major mistake,” Priscilla notes in understanding.

“Correct,” he
twirls another lock of her luscious hair. “I am trying to wear him
down mentally, and goad him into making a mistake. As a control
freak, he has no one to turn to for help if he’s cornered. Me, on
the other hand, I have you,” Charles smiles.

Priscilla smiles back
and draws closer to kiss him on the mouth.

The Chief Executive
Officer of Virtuous Gaming Co. (“VG”) passes by a number of open
desks, some occupied already at 9 AM but a good one third still
unoccupied, on his way to his corner office. When VG needed to move
to a bigger office to accommodate additional staff, Charles Winter
specifically chose the opposite corner from the southeast entrance of
the building for his new office. As the head of the company, he had
first dips on any area on the entire rented floor to set up his real
estate. Why would he willingly choose the office space furthest from
the exit? Many employees were confused, and he never bothered to
explain his decision. The reason is simple: the path from the
entrance to his office requires Charles to walk pass the work space
of his employees. It's a simple way for him to observe who is showing
up for work on time and who is coming in late. It also allows the CEO
to be seen by his employees, and allows him to set an example to be
punctual and arrive at work on time.

Of course, this morning
routine also allows employees to approach him whenever necessary
simply by waiting at one of the three possible routes (northern,
middle, and southern) between the entrance and his office. "Good
morning ladies," the pale man smiles pleasantly at the beautiful
platinum blonde haired woman, who is standing in front of a
colleague's desk.

Priscilla turns around
quickly, and smiles back. "Good morning, sir," she says.
The two are secretly seeing each other outside the office, despite
office romances being taboo. However, the CEO made sure that
co-workers dating are not explicitly forbidden as company policy, and
thus there are rumors regarding who is dating who in the office.

Lorna Cheung-Whitney, a
woman in her late thirties with yellow skin and curly black hair that
highlight her half-Asian heritage, looks up over Priscilla's shoulder
and smiles at the newcomer. "Good morning, Mr. Winter," the
office manager says. The game developer had hired a number of young
programmers and artists within the past year, and the mother of two
has had her hands full keeping the twenty something kids in line at
the office.

"Any trouble,
Lorna?" Charles asks. He likes to keep abreast of any issues
with the new hires, and he values the office manager's sound
judgment. If Charles ever needs to step away from the position of
CEO, she would be on the short list of candidates to be his
successor. During new employee orientation with the dozen new hires,
he made it clear that Lorna has his full support and she will report
any youthful indiscretion directly to him. So far there has been one
knucklehead who has already failed a drug test, and is on probation.

"Just the black
sheep," Lorna replies. Seeing her boss raise his brows, she
quickly adds, "I will send you a full report." She does not
want to discuss personnel issues out in the open. Only the three
corner offices have doors; the rest of the work space at this company
is more like open cubicles with four feet high partitions for some
small resemblance of privacy. As a result, office gossip at the desks
is a favorite activity, passed around via instant messages.