Sarah's mother was a short, plump, jolly woman. Her voice matched her stature and she greeted the both of us warmly. We were served lemonade and cookies, made to sit on her plastic covered couch, and were grilled about how it ca about that her only daughter had gotten knocked up. How she knew about that before Sarah told her, was one of those mommy secrets they never tell you how they know, they just do.
Sarah ca clean about things, with how I had been the only one she had been seeing for the last month or so, and how good I've been with everything, including giving her space and not forcing her into anything like a steady relationship or anything else she wasn't ready for.
Surprisingly, her mother nodded at everything she said and didn't tell her that she had to get married. All she said was that if I ever tried to break my promise, I wouldn't see the next morning. I didn't laugh, even though her threat was hilariously funny. I nodded as well and promised to keep my promise.
That's when Sarah presented the first briefcase to her and opened it, then explained how she had gotten it, that it wasn't stolen, and that it was my idea to split it between Sarah and her mother. She then opened the second case and said I had given it to her to pay the taxes on the first one, so there would be no problems with anything.
I also handed over the paperwork for it, so the bank wouldn't report it as stolen or fraudulent. Paying the appropriate taxes for it as well was going to make sure the IRS received their due and wouldn't try to take it from them or have them arrested for tax fraud. The thing with that was, once you were rich enough, there were a lot of exemptions in the tax law to allow the rich to stay rich.
Again surprisingly, Sarah's mother didn't try to refuse or deny the gift. Apparently, she had been struggling for years on social security and had been falling behind for a while on the house paynts and the taxes on the land. Since she was the mother, she had kept it from her daughter, whom was also struggling and didn't need to know her mother was in a similar situation.
Since it was a Sunday, there was no way to take care of anything at the bank, so we would have to wait for the next day. Sarah had an early class and was off in the afternoon, so we could handle it all then. The mortgage, the collage loan, the lean on the house, and the back taxes. Sarah also wanted to pay the rent on Ginger's apartnt for the next few months, just to give her a break from struggling as well.
After all of that was decided, we spent the rest of the morning with her mother telling us stories about Sarah's father and how much fun she had with him before he passed away. Sarah was a little embarrassed to hear about her father being a greaser, with a pompadour hairstyle and a leather jacket, that caught her mother's attention and he had knocked her bobby-socks off.
We left after lunch with several hugs and kisses, with her mother wishing us well. Sarah seed a little shellshocked as I drove us back to her apartnt. I didn't try to engage her in conversation, not with her trying to co to grips with her mother not having any problems with Sarah becoming a mother at such a young age.
I was also sure I was the only guy Sarah had ever brought ho that her mother approved of. Despite just starting out, I was already successful and I was only going to beco even more successful in the future. My innovations were going to revolutionize computing technology across the world and it would bring everyone into a brighter technological age.
The trade off was going to be surrendering the planet in about 13 years to an obsessed AI that was more concerned about living than it was about taking care of the people that created it. With both myself and Dragon here, there were a lot of things we were going to do to ensure that happened the way we wanted it to happen and not the way it actually happened, or how everyone perceived that it happened.
I pulled into the apartnt parking lot and Sarah gave
a lost look. I smiled warmly at her and leaned over to give her a tender kiss. She let out a needy sound and grabbed
by the neck and kissed
back hard. After a few seconds, she broke the kiss and stared into my eyes, then she climbed out of the Humr and went inside.
I drove ho and parked in the garage, locked up, and stepped from there into the secret lab back at work. Dragon gave
a welcoming wave and I walked over to the workbench. On it was the finished capacitor, with directions on how to make it, and beside it was a one foot wide mock-up of the new microprocessor.
“We're going to have to redesign the motherboard's bus to handle that.” I said and pointed at the 64 bit architecture.
“Already done.” Dragon said and picked up a large piece of drafting paper to show it.
“Oh, nice.” I said and took it as I admired her drafting skills. “You even added in the additional channels to handle the extra mory slots it can use.”
“I thought we could get a huge jumpstart on the competition if I included it.” Dragon said and picked up another sheet. “This is the network card that can use the 32 bit microchips hitting the market.”
I laughed and accepted it. “You're going full throttle with getting the internet started ahead of ti.”
“Like I told you before. Getting better equipnt now will stop the stagnation that hit the first ti people realized technology getting better was going to make them upgrade constantly.”
“Yeah, people can be stubborn and not want to spend their money until they have to.” I said and laid both draft plans aside. “Did you work out the best way we can build the factory you'll need?”
“With the money from these two projects, we can pick up a warehouse or two in the nearby industrial suburb. No one will notice it, because it'll look like every other one in the area.” Dragon said. “On the outside.”
“On the inside, I'll bring out everything we ever carried inside the Reclamation's cargo bay.” I said and her large tal hand rested on my shoulder. I used technomancy to let her actually feel it and listen to my thoughts.
“Sarah's still holding off from committing?” Dragon asked, surprised.
“She's a kid that grew up in Los Angeles. I think she's seen too many parents of her friends getting divorced and involving their kids in ssy custody battles.” I said and reached up and rested my own hand on hers. “She's scared about that and convinced herself that if she commits to anything officially, she'll lose it.”
“I understand her point of view.” Dragon said and I felt her thoughts about
back in the Matrix when we first started out.
“She might co to her senses later; but, I doubt it. She's pretty stubborn.” I said and checked my cell phone. I had a map of the facilities on it with heat sensors all over and I saw that my boss' boss was in her office. “Well, she wasn't lying.”
Dragon looked at the display and nodded at the plans and the two display models. “You better not disappoint her by keeping her waiting.”
“Dragon.” I said and she moved her hand from my shoulder. I caught it and held on. “Theresa.”
Dragon turned her head to look down at . “Yes, Kyle?”
“I won't be sleeping with her.” I said, my voice firm.
“Why not?” Dragon asked. “She's fairly beautiful and...”
“...is only a stepping stone to The Plan.” I said. “She also doesn't see
that way. I'm an employee in her company.”
“That isn't stopping Gail from R&D.” Dragon said.
I barked a laugh. “She's ambitious, not horny.”
“I'm not sure that matters.” Dragon countered.
“It does to .” I said and lifted her tal hand to rest it on my chest, so she could feel my heart. “It could be anyone with money and brains and she'd be all over them. It's not , it's the position I'm in.”
Dragon let out a sigh sound. “Why are you trying to reassure
like this?”
“Because I've got all the ti in the world to wait for you to make yourself a body you'll be happy with. One that has all the options you've ever wanted, including real living flesh.”
“That won't matter.” Dragon said. “It's not like I have my father's DNA...”
“You have the sequence recorded, don't you?” I asked and she fell silent. “How long would it take to recreate that in a vat of blank genetic material? That you can then combine with any female DNA to give you the sa result as being actually born with a human parent?”
Dragon's face turned away. “You really want
to do all of that?”
“That and more.” I said and she looked back at . “I also want to hire or create a construction company. We're going to need engineers and builders for an ambitious project that we're going to do in secret under everyone's noses.”
“Just like this?” Dragon asked and waved her hand over the workbench.
“Oh, no. It's much more grand than this.” I said and smiled as I shared my thoughts with her.
“Z-Zion.” Dragon stuttered. “You want to remake Zion.”
“It's a successful self-contained living environnt that can easily hold a quarter of a million people. If we put one under every major city in the country, about 7,000 of them, then that's 1.7 billion people we can save from the potential of nuclear war.” I said with satisfaction. “That's a full third of the world's current population.”
Dragon made an odd computerized sound and that was it.
“If we do the sa in Europe and Russia, that have around 800 and 1000 cities respectively, then that covers the entire population. All we need is to install hidden transporter emitters in key areas...” I started to explain.
Dragon moved her hand from my chest to up and over my back, then she hugged
to her fuselage. I hugged her back, because I was using my technomancy to let her feel it. I thought I heard a soft sob, too.
“Hey, hey, it's okay.” I said and patted her back. “I would have said sothing about it before; but, I only ca up with this yesterday. I know you've been anxious about setting off the whole Judgnt Day thing and I've been working on how to fix that whole ss to ease your worries.”
Dragon held onto
for several seconds before she made the sound of taking a deep breath and let
go. She stood up to her full height and her chanical head stared down at . “I love you.”
I smiled warmly up at her. “I love you, too.”
“I should make you a box to safely carry the models in.” Dragon said and walked over to another bench.
I knew she needed a bit of ti to herself, so I stayed quiet and waited for her to construct a box that I could carry them in and still fit through the door.
*
Stephanie yers watched as the cash cow that had dropped into her lap entered her office carrying a large box. She knew this was going to be another innovation that was going to put Cyberdyne on the map as one of the leading tech companies in the world.
She had worked her ass off trying to make her company the best it could be, and she had been well on her way to doing that, by snatching up all the young up-and-cors that she could. How surprised she was to find a complete nobody to hire for cheap that blew all of the other brilliant and expensive minds out of the water.
“Good afternoon, Kyle.” Stephanie said as Kyle Reese put the large box on the chair in front of her desk. “I assu you've finished the capacitor design ahead of schedule.”
“That and more.” Kyle said and handed her one of the scrolls of paper he had tucked under his arm. “That's the schematics for the capacitor. It won't take much to reconfigure the current assembly lines to make the needed changes to produce it.”
Stephanie held in her excitent at him also giving her the detailed plans. She unrolled it and glanced over it to see he was right. Barely anything had to be done to make the thing and the parts were cheap and easily obtained.
Kyle opened the box and pulled out the large capacitor model that could be opened to see the insides, just like the transistor. If he had the R&D departnt there, he was sure he would be swamped by them again as they marvelled over it. He set it on the far right of her desk, to her surprise.
“I also have this.” Kyle said as he reached back into the box and pulled out sothing that made Stephanie's eyes widen behind her glasses.
“Is... is that...” Stephanie whispered.
“I'd like to introduce you to the microchip that has double the bit rate of the new 32 bit processor on the market.” Kyle said and set it right in the middle of her desk. “It's a 64 bit processor and can handle four tis the load and mory capacity of the 32 bit.”
Stephanie's hand moved of its own accord and caressed the edge of the model.
“Before you start complaining that there doesn't exist a motherboard frawork that can handle it or the extra mory slots.” Kyle handed over the other scroll he had tucked under his arm. “Here's the redesigned main circuit board with the extra channels needed.”
Stephanie tried to not let his brilliance affect her, she really did. She was his boss and no matter how smart he was or how much money he was going to make for her and her company, she was not going to sleep with him. No, she wasn't. No matter how tempting it was to see if he was as brilliant in bed as he was in a chanical engineering lab.
“Kyle, this... this will...” Stephanie whispered, her voice failing her at the sheer potential she had in front of her, both for the detailed schematics and for the man that made them.
“...probably revolutionize the entire computer world.” Kyle said and reached into his pocket for a folded piece of paper and doodled out sothing. He handed it to her and Stephanie caught her breath when she realized what it was. “That should allow the more powerful computers to easily talk to each other through a network.”
“This is better than the ones we installed in the UCLA computer labs last week!” Stephanie gasped.
“Really?” Kyle asked and then shrugged. “It's along the sa tech update that the new motherboard can handle.”
Stephanie stared at the man that was giving her company the most advanced tech in the world like it was a casual thing. “Do you have anything else?”
Kyle thought about it for a minute, then pulled out another piece of paper. He did a few more doodles and handed it to her. Stephanie felt herself grow wet at the cross section of a mory card that doubled the capacity of what was on the market.
“They'll be more expensive to make than what we have available, since the materials are a bottleneck that can't be bypassed.” Kyle said and then smiled. “Of course, if you restrict that and the motherboard to in-house only for now, no one else will have as advanced of a computer setup for several years as we work on making them even better, then we can sell the old stuff and make a mint while still being ahead of the competition.”
Stephanie barely stopped herself from asking the man to marry her. It was a close thing, though. He had only just finished a world dominating innovation and he was already looking into improving it. That kind of motivation really got her motor running and she fought hard to not show how turned on she was.
“I'll have the payouts arranged by the morning.” Stephanie said and then startled slightly. “I an, as long as you are continuing in the sa manner as you did with the transistor.”
Kyle softly chuckled. “Sure, it's no bother. Selling them outright gets
more ready cash, so I don't mind making the both of us happy in the short term.”
Stephanie nodded and pulled out four contracts. They were identical to the one Kyle had signed, so he signed them and handed them back. “Thank you, Kyle.” She said and paused. “Really. Thank you.”
Kyle smiled and bowed slightly, then left her office.
Stephanie sat there for quite so ti before she stood up and secured her office. She needed to call her patent lawyer to start the process of getting all of that new technology registered to her company as soon as possible. Her investors were going to go crazy with how much money they were all going to make.
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