Variation on a Theme, Book 6
Copyright© 2024 by Grey Wolf
Chapter 94: Just Because You’re Paranoid
Monday, February 10, 1986
I solidified plans as much as I could with both of the ‘extra’ women in my life. Amy’s project meeting was on Wednesday, so her Valentine’s date was on Thursday. Since Wednesday was Jas’s birthday, Darla and I decided to celebrate on Tuesday.
She was ‘entitled’ to a sleepover this week, but we decided to put that off. Sex was certainly on the table, but the implication was that it wouldn’t be anything ‘new.’ Louise would be ‘out,’ so we might take advantage of Darla’s dorm bed. On the other hand, her dorm bed would be much less comfortable than the empty apartment, and Darla could handle any teasing she got, so it might well be that.
Amy, meanwhile, was Amy. I strongly suspected sex was on the table, too, and it would likely be at our house. Her dorm bed had the same issue, and she was increasingly comfortable with the girls as well.
We had no plans for any specific activities. Both might simply be dinner and bed. Or they might be dinner, a movie, and bed. In both cases, the bar was higher on the dinner portion of the evening because they counted as Valentine’s dinners, not merely ‘dinner and conversation.’
I decided to take Amy to Jose’s. I needed to take Darla there, too, but not this week. As much fun as it was to mess with people by dating two girls back-to-back at the same restaurant ... not this week.
The plan for Darla wound up being a steakhouse I’d never been to. It was located near the mall and had good reviews. It was pricey, but ... Dell money. That, and Darla deserved the occasional expensive date, especially for Valentine’s.
Jas and Monique were going to The Grapevine (Jas’s treat, this time) on Thursday, then back to the house. That seemed good, and I was glad they got to have a Valentine’s date as well.
As for Jas’s birthday, we would celebrate at home, certainly, but dinner would be the six of us. Her birthday was a celebration for everyone, not just the two of us. With that in mind, we decided it was fine for me to go to Jose’s twice in a week after all. I would be with Jas, but it wasn’t necessarily going to be a date. Besides, Jas wanted to go there. That settled things.
Sadly, we would miss one celebration. They were holding another ‘Big Kiss’ event, but it was on Friday night and we would already be in Houston. We weren’t giving up a Brennerman’s dinner to do another charity event, not even for the possibility of another yearbook photo. We all doubted they would repeat it, anyway. Been there, done that!
I had a message waiting from Michael when I got home. It turned out he had a very interesting update, though nothing necessitating a rapid drive to Austin.
“Hey!” he said, when I got him on the phone. “Good to hear your voice!”
“Good to hear yours, too!”
“You will never guess whose voice I heard earlier today.”
“Um ... Ronald Reagan,” I said.
“Nah. That’s you!”
“I’ve been in a room with him, anyway,” I said, chuckling. Not a lie, but it sounded like something other than what it was.
“So...” he said, then paused for a few seconds. When he continued, he said, “This whole thing is hush-hush. I can tell you because you’re on the board, and that’s really the only reason I can.”
“Very intriguing!”
“Bill Gates,” he said.
“The man himself! Offering you a buy-in on the IPO?”
He chuckled and said, “No, but ... actually, yes, too. That’s not why he called, but he did. And he extended that to anyone on the board. So ... you. I have no information, but I’ll get it to you as soon as I have it.”
That was a ‘Holy Shit!’ moment all by itself. Angie was going to explode in the best of ways! The IPO was only a month away or so, and she had been plotting ways to buy in as quickly as possible.
“That’s awesome news itself, but obviously there’s more.”
“So...” he said. “This is the truly hush-hush part. Bill — he told me to call him Bill! — is worried that IBM is seriously dropping the ball on the 386. Others, too, but IBM is the one he’s most upset with. Microsoft has software they want to bring out that will showcase the 386. His feeling is that IBM, and maybe others, think Intel won’t make their schedule. That’s not unreasonable. Engineering samples of the chip were supposed to be ready months ago, but something went wrong and they’re just about to deliver them now. Apparently the design churned, too, making a bunch of IBM’s preliminary work invalid. IBM is pitching a fit and saying it won’t be out until late 1987. Their process is glacial under the best of situations as it is, so that’s not a surprise.”
He took a breath, then continued, saying, “Anyway, Bill is convinced Intel’s got it now. He wants us to get a 386 box out this year if we can, or as early as possible otherwise. It’s high-risk, high-reward. He’s got enough leverage to move us to the top of Intel’s samples distribution and get us connected to their engineers. If the thing blows smoke, though, we look bad even if Intel also looks bad. On the other hand, we would get discounts from Intel and discounts on DOS licenses and Microsoft software bundles, which is a huge competitive advantage.”
That was also a ‘Holy Shit!’ moment, albeit differently. I was fairly sure Compaq had been the first to market with a 386 box in my first life. That might have been Bill Gates’ doing, too, though I had no idea if it was.
“You don’t have to tell me you’re going for it. I can hear it,” I said, chuckling.
“You’re good!” he said. “Yeah. Unless you balked, that’s my take on it. Too much reward. If the chip sucks, we’re mostly covered. They can’t expect us to ship with a failing processor. But, if the chip works and we get out there first, it’s a major step. We go from being a copycat to an innovator in one fell swoop.”
“I’m not balking. You’re right. High risk, but way too much reward. It’s not just the short-term rewards, either, which I know are huge themselves.”
“Definitely. Even ‘Hell, yes!’ Do Bill Gates a favor? We’re inextricably tied to Microsoft for a long time, I think. Even little concessions on licenses are huge. And, if we’re successful with the 386, that maybe moves us up on the 486 and on down the line.”
“I’m officially signing off, just so it’s clear,” I said.
“I appreciate that!”
“What’s the game plan?”
He chuckled a bit, then said, “I’m calling Bill back in an hour and a bit and saying yes. I promised him a call at four Pacific. The engineering team is already figuring out who they can spare, reassign, loan, or anything else. If we have to hire, we hire. This is worth quite a few more people, especially since we were trending that way, anyway. Meaning, we need more people who can take a project from zero to a tested, production-ready board design. A lot more! This is probably at least a hundred-person effort. We’re honestly not sized up enough to handle it, but ... high risk, high reward. The good part is, some of my guys think we can make it easier by leveraging some work we did a while back. It’s not like they haven’t known 32-bit chips were coming. There’s some clever stuff in our 286 memory architecture that should make it easier to scale. We’ll see.”
“Loans?”
“If we can. That, or possibly a small funding round. We kicked around some numbers and ... honestly, it’s hilarious. Selling just five percent now could net five to ten million, maybe more. A far cry from just two years ago, but that initial investment is why we’re where we are now. No regrets at all — that made a huge difference.”
“Glad of that! I don’t like regrets,” I said.
“Regrets are the worst, I agree. That’s partly why we’re doing this. I might regret jumping in, maybe, but I’ll endlessly regret not jumping in if I don’t.”
“I totally see that.”
“Okay! I have three short meetings before the call. Lighting fires under everyone!”
“Go, go, go!”
He chuckled and said, “Talk to you soon!”
“Definitely!”
This warranted a meeting, so I grabbed Jas, Angie, and Paige and we took over the bedroom.
The first thing I did, of course, was swear them all to silence. This was a group I trusted with my life, so that was easy.
As predicted, Angie literally jumped up and down, then hugged everyone, when she heard about the IPO. She wanted us to buy as much as they would let us buy, right up to our available cash. Her guess was that it would roughly double within the calendar year and do much better than that before we sold off part of our holdings before Black Monday.
They agreed on the 386 move, too. Both Angie and I were convinced that P.C.’s Limited being involved was a divergence. We both thought the timing was screwy, too. A phone call to Laura confirmed that. She was certain there had been a 386 machine on the market from IBM in late 1986 in her first life, but she was also certain they had working prototypes in late 1985. They had shown one at some trade show not too far into 1986.
So: another mystery. One we might never solve, and it really didn’t matter. Only this universe really mattered. This could be absolutely huge for P.C.’s Limited.
I hoped Michael didn’t have to do a funding round yet. Most likely, he wouldn’t. Our back-of-the-envelope calculations said P.C.’s Limited could easily do two to three times better in late 1987 than they could now, assuming no major slowdown in the growth rate. As much as our piece of the pie was purchased at an insane discount relative to today, any sales now would also be at a significant discount. I wanted Michael to get as much value for his equity as possible. Plus, a funding round would be a huge distraction for him (and, probably, for me), and he couldn’t afford to be distracted right now. The 386 project was going to keep him very busy, and I imagined that was true even if he hired a president in the middle of it.
Jess called right around dinnertime. Her news wasn’t unexpected, but it was also very good. She was indeed coming back for a third ‘St. Elsewhere’ episode. It wasn’t going to air until April, probably, and not film until sometime in March, or even April, but the writers were talking to her now. She didn’t say it, but I got the feeling they had decided she could be counted on to know her character and have a ‘voice’ in mind.
Her agent had apparently gotten ‘rumblings’ of other things. That was it. There was nothing concrete enough to share with Jess, so she had nothing more to share with us.
We chatted for a bit, after which she demanded to have girl talk time with Jas. I had a feeling that meant a lot of information about me was going to get shared.
I had been busy, so that was probably entirely fair.
Nothing was said about P.C.’s Limited. That still felt like ‘just us’ information. We would certainly do our best to make sure Jess kept pace with us financially, though.
I planned out my date with Darla in the early evening. Not only was it Valentine’s for her, it was undoubtedly the biggest Valentine’s date of her life to date, since I was nearly certain none of the others involved anyone she would have said ‘I love you’ to.
With some consultation from Jas, I decided on a red satin shirt and black pants, socks, and shoes. My new gold chain worked with the outfit (though Jas reminded me to leave a button or two more open than I normally would), and my new hat suited it as well.
The chain wasn’t going to be part of my usual look, but it certainly worked for this date. The hat? It might.
After that, I went out shopping, buying flowers, a medium-sized box of chocolates (Darla had nothing to worry about from a few extra calories, and I suspected Louise would get some of them, anyway), and a card. It took me some time, but I found a card that featured a cartoon wolf with the sort of extending eyes one sees in animation ogling a pretty girl.
As long as I was out, I also purchased chocolates for Amy and Jas and slighter smaller boxes for Angie and Paige. They would all share chocolates, anyway. I also found a birthday card for Jas and Valentine’s cards for all three. While I was at it, I bought Jas’s birthday flowers. The flowers for Amy, Darla, Angie, and Paige would wait, though. Wouldn’t want them wilting too soon!
I also checked the PO Box. As I’d hoped, the Mickey Mouse earrings had arrived. I took them home and stashed them while no one was looking in a place I was virtually certain Jas would never check. If she did, she would pretend to be surprised by them, anyway. It was hardly as big a thing as hiding all that cash in the house and having Angie find it. That had worked out well in the end, but not before a serious misunderstanding that might have screwed everything up.
This hadn’t been planned as an Angie night, but the Dell update changed that. Everyone agreed: tonight should be the two of us. It wasn’t as if Jas and I wouldn’t have a couple of very quality evenings this week, after all!
Angie hugged and kissed me once we were alone.
“This is ... I’m still just...” she said, bouncing a bit.
“Calm down, Sis,” I said, chuckling a bit.
“Nah! It’s ... there’s a lot. It’s almost in the ‘All is for the best’ category. If I hadn’t done the research and decided Compaq was weaker in this universe, I would be seriously second-guessing a lot of things. And even then, there’s a certain amount. Like ... is Compaq weaker so this would happen? Are we dealing with a universe that’s meddling in the big-picture stuff to our benefit?”
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