Chapter 4: Giving Sam the Company Sam Needs

Sam and I spent the rest of the day setting her up in her new CEO life. Spending time with her built her appreciation for me, plus I had a front row seat for her decisions, to keep her on track. Honestly I was not 100% sure of her when the day started, it had been awhile since we last worked together. But in the end, after the last shower with benefits, we were both happy, so it paid off.

Yesterday, before going to the law office, she arranged short-term coverage for the on-site tech support, using some of the better folks she knew from the previous firm who knew the system and she could trust to actually take care of things. She would have to recruit more, but for now she had the next 48 hours covered with about 8 good people who were happy to work for a merit-based firm, instead of one where the comedians took working hours until something better came along.

Before staying at the hotel last night Sam was sleeping on a mattress in a hacker co-op, a crash-pad in a 3-bedroom house with 20 nerds and no internal doors. Nobody had a room, each had their computer, a bedroll and a box for stuff. The AC droned ineffectively 24/7, but sleep - which was usually in the heat of the day - was difficult. She slept nude and naturally was tempting to the nerds who drank caffeine, watched porn and played video games constantly until they fell over.

Nerds succumbed to temptation. Almost every day she found herself waking in the middle of her sleep when some skinny nob was halfway through using her naked body for quick release so he could get some sleep after the climax endorphins flooded his over-caffeinated body. Mother Nature made sure the guys got sleep. She always slept naked because of the heat, and because it would happen and the alternative was having the nerd klutz rip her panties.

The good news was nerds would not stick their fun prong into a sloppy hole, so even with all the guys around one rape per sleep was the usual limit. Since Sam was the only female regular in the place she usually responded with a dirty look and tried to jill herself back to sleep herself before the guy finished his quick-as-a-bunny fucking business.

The bastards never did it for her, and she frequently broadcast the inadequacy to everybody in earshot while she took care of business and finished what they started. Usually several nobs watched her while jerking themselves, but she never minded that. Plus it was not like she could avoid it, even the bathrooms had no doors, and she really lived on the house’s stolen ultra-fast internet connection.

They did not call what they did to her rape because that was too much hassle for no real good; she accepted the male biological drive as part of her basic lifestyle, like the lack of proper AC. It was a regression to pre-historic times caused by poverty. At least the nerds were quick and didn’t hurt. Plus she appreciated being the only girl most of them ever knew.

The occupants of the co-op were not really friends but when you were living on an expensive stolen internet connection you lived by different rules. A week after any such encounter she might have a need to steal the rapist-nerd’s code-work or his games or his car. If the car broke down on the Gardena freeway at rush hour they were both out of luck.

Her regular wheels was a really old Vespa that pleaded “kill me” every time she started it. It topped out at about 50 MPH so driving on expressways were kind of a double-dare thing - she made great time buzzing by stopped cars when the expressways were more like parking lots - as long as nobody opened a door suddenly - but when they were moving she was risking her butt. The poor thing kept starting, it was its nature and its fate. The Vespa would never be stolen, if she left it someplace LAPD would track her down (recall: cop boyfriend for her mom, who was the registered owner) and give it back, charging Sam more than it was worth for the tow. It was just lucky that way.

Everything she wore yesterday she purchased using cash I gave her. She wondered if the car she “borrowed” made it back to the co-op and the car’s owner, whoever that was. She left the car on the street near the Blank hotel. The only spot was in a no-parking zone so she was sure it would be cared for and the owner notified. Eventually.

Now she had $100,000 plus interest (more every day) in the bank. Even if life was a video game the shock of that much money was dangerous so I had to help her with it. Lunch would be on her dime.

(Yes, I also had bucks in the bank, my share of the contracts was 20% bigger than hers. But to be honest, she did not care about such things, because her life was a video game - she played the deluxe “LA with feelings” edition.)

Our first stop when we left the Blank was a location for both her home and office. I helped her pick an office suite at the same industrial complex as the Batcave - she might as well be close and it was a good secure central location with real AC. The upper-floor suite we chose was laid out so she could live there, which was likely given the hours she and her hand-picked gaggle of minions would work. Her door had a lock, not that it really mattered to her hacker-folk. There was also a large crash room with a shower for her minions. People would effectively live there, daily showers would be required. There were a few extra rooms for storage, and the suite could expand next door. She checked a junction box with her laptop, the connection was fast enough plus she could hack into the security cameras; heck, the landlord might become a client.

She spent a half hour ordering furniture for the suite, they had a service and the lease rates were good, especially since we did not know how long she would be here. After all I employed Sam so I could steal $50 million from the law firm as soon as I could. The computer security firm might get caught in the blowback. Plus I still had to pick a fall guy, and how I was going to do it.

Since she was near the Batcave I also gave her the number of my indian (Brisk) who was housed there. His crib was about 100 yards away.

“One of Marta’s wonderful sexy indians!” she said with a smile. She had a LOT of good memories. “Can I call if I need ... well ... special nighttime help?”

I should have expected that. “Yes - but try to limit that. You don’t know him, he is younger but he can help with security ... like a nerd rebellion. But keep in mind, a decade ago they were Marta’s indians, now they belong to me. His job is to be at my service 24/7, and these folks get rotated in and out. He is not your nightly bedroom service.”

Samantha was suddenly very happy with one of the extra features in her new home. As CEO she made an executive decision and ordered herself a bigger bed.

I did have two firm rules: 1) nobody from the law firm was to know the location of her office, and 2) she would NEVER try to find where ANY indian lived. That included Brisk, he had standing permission to kill any nerd he caught. He also knew all the camera blind spots. She was okay with those rules.

Next we set out to buy her clothes, she had to shop like she had money, but do it quickly. No surprise, she knew a place. Here is where the bonus maple syrup-flavored attitude adjustment in the shower paid off, she did what I said on time and was okay with it. Her objective was to impress both the lawyers and the geeks who worked for her. That required a fine-tuned style. The geeks were more important, she had to look sharp but unattainable, so they would work late just to get another look at her in her soft PJs. (She planned to do a evening walk-through in a soft onesie-type with bunny-slippers after hours to inspire the troops to stay extra hours.) Shopping with a woman usually took too much time, but I have to admit Sam worked fast and pulled it off, getting her first week’s worth of threads in less than two hours.

We saved time because she did not need frilly underwear - since she was a teenager she went commando down below. Bras were a different subject, each one took real time but for now she could make do with the tried and true inventory she had.

After getting her new clothes we went to the crashpad/hacker co-op and got her stuff - three backpacks, including one that was filled to the brim with sex toys, plus her desktop computer. That was a liquid-cooled monster she built. The power supply alone weighed 50 pounds. I loaded that monster first, it was heavy and awkward so I heated up. I was hot enough that I pulled off my shirt.

When we walked back in, one of the nerds from the skinny, pale-skinned herd worked up the guts to insist to me, in his high-strung voice, that the house was a “No Weapons Zone.” I was wearing my Glock 20 in a shoulder rig for all to see, over a muscle tee. I gave him a look and he scurried off to find the “CPU of the House” who seemed to be drunk and sleeping.

I got more stuff loaded in the truck before the “dreaded CPU” was roused from his stupor. He may also have beat the nerd on general principles - he had my permission.

The bruised nerd returned followed by this large, overweight troll who seemed to have inherited the house. He was sort of a overweight bearded Cyber-Fagin, Cali-style, wearing a faded rock t-shirt (Kinks + Blondie ‘76, he looked like he was there) and ripped surf shorts. He took one look at me, my muscles were pumped from hefting the damn big computer, and put his hands up in the classic “don’t want no trouble here” position.

“Chief, are you taking the girl? That’s cool, whatever you like. Maybe there are some things the others have borrowed from her, you can go through their stuff if you want.” I shifted to look at the guy who complained. Troll took the hint. “Okay Wiretop, you are expelled for 5 days. How dare you bother the Chief here? Pack up!”

The herd of pale-skinned nerds complained. First they whined about how the house was a “No Weapon Zone.”

The Boss answered. “That rule applies to nobs, not a Chief like this who knows one end of a gun from the other, and was only likely to shoot his cannon ... damn me, that is a big gun ... at what he was aiming for. If this fine gentleman came in with a mini-gun and a naked bat’leth it is fine with me. But you nobs? I hear how you talk smack when you are gaming. If I let you have real weapons, like real butter knives, I’d have to clean up a lot of blood around here.”

Okay, I admit to being the only one in the room who didn’t know what a “bat’leth” was, and why it being naked had to be mentioned. I don’t speak Klingon. They all did. Sam giggled at my expression when she showed me a picture of the weapon on the computer later. Think of the bastard child of a quarter-staff and a sword, with lots of extra sharps added.

Next they complained that I was taking the only woman, and she might not be willing.