Chapter 53

The next morning I got up and decided to run down to the doughnut shop and picked up a dozen. Thankfully I had started the coffee before I left, and found Sue and Amber talking over cups when I returned. A few minutes later Rob came out and we all were and drank coffee and discussed the weekend.

They all thanked me for bringing them with me, and I waved it off. “I’m just glad you both came along Rob. You did a great job last night, and now Brad has tapes of a game where the group wins, and the group loses. And now Steve Jackson has a tape he can put together like the ones I used for Brad, which might help him sell even more GURPS games.”

“And get you more royalties,” Sue said. I smiled and raised my coffee cup at her and said that was not a bad thing either. “I just wish I could do a full exhibition of Yellow Journalism like I could the D&D games I make. But those are almost all really complex, and require more than a single session to play. Heck, I have had to resort to putting an encyclopedia on the table in order for you all to actually look up a lot of the clues you had picked up.”

Amber of course asked what that was, and I shrugged and asked her if she would be interested in playing that game seriously in the future. When she said she thought it was fun, role-playing games really did not interest her so probably not.

“Well, by the end of the second week, they had all of the clues needed to solve the case. But the next three weeks was mostly them mucking around, going over clues over and over again and chasing down dead ends. In short, they knew of a smuggling operation, and that diamonds were involved. But all they were finding were pearls inside of clams. Valuable of course, but nowhere near as valuable as diamonds were. And what was really throwing them for a loop was they were oyster pearls, and they could not figure out how or why they were being smuggled inside of clams. And there they were stuck. They knew about the pearls, and that one of the bodies they discovered smelled strongly of vinegar.”

Amber looked at me with an obvious question, and Sue giggled. “Yeah, the thing is though that between games they had a week to actually do research to figure out the connection. Finally, I left an encyclopedia on the game table at work, and Julie looked in it and read up on the clues. You see, pearls are made up of almost pure calcium carbonate. And vinegar is a mild acid. Right after we started play the next week, she took one of the pearls they had got in the first night of play and dropped it in a glass of vinegar. That ate away the pearl, leaving behind a perfect diamond that had been in the center.”

Amber gasped, and Rob nodded. “I got that, but only because my older sister works at a jewelry store and told me that once. But yeah, most people would never have got that. That’s really clever, Pete.”

“Thank you. And it is the same with another case. They were stuck trying to figure out how heroin was being smuggled into the country. This was set about 20 years ago during the Vietnam war in Delaware ... Finally, somebody looked up the nearby Air Force Base in the encyclopedia and realized it was where all those who were killed in Vietnam were sent back to the US. The smack was smuggled unknowingly by the Air Force, inside of bodies of those killed. I even added notes to those that run the game encouraging them to have a simple encyclopedia nearby, and encouraging players to use them.”

“Yeah, I can see that now. I am not even sure what the military bases near us actually do.”

“Oh, that’s simple. Edwards is the test center for the Air Force. Long Beach repairs ships. El Toro is a Marine Air Base, Tustin is a Marine Helicopter Base, and Camp Pendleton is a Marine Infantry Base. 29 Palms and Fort Irwin are bases for training units in desert warfare. In that one, it was Dover Air Force Base. It is primarily a transport base, but also is the home of the mortuary for all branches. If a military person is ever killed overseas, they are sent there and prepared before they are sent home for their funeral.”

I told Rob to take the last of the doughnuts, and Amber and I went in and packed everything up. Amber and I decided to head off, and with hugs we went ahead and headed down and took off. It was a relaxing drive home, and Amber gave me a soft kiss when I dropped her off at home.

The next week Jeff called, and said they had their first big contract, two thousand units! Holy crap, Gem was finally taking off. I sat in my office with Sue, and with Jeff, Kim, and Dee on a conference call we went over sales figures. They were running out of used computers already, and since I had just taken possession of another thousand from another defense company I said I would run them up there. I then wrote out a memo, and it seemed like at least the delivery of the two thousand Gem units would be spread out enough that we should be able to make the deadlines.

I then called Blake into the office, and told him to run over and swap trucks. He looked at me, and I laughed. “We have a loading dock here, and I am taking those five pallets to Idaho this weekend. Most places we deliver to and from now have loading docks, so why not use the truck with the ramp here, and let them use the lift one?” He said that made a lot of sense, and was soon off to the other store.

I made a few calls, and had other things arranged for the next week. Part of that was sadly canceling a date I had planned with Heather, but she said she understood. And early Thursday morning I was back on the road again. I was getting sick of this drive, but it had to be done on occasion.

Around 13 hours later I pulled up behind the shop, and as I was backing in as the loading door opened. Harry helped guide me in, and once I had stopped we shook hands as I handed him the key for the lock. And soon the plate between the back of the truck and the loading dock was in place, and they were rolling out the pallets. I handed Jeff the inventory and invoice, and he showed me around the back.

A lot of changes, including a series of long benches along one wall. That was the testing area, and had about fifteen systems on it. Apparently, some of the customers had specific hardware requests, so he was testing various combinations of hardware to make sure there were no problems. And once we locked up the back and I greeted everybody, Dee said she would gave me a ride home.

I saw the new sign for Hainji Net, and it looked great. A light brown background, and all of the lines and lettering was in the same dark blue as the cases were. I got back out of the car and walked over to it, as George ran alongside me and Dee followed. I looked it over, and it looked amazing. I could even see all the details in the fletching on the arrows, and that the edges were jagged where it was broken.

“Wow, this looks amazing! Kim did an excellent job, Dee.”

“Oh Pete, Kim did not make this. Her hand is nowhere near that good. I got ahold of somebody else and had them do this final version. But you’re right, it looks amazing.”

“Well, thank them for me, I am impressed. This looks even better than I ever imagined. We should get them to do more work for us if needed.” Dee smiled as she nodded, and agreed. I had dinner with them that night and read to George until he fell asleep.

I had poured myself a glass of whiskey and was sitting on the back porch with a cigar when I heard a knock on the front. I called out where I was, and a minute later saw Kim come around the corner to the back. I started to stand, but she waved at me to sit again, then climbed into my lap.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and kissed her cheek, and asked her how she was doing. Apparently things were going pretty good, and she was even pregnant again. I laughed and kissed her softly, and said I was happy for her. “So what, you trying to restart the Littlebuck line all by yourself, sis?” She laughed and smacked my chest, and said that this time it was not planned at all, it had just happened.

“Kim, we both know something like this does not just happen. Something had to have happened, or you would not be pregnant.”

“Bastard!” she giggled. “No, we have been using the rhythm method for the last year, but it is not perfect after all. And yes, we were thinking of having another, but I was at least hoping to have both of them out of diapers before having another kid.”

“Well, I guess this is kind of fast. At least you already have one of each, so this one is going to be the tiebreaker to see if men or women dominate the house.” We talked a bit more, then she even surprised me by taking the tiniest of sips from my glass, then shuddering. “How can you drink that stuff? It tastes like medicine!”

“Hmm, I like it. Of course, I do not drink all that much, this is the first I have had in over a week. But I need to sleep early and this will help.” We talked a bit more, and she filled me in on what Lisa and Jackie had been up to. Seems Lisa did indeed have a boyfriend now, and he was a teacher at her school. The sales had been amazingly strong, and some of the systems were being bought by a guy that had a computer store in Salt Lake.

“He comes up in a pickup about twice a month, and leaves with a bunch that he sells at his shop. I’m not sure how much he makes, but it must be enough for him to make it worth his while to come up that often.”

I told her to give him a call, and offer him a discount if he buys them in bulk. “Just tell him I can deliver a pallet of fifty or more. Tested but unloaded for a discount. That would take some work off of us, and Salt Lake is on the way for me so it is not a problem.”

Soon we hugged goodnight and she headed on home as I went inside and checked my mail before crawling into bed. The next morning after breakfast with Kim and Jeff we loaded up the kids and headed into the shop. I went ahead and said goodbye to everybody, and as the truck was warming up Jeff admitted that Harry had been doing great work. Now that I was seeing everything in the daylight with everybody in, I saw five others in the back assembling and testing systems, and Jeff said Harry was basically running that team.

“You know, he is much less of an asshole than he used to be. And if you look, he has even been losing weight lately. And I have heard he is not going to the bar as much either. I think this is something he needed.”

“I imagine he had just gotten so set in his ways, that so long as he made enough to get by he was happy. How’s the office in town going?”

“Oh, Kim and Dee love it. It has taken a lot of the load off of them out here. Most people for signing up or paying go there now, and Harry appreciated the rent also I think.” The truck was warmed up, so I gave Jeff a hug and headed off.

I made a few calls when I was outside of San Francisco, and when I pulled up at the Holiday Inn two gals were waiting for me. I hugged and kissed both Mandy and Sakura, and they waited in the lobby as I got checked in and went upstairs to change. I asked Mandy where her boyfriend was when I got back. “Oh, he said he did not want to come. I imagine he’s staying at home and watching ESPN or something. I said I was seeing some friends and he begged off going.”

We got into her boyfriend’s car, and I sat in the back as the gals talked in front. They both agreed on a place, and I was surprised that it was one I had actually heard of. “Wait, this is a real place? I thought it was just made for the Visa TV commercial.”

Both gals laughed, and Mandy assured me it was real. “The Fog City Diner is a real place, and the commercial has been great for them. And yes, they still do not take American Express.” We all laughed and went inside.

Well, it looked like a 1930’s diner, but the food was not. All upscale stuff, like a salmon sandwich and goat cheese pizza. I settled on a burger, and Mandy got mussels and Saki a Caesar Salad. It was good, but rather pricey, at $10 for a burger. But at least it was really good, and not pretentious like the last place Mandy had taken me. We all had a good time, and we went for a walk along the wharf after eating. I saw that the freeway I had driven over my first trip up here was being demolished, and Saki said it was badly damaged in the earthquake.

“And the people that live in those apartments are loving it. Most of them got cheap rent because they overlooked the freeway. Now the landlords are complaining because they suddenly are all getting million dollar views at cheap prices agreed on before the earthquake.” I laughed, and said I did not have much sympathy.

We hit a little dive bar, and I did some dancing with each of them. Mandy as always felt great in my arms, and she seemed content. “Work is going good, but they are talking about another round of cuts soon. The economy up here really sucks now.”

“Yeah, it’s bad in LA also. I see a lot of places closing up, and I have gone back to buying out other stores because I can not pass up the deals. But I have a feeling one in three computer stores is going to be gone next year if this continues.”

“How about your other business Pete?”

“Oh, that’s still increasing. Thankfully that is rather low overhead. Mostly just power and phone lines. And I can expand or contract it if I need to. But we keep growing, which is good. I am now thinking of moving the call center up to Idaho. I will keep a few in LA, but the costs and payroll will be cheaper in Idaho.”

When the song ended we went back outside, and Mandy drove us to my hotel. I kissed Saki and asked if she could wait in my room so Mandy and I could talk, and she smiled and said no problem. The two of them shared a hug, and Saki took my key and headed inside.

I told Mandy about meeting her sister a few weeks before, and she smiled. “Linda already told me Pete, I’m glad the two of you seem to have finally made peace with each other. I know I have. None of us should have let it get so bad. Pete, she actually cringed when I saw her again, like she was a battered puppy and I was going to beat her. I cried, seeing her like that.”

“Well, she looks a lot better now. Still thin, but healthier than when I saw her the last time. And you know those office clusters I work on? She works for the owner of them. And apparently doing good also, for the first in a long time.”

She told me a little about what she knew, but I knew it was not everything and knew not to pry. I also got her to promise to give me a call next time she came to LA, and she said she would. And after a hug and soft kiss I got out and watched her drive off.

When I got into the room, I smiled when I saw Saki was already in bed, and in a green nightshirt. I stripped to my underwear, and we kissed for a bit before she gently pushed me away. “Pete, we need to talk for a bit. OK?”

I told her of course it was, and she sighed. And well, turns out what we had shared was over. She had started dating a guy she met at the club about two weeks before, and she felt I deserved to be told in person instead of on the phone. I smiled and hugged her tight, and said I was happy for her.

“Sakura, we both knew this was not any kind of permanent arrangement. And I am honestly happy for you. I just hope he is good to you.”

“Oh, he is. My parents are not real sure of him because he is of Korean descent, but I like him a lot, and his family seems to have an even bigger issue with my background.” We both laughed softly and talked about how silly it was to hold grudges with people because of things that happened decades before we were even born.

We kissed lightly for a few more minutes, and she rested her head on my shoulder and lightly caressed my chest as we talked. It was nice, and we both admitted we would miss each other. She also said that her new boyfriend knew about me, and about her being there with me that night. I looked at her and raised my eyebrow, and she smiled. “He trusts me. I admitted I would kiss you a little bit and cuddle with you tonight as we slept, but that would be all. And he said he accepts that, and that I would tell him if things ever went farther. And that in the near future he could meet you.” Then still holding each other we fell asleep, after promising to keep in contact and that I would like to meet him.

Right before we left the room she pushed me against the wall and gave me a long and deep, but tender kiss. “Thank you Pete, for understanding and still wanting to be my friend.”

I ran my fingers through her long black hair and smiled. “Sakura Nakamura, I care for you as a person and as my friend. Not just because of what we share when we are in bed. You have met Mandy, we were friends, then lovers, and are now friends again. I admit I will miss what we shared, but I will also treasure our friendship. I am blessed in that almost all of my past lovers are still my friends, and know that you can call on me anytime. And maybe next time I can talk you into finding me a date and we can do a double with you and your boyfriend.”

She giggled and slapped my shoulder, calling me an asshole. Then after a small kiss, she turned and started to walk away. I admired her bottom for a moment as she did so, then she stopped and I quickly raised my eyes as I saw she was turning back to face me again. “I think I can do that actually, baby. Tell me, do you like Philippinas? Because there is one that works at the club, and she is constantly complaining that most guys treat her like a child or a toy. I really think you two would like each other, and she is really tight.” And after blowing me a kiss she turned and walked away.

Then I drove to my usual places in Silicon Valley, and one of the things that surprised me was that one of the places had 3 cases of Geos, for PC! Now it was a graphic operating system I was familiar with, having had it for my Commodore 64. But these would work on even an XT, and the price was cheap. I snagged all three boxes, 300 copies. And at the price, I knew just what to do with them.

Once we got everything unloaded the next morning, I showed the boxes to Blake and told him my idea. He grinned as I pointed to the pallet of XT and 286 systems. “OK, when you get all of those cleaned, put Geos on them. Include 9600 modems, and I will take them up to Idaho with me. Those are a bit low for here anymore, but I bet they will sell good up there. Now tell me about how things went this weekend.”

When October rolled around, it seems like my life had gone back to how it was before. I was sitting at home having a drink after I had finished loading up my bag for the trip to Idaho. Pat was seeing a guy she worked with, Heather was seeing somebody, even Amber had another girlfriend finally. We never did move any farther than we had. But she admitted that at least she had decided that while she was indeed a lesbian, she would not reject the right guy if she ever met him. “I doubt I would ever actually get married to a guy or anything, but at least I will not completely shut out the possibility.”

I asked her a few gentle questions, and she admitted that a lot of it was because of me. “You taught me that unlike I had thought about things before, being with a guy can be like being with a girl, and not all about sex. You are the first guy that treated me as if I matter, and what I want matters. I am not going to go out looking for a guy I don’t think, but at least I am open to the chance that something may happen in the future. Or it may not, and what we shared will be a unique for me. Take this as a compliment, you were amazing Pete.”

I drove to work early the next morning, and got in the truck and drove north. I stopped in Salt Lake City at around 5 and found the shop, and the guy there shook my hand and we unloaded fifty systems and he handed me a check. These were mostly XT systems I had gotten from stores in the LA area, and he seemed happy to have them. I finished the drive and parked the truck at the loading dock and went inside, Dee and George were the last ones there, and she dropped me at my house.

I saw the Scout was already parked in front, and the keys were on the table. I nuked some frozen food from the freezer, and found something mindless to watch on TV. The next morning I drove to the shop and saw that they had already unloaded the truck, and Jeff, Harry, and Morgan were looking over one of the XT systems they had pulled off of the pallet.

“Pete, this is actually pretty impressive!” Harry said. “I never would have believed an XT could run a graphical operating system this quickly. This is almost as fast as Windows on one of the 486 systems.”

“Well, one thing about Geos, they are experienced in making them run with little hardware. This is the same company that did it on the Commodore 64 and Apple II, and I admit I was impressed myself. And it even has a word processor.”

Harry nodded and said “I’m thinking we load them with software and sell them as beginner systems. Fully configured, I bet we can sell them fast. Can you get any more of the software?”

I shrugged and said this was a special deal from a wholesaler. “But feel free to call the company, they are in the Bay area. Maybe you can make a deal.”

We went upstairs after I met all the new staff, and I saw they had setup a conference room up there. They gave me a rundown of their figures, and they impressed even me. Over five hundred systems a month on average, and the Web network system was being sold with most of the small office packages they had sold.

“Pete, that was a good find,” Morgan told me. “This lets us sell three to five system networks, and we can configure them before they even leave the shop. We include a five port hub, all they need are the patch cables and to follow the one page installation sheet we send with all the other hardware. So far we have only had a few calls, but so far they all love it.”

We then went over the stats for the tests they had been doing on the 486-50 processors, and Morgan shook his head. “They are really fast Pete, but kinda tricky. I’m not all that sure about the stability of them, to be honest. They said they are working on a firmware update for the motherboards that may fix that, but I think we need to hold off a bit more.”

I told him my results were the same back in LA, but only for the system side. “Go ahead and test them on those servers we were planning on releasing. Those are more basic, I have heard a lot of the problems are on the video side. I know the ones I test when we add in VESA video cards and others get unstable. I think because the bus is working at 50 MHz instead of the more standard 33 MHz. Tape those ports off, sell them as servers, and I bet they should be fine.”

Harry then pulled out a datasheet and laid it on the table. “I got this from a guy I know on USENET. It’s not official, but he said it’s good information. According to this, they have a new line coming out next year called the DX2. The first two will be 50 and 66 MHz, but they are internally doubled. In other words, the 50 will be a 50 MHz internal chip, but uses a 25 MHz bus. The 66 will be the same, 66 MHz internal with a 33 MHz bus. All I can get out is the first half of next year.”

I whistled and looked through the stats. Well, the doubling would make the DX2-50 a little slower than the DX-50, but it would also be a lot more stable. We had already figured that a lot of the instability was pushing the bus past 33 MHz, and this would solve that.

“OK, how many of the 50 MHz processors do you have?” Jeff told me they had 100, and I nodded. “Prep those all for servers then, and hold off on buying any more. If anybody else asks, say we will sell them for servers, but do not recommend them for general systems other than that. But if they want faster systems, to wait until next year. Admit to the stability issue, and say we would rather sell slower and stable systems over fast and unstable ones. But for use in servers without an improved video card they do seem to be rock stable.”

I walked through all the offices with Dee, and saw that there were five people in the tech support office now. They were all young, one even looked to be barely out of high school. And we were walking back along the back way when one of the guys from the warehouse was rolling a cart with five of the XT systems on it. I went with him to the store part, and showed them the Geos program. They liked them, and we put a price on them and Dee asked for one for her area.

We went and I helped her clear space on the front table, and she made up a sign offering it free with one year service. She then told the kid to load up five and take them to the office downtown. He nodded and headed off. I told her that was a good idea, and would help move them faster.

“It seems giving people a free computer, even if it’s an old one that is almost junk is good for business. A lot of the people who have gotten them simply give them to their kids. And you’re right, there is still a market up here for these older systems. Can you get more?”

“Yep, I’m buying out one or two stores on average a month now, and am selling fixtures out of the data center I have so many. A lot of places in LA are closing up now Dee. I admit, it’s making me a bit nervous.”

“Well, you diversified early and are not relying on only one thing anymore. I have seen the sheets. Sales are what, 25% of your income now?”

“Well, about 40% of the original store, the rest there is in service. The other part is all service, and it keeps growing. I am maybe seeing a three to five percent drop rate, and almost a ten percent growth rate per month. And I have had four of the BBS systems I run shut down this month, thankfully they were all smaller ones, no more than five lines each. But mine is still going great, and making good money.”

I told her I was thinking of moving the data center up here next year, and she nodded. Kim had joined us and we talked that over a bit. Dee said they would start looking into doing the next phase on the other side of the parking lot. Thankfully there was still enough room for a 2,000 square foot building there, and I said whatever they all decided was fine with me.

“But once that is built, I will probably offer to move any of the staff I have now up here if they want. More than a couple have said they would love to get out of LA, and if I am paying for them to move they would be all for it. Even with a pay cut.”

After lunch I went ahead and drove out to the Casino, and Jackie gave me a hug as soon as she saw me walk in. She then with a grin walked me to the theater, and I saw that Gloria and Roy were already getting set up, and the Crusader Geeks were already going through their set. They all took a break and we exchanged hugs, and I said they had things down pretty well now.

“Well, we have done this enough times by now Pete, we should!” Keith said, and Sharla and Becky both laughed. And I saw one guy that looked familiar, and said “Ricky”? He grinned and shook my hand, and I asked him how he was doing.

Ricky was a guy I went to school with, and I remembered he was also in the band. Seems that through Jackie they had recruited him as a drummer, and he was excited to be playing with them. We all said we would talk later, and I headed on out and over to the convention area. Kent and a bunch of volunteers were setting up tables, and I gave them a hand as we talked about the schedule. It seems like it was going to be a full crowd again this year, even bigger than the year before.

Of course, I made the mistake of hanging around so long that Roy finished setting up the overhead gantry, and Gloria started calling for camera and mic checks. I saw Becky wink at me as I was directed onto the stage, and under Gloria’s directions I was moved all over the stage, with Roy once again putting his tape marks down wherever they wanted me to stop at certain parts.

The band went back to work, and it did sound better with an actual drummer instead of the synths doing that role. It was not quite as predictable, and more natural it seemed. When I heard them practicing “Come and Get Your Love”. I asked Roy if they were doing that again as the intro, and he shook his head.

“We did talk it over with Sharla, but she said without Lolly it would not come off the same way.” I said that was silly, Ricky was not only full Shoshone himself, he was a local. “Yeah, but they think it might be getting close to doing it just because of that. Hold on a sec.” They were just doing a jam for use during play when Roy called out “Hey, can you guys run through Reservation real quick?” Sharla gave a thumb’s-up, and Ricky gave a countdown as he tapped his sticks. And I was not surprised when Keith broke into a great rendition of Paul Revere’s “Indian Nation”. And as I would expect, it sounded great. I went to watch them play, and I could not help watching Becky’s ass as she was bent over her keyboard. And when she bent forward slightly, I found it hard to look away from her hips and ass. At times like this, I wished I did not like her boyfriend, or that I was asshole enough to make a play for one of my friends who was taken. And even though I knew it was over, I had to admit I still wanted her. And as she was uncharacteristically wearing tight jeans instead of her usual skirts or dresses, I was actually finding the sight even more exciting than it should have been.

And there was no way I was getting between her and Taylor. We both knew that we were over as a couple, and she and Taylor really loved each other. I shook my head and quickly made my way out of there. I went back to the main area and talked to Kent, and told him to give me a call if he needed me for anything during the convention. He said he would do just that, and I promised to be by the next morning after it opened.