CHAPTER 12
Jason was feeling refreshed as he walked down the corridor to the new Brandywine offices. The hallway, being commercial space, was undecorated. Most of the space was still empty.
When he got to the office, after a long walk down several passages, it had the Brandywine logo prominently on the walls.
The logo was a simple line drawing in black and white of a winding stream surrounded by trees. A fish was jumping out of the stream while a buck drank from it. Overhead a sketch of an eagle flew by. In the background was one of the stratovolcanoes.
It was a simple graphic but it would scale well, which Jason had learned was important during a brief stint as a graphic designer.
The door to the office dilated and he entered another empty gray room. There were two doors off the front room, one to the right, one to the left on the far wall. Both were open.
“Honey, I’m hoooome!” Jason called.
“Hi, Jason, right?” a brunette said, sticking her head in the front room. “We’re back here exploring.”
“Hi?” Jason said as he walked to the back. Beyond the door there was a cross corridor that opened to both doors. Tim was just stepping into the hall.
“Welcome to our offices,” Tim said.
“I’m Debra,” Debra said, holding out a hand. “Debra Weidman. I go by Deb.”
Deb was a well set up brunette who looked about sixteen.
“Jason Graham,” Jason said. He’d washed off enough that the hand probably didn’t smell like fish or croc. “Should I ask you your favorite song from high school?”
“Heh. I hate to admit it. Mariah Carey, ‘Vision of Love.’”
Jason waggled a finger back and forth and lifted an eyebrow.
“We had a thing going before the Transfer,” Tim said, shrugging.
“Cool,” Jason said. “Boston. ‘More than a Feeling.’ Though it was from a few years earlier.”
“Where’s the food, Log?” Tim asked.
“Where’s the cargo, Ops?”
“This way,” Tim said, holding up his phone. “We’re already shipping shrimp.”
“Do tell,” Jason said.
“We sent packages to all the investors and had them spread the word,” Tim said. He expanded the phone to a screen and brought up some charts with a set of numbers. As Jason looked, one set of numbers was going up, another down. “Total sales, available inventory,” Tim said, pointing at the numbers.
“Can you slug that to mine?” Jason asked. They entered a large open area and he looked around. “There should be cases or something.”
“This is office space,” Tim said, casting the numbers to Jason’s phone. “It’s more office space than we needed but it was attached to the warehouse. We’re getting a deal on it. We’re only renting the warehouse and the front offices right now. And there’s no office furniture. But it’s home.”
He pointed to Jason’s screen to sort out the graphics.
“On-hand cases by type, on-hand coffins by type, total sales, this graph, that little line, that’s where we make a profit on this voyage.”
“Does that count total profit?” Jason asked. “And does that growing red bar mean we’re approaching profitable already?”
“No and yes, in that order,” Tim said. “But at this rate we’re going to be profitable overall very quickly. You were right, people are buying. Fast.”
“That’s something to talk about over lunch.”
They finally reached the warehouse and Jason looked around. The warehouse, like the offices, had a smell of metal, flexmet and ozone. The “new part of the station” smells he’d gotten used to.
There also weren’t any conexes. Just coffins and cases. And they only took up about a third of the floor space of the warehouse.
“They came in that way,” Tim said. “The conexes got left behind apparently.”
Cases were flying off one of the piles and entering tunnels on the left and far wall.
“Jewel,” Jason said. “We’ve got interior tractors?”
“We do,” Jewel said.
“Sweet,” Jason said, looking around for empty floor space. “Bring over my personal container with the cooked meals in it.”
“Real food?” Debra said, grabbing Tim’s arm. “Wait, you cooked?”
“I’ve been a bachelor for years,” Jason said. “I can cook.”
Jason first pulled out flexmet and made a table and chairs for Deb and Tim. He used his camp chair. Then he pulled out the case with cooked food.
The idea had occurred to him when he had leftovers. With stasis it made as much sense to just cook one batch of food and keep some of it for later. He opened up the case and removed a flex package, opening it on the table to reveal some one-inch sections of green stems.
“Let’s start with these,” Jason said. He opened his pack and laid a bottle of ranch dressing on the table then made a cup from flex for each of them and poured ranch in each. “I haven’t named it, yet, but it’s crunchy and green and tasty. It’s a herbaceous . . . weed more or less. This is from the stem of the weed. Like milkweed but nontoxic. I thought about just calling it Crunchy Green Tasty.”
Debra took one of the stems, dipped it in the ranch and took a bite.
“Oh, yeah,” she said, sighing. “That’s actual food. I was about out and down to print.”
“They’re fine by themselves,” Jason said, dipping in the ranch and trying it. “Oh, yeah, that is great with the ranch!”
“Did you get much?” Tim asked, taking a bite. “We could make money off this. Is it peeled?”
“Yes,” Jason said. “But before you start thinking about labor, there’s ways for flex to peel it.”
“Flexmet?” Tim said. “The wall stuff?”
“That stuff is amazing,” Jason said. “You can do anything with it. Don’t invest in utensils.”
He made a set of tongs, picked up another stem and dipped it in the ranch.
“It is extremely useful,” Debra admitted.
“Attached to a phone or a drone it can do most of the cleaning,” Jason said. “It was the tractors and flex that cleaned those ginormous crocs.”
“I saw the video of that,” Debra said, her eyes going wide. “Oh, my God!”
“You . . . you . . . ” Tim said, pointing a finger at Jason. “You . . . you . . . I thought I was nuts.”
“What else was I gonna do?” Jason asked, popping in another stem. “Let it eat me?”
“You need a bigger gun,” Tim said. “This partnership is going well. I don’t need to break in another one.”
“I definitely need a bigger gun,” Jason admitted. “It’s on my to-do list. But let’s talk future for a moment,” he added, pulling out another package. This contained boiled shrimp. “Sorry, they’re head on.”
He made a bowl for shells and heads then plates for all three, then pulled out preheated margarine for dipping.
“I’m going in with hands,” Jason said, pulling out a bunch of shrimp. “But I don’t have any wet wipes or towels. I’ve got a rag with me but it’s seen better days.”
“There is a company that is making paper towels,” Tim said, pulling out some shrimp.
“I’ve never done this,” Debra said, cautiously.
“You pull off the head, toss it in the discard bowl,” Jason said, doing the action. “Then pull off the legs, in the bowl, then peel off the shell, in the bowl. Pull the meat out of the tail. Tail goes in the bowl. Then dip in what should be clarified butter and eat.” He ended by popping the whole jumbo shrimp in his mouth. Some of the shrimp were massive, nearly the size of adult tiger prawns.
“There’s more runs starting,” Jason said around the mouthful of shrimp. “We need to set up more camps to collect them. Which means more equipment.”
“I had to take a loan on the containers we sent,” Tim said, looking at his phone again. “But when Richard sees this, we can probably talk. Carter, has Richard seen this yet?”
“These are deposits to the Brandywine account,” the AI responded. “I’m sure he’s seen them.”
“Good,” Tim said, sighing. “If we’re sending down people, we’re going to need outdoorsmen. I’ve got a long list of Ranger buddies.”
“Rangers,” Jason said with a snort then whistled a snippet of “Pop Goes the Weasel.”
“Watch yourself, there, buddy,” Tim growled.
“If we’re going for former military we need SF not Rangers,” Jason said.
“You and SF,” Tim said, shaking his head. “I’m not going to use the term ‘wannabe’ but . . . ”
“Watch it, there, buddy,” Jason said. “Rangers get trained on basic survival. SF eats lives and breathes it. Pop quiz: What’s the nickname for a Green Beret?”
“Point,” Tim said after a second and shrugged.
“What is the nickname for a Green Beret?” Debra asked. “Sorry, I’m promilitary but don’t really have any background in it.”
“Snake eater,” Tim said. “Because you can drop them in the wilderness and they’ll survive on snakes.”
“Whoever we use, it’s going to have to be at their own risk and there is risk. Also, they’re going to need at least a .30-06 and preferably something larger.”
“That might be the main criteria,” Tim said, finishing off his shrimp. “Do you own a big gun and do you have extensive wilderness experience?”
“Those two are frequently at odds,” Jason pointed out. “Not many jobs that involved the out-of-doors made anyone enough to afford big guns.”
“There have to be professional hunters on the station,” Tim said. “Guides. African guides. We don’t just have Americans.”
“Point,” Jason said.
“That’s all the shrimp?” Tim said, looking in the bowl. “That’s it?”
“Oh, but that was just the second course, Monsieur,” Jason said, affecting a French accent. “Now we move on to the fish course.”
“This isn’t the fish course?” Debra asked.
“That was more the crustacean course,” Jason said, pulling out another container. “We’re going to use the same plates, sorry.”
He opened up the container to reveal several large pieces of cooked fish, still piping hot.
“Blackened barramundi with a slightly piquant strawberry-banana and mango chutney,” Jason said. “Bon appetit . . . ”
* * *
Besides the barramundi there were grilled skewers of crocodile with blueberry-pepper sauce, barbequed ribs of wild hog, and a dessert of mixed fruits.
“Jason,” Tim said, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his stomach. “You are going to make someone a fine wife someday.”
“I’ve heard that one before,” Jason said.
“I had no clue you could cook,” Tim added. He looked up at the dwindling piles of containers and shook his head. “And we’re watching ourselves making money. This was a good idea. You done good, Log.”
“Who’s the best, Ops?”
“You’re the best, Log,” Tim said, distracted. He was looking at his phone and nodding. “We can easily afford more drops. We’re going to have to get Richard to agree to the loans.”
“Let me,” Jason said, picking up his phone. “Jewel, Monica.”
“Wondered when you were going to call,” Monica said, picking up immediately. She raised a rib in front of her face. “When did you learn to cook?”
“I told you back then I knew how to cook,” Jason said. “You always insisted on cooking.”
The phone swung around and Richard was revealed wiping his face with a linen napkin.
“If you’re going to ask for another loan . . . ” Richard said, picking up his own phone and looking at it, “we can . . . certainly discuss it.”
“I sent pretty much the same thing to Richard and Monica,” Jason said to Tim. “Along with a care package of raw food and some flowers. And, yes, we’re looking at plans to send down multiple parties, Richard. But each party will need more gear so a slightly higher loan.”
“You seem to have done well enough,” Richard said, frowning. “Though from that video of the crocodile . . . I don’t know much about guns but . . . ”
“Yeah,” Jason said. “I need a bigger gun. It’s on my to-do list. We need an additional small tractor for each party plus twice as much flexmet and twice as many drones. That will add another ten thousand on the loan per team. But once we’ve got enough equipment at a certain point, we’ll just reuse it.”
“Is all that necessary?”
“Richard, Tim,” Tim said, picking at some of the leftover ribs. “Is it, based upon our returns and the money we’re putting in your bank, a good banking decision?”
Richard thought about that and glanced at his phone again.
“So far so good,” he replied. “Certainly reasonable.”
“Then let me worry about the business side,” Tim said. “By the way, we’ve hardly sold . . . a fifth of the shrimp returned so far. We have a mass of other materials to sell and haven’t even put that on the market yet.
“Based on my conversation over dinner with Jason, I’d say the additional drones, bots and flex will enhance profitability. There were times where Jason had to make do, skip opportunities, or was on the edge of the line given the paucity of equipment. It’s a good business call to add the equipment.
“The standard package for one of these operations should include fifty drones, two small tractors, a medium tractor and one metric ton of flexmet at a minimum. Jason has been talking nonstop about all the uses of flexmet. I can see why he wanted more. We’re going to have to wait for the capital to come up a bit because we’re also going to be leasing more birds. Jason was only a few days into the shrimp run. The harvest system is still in place. We’ll be pulling shrimp for a month at least. And he’s identified ten more inlets that should have runs on them as well. Even if the run doesn’t materialize, we can fill multiple ships with fish and meat as well as . . . well, you’ve seen examples.”
“Thank you for the flowers,” Monica chimed in. “They’re beautiful.”
“Flowers?” Debra mouthed.
Jason held up a finger.
“I’ll send you the full request tomorrow,” Tim said. “But we’ll need a quick decision. Shrimp runs are seasonal and we need to jump on this opportunity while it lasts.”
“Send me the data,” Richard said. “And, Jason, thank you for this lovely dinner.”
“Let’s get together sometime,” Jason said, taking the phone back. “I’ll buy.”
“I’ll let you,” Richard said. “Ta.”
“That’s your ex?” Debra said.
“Greatest wife ever,” Jason said then laughed. “Except for her cooking. The woman could not cook to save her life. Print food is better. I kept begging her to let me cook but ‘It’s the wife’s job!’ I lost weight living with her. I was always saying I was on a diet.”
“You never told me that,” Tim said, chuckling.
“She is going to take that lovely food and turn it into the most God-awful meals,” Jason said, laughing. “I hadn’t even thought about that part. I heard that she and Richard used to go out to dinner all the time!” He couldn’t stop laughing.
“There’ll eventually be restaurants again,” Tim said, laughing. “He can survive on print food.”
“Richard will eventually have an office,” Jason said, wiping his eyes. “I’ll send him a care package from time to time. Oh, my God! I’d been thinking about how his clothes still fit so well and that he’d never gained any weight!”
* * *
On the way back to his compartment, Jason thought about the future now that there was one.
Tim could handle this company with his eyes closed. And, frankly, was as good on the ground.
But Jason was finally making money. The thing to do was not lose it. One way to not lose it was to not spend it. Rich people got rich by not spending money.
Not his strength. He’d have to try it.
But he’d been around enough to know that money just went away if you weren’t good with it. He needed some help. Personal help.
He hated making the call again but he had to.
“Jewel. See if Richard is available again.”
“I said yes to the loan, Jason,” Richard said a moment later.
“I’ll make it short,” Jason said. “I need an accountant, a personal financial manager who can work with the accountant and an attorney. ’Cause if I’m making money and I don’t get some professionals involved, I’ll lose it just as fast as I make it.”
“Carla,” Richard replied. “Pull up the top three of those I know, slug a reason that I’m giving the recommendation. Notably Brandywine Foods.”
“Will do, Mister Derren,” his AI replied.
“Anything else?” Richard asked.
“Nope,” Jason said.
Richard looked sideways for a moment then sighed.
“You could have warned me what her cooking was like!” he whispered.
“Good luck, Richard,” Jason said, laughing as he disconnected.