Artificial(ish) Intelligence

Chapter 98

Josef waited uncomfortably at the front gate. He felt like he'd been transported back to his first school dance, and was now nervously peering at all the girls avoiding eye contact. Even in those days his father made him feel inadequate. If he couldn't even ask a girl to dance, he had no hope of eventually running a successful company like the famous Hydan Sr.

He needed to get out of his father's shadow, and the only way to do that was prove him wrong.

"Did I ever tell you about my first business?" he said.

The holographic visage of Lem resolved by his side, joining Josef's gaze out past the opened gate. "Nope. Nope."

"Betting was big at my university -- sports, mainly -- so naturally I joined in. The problem was, I had no idea how to kick a point or throw a goal, so the betting agencies made a mint off me. I soon realised the money was in offering the bet, not placing it, and someone had done all the hard work for me.

"I kept up-to-date on the betting site pay-outs for every match, offering other students fractionally better odds so they'd go with me instead. I figured the bookmakers knew what they were doing and were extracting decent profit so, with my low costs, making a smaller profit would still put me out ahead.

"These were spoilt children of the richest families in the country. I was making decent money. But I thought I was a bigger deal than I was. When I told my father, he scoffed at the tiny figures I was bringing in. I thought any money was better than no money, but he slowly and condescendingly explained opportunity cost, how I could have been making more performing some other service, that higher profits came when consumers had reduced options, not a plethora of betting agencies."

"Other service," said Lem. "Mmhm. Like what? Yup. What?"

"He didn't say. He never does. You have to complete the dots yourself. But I knew I had to live up to the family name, and I had the chance when the sixteen year-old brother of one of my clients wanted in. He'd been betting since he was thirteen, but had subsequently been barred from accessing any betting agencies after an intervention from his parents. And they could make sure it happened, too. Smelling an opportunity, I agreed to do business, but at worse odds than the agencies. He had nowhere else to go for his needs, so I was going to exploit it."

Lem's cartoon-like holographic eyebrow raised.

"Don't look at me like that," said Josef. "It's what you do in business."

"Yup. Yup."

"This new line was far more lucrative, and I gained a good portion of under-age clients with healthy bank balances. My father was right, as per usual.

"I'm sure you saw this coming. Parents found out. Outrage followed. My father rode in like a white knight to smooth things over. It was a new client that spoiled the gravy train. He never admitted it, but I know my father was behind it."

"Nope? Nope? How?"

"A plant. An undercover agent to take the fall for--"

He stopped, straightened his suit, as Hydan Sr approached them. Lem disappeared in a puff of electronic smoke.

"Father," said Josef, with a little too much surprise in his voice. He cleared it, deepened it, tried again. "Father."

"Junior," said Hydan Sr, striding through the opened gate with ease.

A strange object seemed to follow him. Josef didn't know quite how to express his bewilderment, let alone discomfiture, of seeing a selfiebot accompany the great man.

They shook hands. What was he playing at?

A fearful thought struck Josef harder than an anvil that'd been launched into the air by a cartoon seesaw. Was this that pesky journalist? Had his father captured the unrestrained selfiebot, bringing it along as a tease?

"Junior."

The new voice came from nowhere and made him jump. But it didn't come from nowhere, did it? Josef peered closer at the selfiebot. It's projection lit up his chest. A woman's face. "Ms Glas," he said. "Glad you could be here." In some form, at least.

"This is your big shot," said the flattened image of Ms Glas. To be honest, it wasn't much different to the 3D version. "Don't waste it."

He couldn't look at the projection without contorting his body in a way that no dignified man ever would. It was almost designed to make him look stupid. At this thought he stopped, straightened up, and stared toward his father. The man's eyes betrayed no hint of joy, but then they never did. This was just the opening salvo in a power game he was destined to lose. Still, he was a grown man with his own successful startup, so perhaps now was the time to learn the rules.

"We're just waiting on someone," said Josef.

"Oh?" said Hydan, raising an eyebrow.

Josef paused for additional questions, the type he could bat away with mysterious answers that left his father none the wiser. They didn't come. "I thought you'd appreciate the surprise," said Josef, teasing it out.

Hydan barely nodded, showing no sign of emotion.

There was no point forcing the issue. He accepted this loss with the expectation of winning the war. That was to come very soon. "You're here, anyway," said Josef.

"I wouldn't have missed it," said Hydan. "My own son, making a name for himself."

Josef couldn't help but smile. Maybe he shouldn't have jumped the gun on the old man's motives. It was possible the high levels of pressure and lack of assistance for some-- Most-- All his life had been his father's way of getting the best out of him. You only truly succeeded by putting in one hundred percent.

No, he thought, that's ridiculous. Father's always been a muscular-and-tubular-female-genital-tract, and always will be. Which was why today would be so sweet.

Along with the aforementioned attribute, his father owned a surprising new feature: he was no longer there. Josef's quick scan of the area eventually picked him up loping down the driveway, past the parked beat-up van. Why hadn't they put it in the underground car park? That's what it was for.

More importantly, there was still no sign of the special guest.

"Let me know when he gets here," whispered Josef, to Lem, before hurrying after his father, leaving the gate open.