“Yeah. Visiting family.”
“I spent two years there,” he replied. “Got shot twice. Fortunately, the armor held.”
I told them about the naked runners and Larry was fascinated by the idea, asking all the details, focusing, of course, on the lurid aspects of which I knew nothing.
I was introduced to forty other people who were managers of various departments. They were polite as I was the owner’s friend, though their cordiality didn’t go beyond that. I wondered where we were going and why we were checking in on all the buildings. We walked for almost two hours and I knew beyond the factories, there was a huge span of farmland devoted to animals who could graze freely; horses, goats, peacocks, and others that required an army of caretakers just to keep everything spick and span.
“George said hello,” Larry suddenly said. “Why don’t you stop by and see the old man? I have a meeting I gotta run to, but we’ll do brunch after that.”
George served in the African Wars with us, though as a mechanic. He was part of the UN Peacekeepers and we went to him whenever our computers had problems. He was a master with hardware, though his specialty was cybernetic parts and tank assemblies. I still remembered the first time we met in Africa — he was working on a drone engine. I noticed his overwhelming beer belly, abetted by his passion for Russian beers. He wore an afro for his wig, though he switched that up with a handkerchief as hat. The top two buttons on his uniform were unbuttoned and his hands were greasy. I’d brought a computer that a foreign virus had destroyed. It was an older machine and I wondered whether it was time to retire it.
He put the part for the drone down, whistled, then said with a thick Russian accent, “I have not seen 300XVA since I graduate from university. They used these babies for robotics.”
“Robotics?”
“The military vanted to build huge robot to fight in Africa. Top secret project. Ve had military officer overseeing everything. Idiot supervisor, vanted all the credit. Ignored all mechanical problems. Too heavy to valk. Engine burned out. The fourth year I vorking on it, ve had goal to make it take a step. Fell apart before first step. They vere huge, taller than skyscraper. Ugly and boxy looking. Ve built them in big factories and whole place smelled like burnt oil. I hated smell but vas stuck. I built small gauge to measure heat levels. Funny thing. Modern cars veeth’ computers are more advanced than our million-dollar robot. Hard to keep up veeth’ the computers they put in cars these days. Military shut us down. Twenty years later, here I am,” George said. “Fixing drone bots to kill our enemies.”
“How’s that make you feel?”
He grinned, his two gold teeth gleaming. “Too bad var can’t last forever.”
After the war ended, Larry hired George to modernize many of their factories and he’d done an amazing job. He also provided us with gadgets like the light bomb I’d used earlier. He was currently working on a pet project that Larry financed, a construction robot designed to expedite the building of structures. It was an ugly robot that looked like the ED-209 from the old Robocop films we loved, though with a sleeker design and no artillery. I marveled at the sight of the machine now as I stood waiting for him to finish up what he was working on. He struggled, cursed, and beat one of the bigger parts until he spotted me. Laughing, he came over with a yellow afro on. “Larry tell me you no like girl he introduce to you.”
“He already told you?”
“Both us vorry ’bout you.”
“I’m just not ready for a relationship.”
“You a young man. It’s no good to be alone. Need sweetheart, cuddle and hold at night. I have Mrs. George, I’m an old man. But you. Young-blooded, need voman to love.” He gave me a jocular punch to the shoulder that actually hurt. “The internet stuff,” he said, making a hand jerking-off motion. “Not healthy for brain or heart. He have too much love. You have too little.” His knowing grin made it clear Larry had informed him of my state of abstinence. Thank you, Larry.
“It might be a good thing,” I offered, knowing how weak it sounded. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to save him from trouble. If it wasn’t for your light bombs, I don’t know where we’d be.”
“Vhat kind of ladies you meet, you need all these gadgets for? Every time Larry talks about Rome, I nearly get a heart attack.”
The memory of the trouble that rained down during our Italian trip when Larry tried to steal away two actresses from their politician husbands brought shudders. “We wouldn’t have testicles if it weren’t for the light bombs.”
George laughed and put his arm around my shoulder. “Machiavelli said a prince should not touch another man’s land or vomen.”
“That was before the prince changed his name and became an artist.”
We spent the next hour swapping stories before Larry arrived. “Brunch? I’m starving. Might be a little business though.”
“That’s fine,” I said. We both looked to George.
“Mrs. George cooked my lunch. Have fun and try not to vaste light bomb.”
II.
Russ, Larry, five other executives I didn’t know, and myself ate in a room in the west dining hall. There was a circular table with a Lazy Susan. Larry was at the head as host, Russ across from him as secondary host. I was to Larry’s left, a Chinese executive I didn’t know to his right (he might have been a government officer?). We were served fried duck with dasheen, braised turtle in brown sauce, fish roe with scallop dumpling, wutong tea-smoked chicken, toasted rabbit legs with cumin, jellyfish head with mixed vegetables, radish cake with assorted preserved meat, sliced ox-tripe, and duck blood with chili sauce.
Russ asked after each of the families of those present. One of the executives cut in: “The Colonel is giving us a beating. We got to do something before she destroys our Chongqing factory. She already tried poisoning our horses three times.”
The discussion became heated and I realized this was a full-fledged business meeting under the pretence of a meal. Most of the frustration came from the figure called the Colonel who was a rival trying to establish her own wig company. This Colonel was ruthless in her pursuit to achieve her objectives, resorting to military tactics which had to be protested with the government. All heads turned towards the man next to Larry who hadn’t spoken the whole time. He was an elderly man with a wart on his right cheek. He had calm and soothing eyes which didn’t waver as he ate the duck meat on his plate.
He spoke back in Mandarin, saying the government was well aware of the tactics of the Colonel and that there was a line she could not cross. There were complications because she was stationed in Thailand, though those could be circumvented if needed. Zou hou men was the Chinese saying — through the back-gate dealings.
“It’s a good thing your father never had to deal with a woman like her,” Russ said. “She fights business like war.”
“She served in Africa. You heard of her,” Larry said to me. “Bloody Rina.”
Bloody Rina — the officer who took Harare, capital city of Zimbabwe, by sending every troop she had, resulting in a disastrous number of deaths. She was heavily reprimanded and discharged, although she expressed no shame, publicly stating, “Even if it meant a million deaths, I would still have sent them for victory.” She was now apparently rival to Larry’s company.
Larry was jotting down notes in his holopad and seemed intensely absorbed. I wondered what was going through his head as the discussion moved onto the actions a number of smaller rivals were making, the huge volume of petty lawsuits being brought against the company, as well as negotiations that had to take place to secure various organic materials. At one point, he tilted the holopad and I could see what was on it. He’d just been scribbling, drawing random patterns, squiggly circles and squares overlapping each other in a haphazard diagram. He wasn’t even paying attention. I chucked inwardly and zoned out as well, especially when everyone started speaking in Mandarin which was hard enough to follow without all the business jargon.