America 1982-Chapter 155 - 57: Attempting the First Formal Contact

Chapter 155: Chapter 57: Attempting the First Formal Contact

Holly handed Tommy a California beef slider as he sat on a bench at the street corner, then sat down beside him, looking towards a few whitetail deer near the distant lake:

"Feeling sad?"

Tommy nodded, unwrapped the burger, and took a bite: "A bit."

"You rarely have such down moments." Holly also unwrapped her burger, took a bite, then turned to look at Tommy: "Sometimes, I even wonder if you’re a robot developed by those weirdos in the computer science department, devoid of emotions. When Renee and I talked about this, she didn’t mention you feeling sad, just that you told her it’s alright, to get in touch after this blows over."

"Renee?" Tommy, jarred out of his thoughts by Holly’s words, swallowed his food and asked: "What about Renee?"

Holly looked at Tommy in surprise: "Look at this jerk’s words, ’What about Renee?’ Isn’t Renee temporarily breaking up with you because of your legal troubles, persuaded by her parents to avoid trouble, and you’ve got her harassed by the opposing lawyer’s investigators? And now you’re asking me what’s up with Renee?"

"It seems we weren’t on the same page just now. Renee... right, Renee and I have temporarily split up, but I’m not sad. After all, there are so many blondes at BDP." Tommy continued to bite into his burger and said:

"But if there’s really no one else, would you consider paying for my company?"

Holly rolled her eyes speechlessly: "You’re not sad because of the breakup, so why are you putting on a face like you’re reminiscing about past romances at sunset?"

"Bob’s TV direct sales company is suspected of selling subpar products and needs to undergo temporary regulation. Only products that pass the review can continue to be advertised live, guess which ones didn’t pass temporally?" Tommy mumbled as he chewed his burger.

Holly thought for a moment: "Regardless of which ones, does it include our OSS?"

Tommy nodded: "You’re right, only two products haven’t passed the review temporarily. One is our OSS because they worry that most consumers won’t be able to verify the quality without a computer. So, they’ll select qualified software reviewers to verify it, and only afterward will it be allowed to go on sale. The other product is developed by a fundamentalist church-affiliated company, supposedly a spiritual drink that can increase spiritual power and the feeling of God’s presence when consumed."

"So, you’re not really upset because your girlfriend broke up with you, you’re mainly upset because you can’t continue to sell software and make money." Holly sighed: "Renee is still worried you’d be upset."

"Shallow, Holly, I’ve taught you; never use such shallow words in conversation. I really don’t care how much money I make, okay? What saddens me is that Lotus Corporation is using connections to cut off Florida’s general population’s access to knowledge. I’m mourning for humanity, certainly not because I’m making too little money. Moreover, we’re still putting out ads." Tommy finished his burger in a few bites, then cleaned his mouth with the wrapper, crumpled it into a ball, and handed it to Holly:

"Remember to throw it away together after you’re done eating."

Holly sighed: "You just said OSS has been pulled, and then you’re talking about running ads? Selling what? Without software, the only thing Actor Corporation has left to sell is Jason’s gigolo services."

"It’s not a conflict. Our ads don’t sell software, we’ve switched to direct donations instead, letting Bob continue to promote conspiracy theories, telling everyone that someone has already made a move against Actor Corporation, Actor Corporation is facing many obstacles, and now we can’t sell software. So, folks in Florida, now you can only simply donate to support us, but I’m afraid the donations won’t be much." Tommy said somewhat sadly:

"It’s like when you were young, helping out with chores for some pocket money from your parents, you always got proper compensation, but if you didn’t put in the work and simply asked for money, the cash you got was clearly not as substantial."

Holly looked at Tommy in surprise: "Tommy, OSS sold over forty thousand sets in Florida, and even after taxes, the company account should have nearly a million in funds, and now you still want those people to shell out money to support you?"

"I can’t let down everyone’s enthusiasm. Including the money Jason made in Mississippi, we have about one point three million now, which I was about to hand over to you." Tommy turned to Holly:

"Apart from necessary expenses and investigator fees, use the remaining funds to get as many cheap computers as possible from Compaq or General Company, paired with an equal number of software sets. Once the signal comes, roll them all out to the Massachusetts universities with SSD branches."

"What’s the signal?" Holly frowned: "You didn’t mention this before."

Tommy shook his head confidently: "I don’t know. Maybe it’s them dropping the case? Or internal strife on their side, or maybe it’s us obtaining some crucial testimonies? The signal isn’t fixed; we have to judge based on the situation. I’m not actually a robot, how could I guess what the signal will be."

"I was planning to talk to you about Renee, and then you brought up work again." Holly finished her burger and looked toward the setting sun: "Renee said she doesn’t know what you’re busy with. Although you take time every weekend to be with her, she’s unclear about your work, and it seems you’ve never thought to talk to her about these things."

"Renee is a good girl. Her parents made a very sensible choice. Why should they involve their daughter in this unnecessary trouble?" Tommy spoke indifferently:

"So now, do you feel that you’re actually more important to me than she is? If I had pursued you to be my girlfriend from the beginning, the situation would be completely different, the scene would definitely not be as calm as it is now."

Drip, drip, drip, drip~ Tommy’s pager started to beep, He glanced at it and stood up, heading towards a nearby phone booth: "Thank you for your comfort, even though it was mistakenly given, I’m quite relieved, but I simply don’t have the time to be sad over Renee right now, as Susan has just called me."

"Susan?" Tommy reached the nearest phone booth and dialed Susan’s number: "What’s up?"

"There’s a high-class escort named Dorothy, she still has some recollection of Jim Manzi," Susan said.

Tommy asked, "Where are you and that chick?"

"San Francisco."

"Good, find a hotel, book a room, and wait for me, I’m going to have a long enough conversation with her," Tommy hung up the phone and looked at Holly who was approaching: "I think the signal is about to appear."

...

"Tommy Hawk." Jim looked at the photo of Tommy in The Stanford Daily: "Before the age of seventeen, he was a happy country boy whose grades were not worth mentioning. Then at seventeen, due to his mother’s death and his sister being taken away, this guy, who would have graduated from high school and settled into a life as an ordinary worker, was provoked by this damn society to rise from the ashes. His academic performance improved continuously, and he did whatever it took to build his resume, becoming a co-producer for the Nick Children’s Channel, hosted a summer camp in the Caribbean Sea, earned a fortune with the high school, and received an acceptance letter from Stanford."

"His father used to be a worker, unemployed, first as a shipbreaker, and then he started his own small ship breaking yard. His brother is an auto mechanic, and his sister is in elementary school. How did that guy learn all these tricks? Technological equality, women’s equality..."

As he spoke, he picked up the remote and pressed the play button. The commercial recording on the TV started playing again, showing Tommy Hawk throwing his suit jacket into the crowd and shouting stirring words.

Robert pointed at the Tommy Hawk on TV: "They sold forty-three thousand sets in Florida, in just over two months. What level is that for the software industry?"

"Trash level, Lotus Corporation sold sixty thousand sets just last month," Jim cited a figure.

Robert shrugged, "So it means they’ve made nearly a million, and with the software plagiarism lawsuit still unresolved, earning so much from this suspected copied software is enough to have their reputation slide in court."

"Doesn’t his father have anything worth digging up? The loss of reputation from plagiarism and making money can easily be offset by the two sensational stunts he’s thrown out there," Jim, looking at Tommy’s photo, asked.

Robert shook his head, "Nothing, poor lower class, the more you dig into these kind of people, the more the court and the jury will be displeased with us, feeling like we are unfairly overpowering them, and what we dig up won’t have much impact on the case: alcoholism, gun possession... these things don’t have a direct connection to him starting a company and copying software, his father can’t even distinguish between a computer and a game console, and their lawyers have trained his father and relatives on how to deal with courtroom inquiries, not to mention that the locals have a rough disposition, Leonard’s car was stolen four times within two days there."

"We need to distract this Tommy Hawk kid, make him truly stop and not have the time to wrap Actor Corporation in various protective layers. Do you have any suggestions?" Jim asked, looking at Robert.

Robert shrugged, "Based on previous case experiences, if there’s really no other way, some employers would arrange an ’accident’ to send him to the hospital for a while, but Jim, that’s what rich people do when they’re entangled in criminal cases..."

"No, no, no, I wouldn’t do something stupid that would get myself into trouble," Jim interrupted Robert: "Check what he did with the money he earned - technological equality, women’s equality, bringing knowledge to the poor like Prometheus bringing fire... If this guy donates all the money, except for what’s used to fight the lawsuit, I think the best option would be a private contact, a settlement, a withdrawal of the lawsuit." 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

"This feels a bit risky, every software company is eyeing Lotus Corporation, but only this Actor Corporation stepped forward to give us trouble, it feels like bait, I always have the sense that there’s another company behind them, but the investigation shows that these Actor Corporation guys have totally not been in contact with those major software firms."

"Ring, ring, ring~" The phone on the desk rang. Jim picked it up: "This is Jim, I..."

Seeing that Jim didn’t finish his sentence, and was frozen in place with a shocked expression, Robert asked somewhat surprised: "What happened?"

After a long while, Jim finally hung up the phone, looked at Robert: "National Review Magazine, my old colleagues called. They came with a warrant, routine inquiry about me and that article..."

"Are you worried?" Robert asked in confusion, "Worried about a college student?"

Jim looked at Robert, as if it were obvious, "Of course I’m scared, they have nothing, get it? I have Lotus behind me, we might look like the same sort of scoundrels, but right now, the weight we carry is completely different."

"So what are you considering?"

"Try a first formal encounter between both parties to see if there’s a possibility to reconcile and withdraw the lawsuit," Jim said seriously: "At least I want to understand how big their appetite is, how much money they want."