“It’s entirely possible we’d be living comfortably among robots in the next decade,” Sophia remarked a couple hours later.
They walked to the quay of the Harbor waterfront, eating a bizarre Soylent plus gelato. The weather was spectacular – cool and pleasant. In keeping with the theme of ConCon, an array of Segways or hoverboards were kept ready for the users to zip around the three kilometer area.
Bharat told her that the hoverboards were fitted with motion sensors that automatically powered them down the second they stepped out of venue perimeter. She was delighted with the mechanics of it all.
Bharat licked the Soylato - it tasted like how someone thought ice cream should taste. Faintly synthetic and sugary. He made a face.
Sophia took a taste of hers. “Well,” she said. “At least mine sort of tastes like strawberry.”
He grinned and tossed the rest of it away in a recycling bin. She held onto hers as they walked to the edge and watched the little boats bobbing in the harbor. But she wasn’t looking at the boats, she was watching the sky. And he was watching her.
“What did you study at NYU?” Even though he knew the answer, he asked her.
Sophia smiled wryly. “Literature and economics.”
“So, you wanted to be a writer?”
She shook her head and, because it was a kind of test, he twisted one wayward curl in his finger and toyed with it. She didn’t stop him. It was a kind of miracle.
“No, not really. I actually wanted to study politics at NYU and go to Washington eventually, work for a lobby firm and try to fight for some of the better political causes like climate change and fossil fuel eradication as well as alternate economization. Then, I wanted to come back and utilize my experience and network and do the same in India.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “I know. It’s hopelessly idealistic.”
Bharat shook his head. “It’s not. It’s a noble goal.”
“I just think politics and the government can make everything better for people. Our lives, our cities, our bodies, our jobs. I mean, if we are creating these robots and what not, then isn’t it our duty to create the human equivalent of a better life to go with them?” Sophia was in full earnest.
She paused to take a lick of her Soylato. It tasted awful so she threw it in the recycling bin.
Bharat chuckled. “Did your professors not teach you about the fallibility of the human condition?”
“They did. I just never listened. I think, if we are going to be the modern equivalent of gods of people and technology and, let’s face it, we are, then we should at least try and be benevolent gods. Help the people as much as we can.”
“You’re so damned adorable,” Bharat murmured as he tugged her closer with the curl he’d twined around his finger. “But I bet I could prove you wrong.”
Sophia came a step closer and then put a hand on his chest. “You can’t seduce me to make me change my mind,” she informed him hotly.
“Oh yeah?” He hauled her up to her toes in a gesture that knocked the breath out of her in more ways than one.
“How much are you willing to gamble on that?”
And he kissed her, right where the sea met the sky. Her knees became jelly, while she weakly clutched at his shoulders and kissed him back. Sophia had the dizzying thought that being up in space was probably exactly like being kissed like this.
If she had been a gambling kind of woman, she’d have lost the bet. And happily too.
Chapter Fourteen
“Are you sure this is a good idea, Bharat?” Sophia smoothed the material of the black LBD down her thigh yet again. This wasn’t the most conservative of dresses and now that she’d worn it for the second time, it clung to all her curves, making Bharat’s eyes glaze when he saw her in it.
While that was gratifying, she was accompanying him for an important business meeting.
A sexy little black dress was not appropriate attire for such an occasion. So she’d paired it up with black tights which she’d bought at the hotel boutique for an astronomical sum that almost gave her a heart attack. Especially, after she converted it to Indian rupees.
In the end, Sophia justified it as a variable business expense; besides, the sheer silky material was so delicious against her skin…
Bharat looked at her from where he was tying a Windsor knot on his tie. “I am not going to tell you how pretty you are even if you’re fishing for compliments, Sophie. I’ve to tie this fucking tie.”
She smiled slightly as she slicked color onto her lips. The strange intimacy of this moment was not lost on her. A few days ago she didn’t even know this man and now here she was, watching him get dressed up. It shouldn’t have mattered to her, but it did.
It felt…right.
“That wasn’t remotely funny.”
~~~~~
Her phone buzzed once more, insistent and annoying.
He met her eyes in the mirror. “That’s the fourth call, isn’t it? Could be someone important.”
She knew who it was. Nakul. And she had no interest in talking to him right now. These few hours. They were for her. If that made her selfish and ungrateful then so be it. For once, she didn’t want to care. Just this once.
“No, I am sure it’s nothing important. Are you done or do you need five minutes more?” Sophia winked to take the sting out of her comment.
“That’s not remotely funny.” Bharat rolled his eyes as he secured the tie with a modest gold pin.
She blinked. “That’s dad’s.”
Bharat’s hand stilled on the tie and he looked at her. “Yes.” His tone was very careful. “He gave it to me after we secured the Series B funding for JoyXS.” Unwittingly, he remembered how much he’d drunk at the celebratory dinner and Rajeev had made him sleep it off at the office.
He removed the pin, a dull thudding in his heart. “Rajeev told me it was his good luck charm. That he wore it for all his best meetings.”
“Nakul…my brother…he’s been looking for that pin for years. He thinks dad sold it.” Her voice was so low, it was almost soundless.
Once again, he felt that peculiar sensation he’d been feeling since he’d heard her name. It was an odd combination of pride and regret. What made Sophia so unique was their combined history, but also the potential of their future together.
He knew he had no right to be with her, but she was the one he wanted. She was the one he trusted so much he was telling her things he never told anyone. No one. Not even his group therapist at Knotty Pines rehab.
“You can take it back to him if you want,” Bharat offered.
Sophia considered it. He watched as she spritzed her wrists with perfume from the hotel’s toiletry kit.
Bharat wanted to kiss that precise point of her skin right now. In fact, he could imagine the scene so clearly. He’d walk up to her, take her delicate wrist in his hand and press his lips against the hot-cold skin. Then he’d work his way up methodically.
So he didn’t pay attention to what she was saying.
Sophia snapped her fingers in front of him. “Hey, where are you?”
Bharat shook his head and gave a sardonic little smile. Here he was thinking about seducing her when he’d cheated her brother out of so many things. Even his father’s lucky tie pin. He pressed it into her hand. Dropped a kiss on the closed fist.
“Keep it,” he said simply. “You can be my lucky charm for now.”
Something flicked across her face; it looked a lot like anguish. But it was gone so quickly he wondered if he’d imagined it.
“Sure. I can manage that,” she said.
And that, he figured, was that.
~~~~~
Harrison Grant did not leave things to fate. Control was his middle name. So, he’d hedged his bets with the girl and taken a chance that she would actually come through for him. He’d also insisted, subtly of course, that the meeting for Greenhound Capital be held here at Villa Aria instead of a soulless conferencing room.
The idea was to seduce, t
o lull, to make Bharat and his partners to trust him while they gave him exactly what he wanted. After all, he’d made Managing Partner at Greenhound with the least years of experience required for such a high-profile job. It was because Harrison Grant didn’t play the game, he played the player.
He figured Sophia, the blackjack dealer, was the same too. She understood people, what made them tick. She’d figured tech’s newest wonderboy out within minutes of meeting him.
Now, Harrison watched Bharat watching her as she peered thirty-seven floors down in Sydney Harbor. It was a little pathetic really, how obvious wonderboy was, even if the dealer was smoking hot.
No wonder, Sophia had him wrapped around her little finger.
“You have a beautiful view, Mr. Grant,” Sophia said when she looked up at him. Her eyes shimmered faintly like they were spot-lit from the inside. Yeah, the woman was a knockout. Maybe Bharat wasn’t so pathetic.
“Thank you, Ms. Roy.” He raised his champagne glass to her. Harrison turned to Henry and asked in a sub-vocal tone, “You knew about this girl?”
Todd Henry shook his head as he nursed his brandy. He didn’t like variables he didn’t understand and Bharat showing up with a classy broad for a meeting was an upsetting variable. “No, I don’t. I intend to find out. Keep her occupied, will you?”
So it was, that Harrison Grant ended up giving Sophia a tour of the villa the VC firm was paying for - three floors of sheer grandeur and opulence. A chandelier made of fifteen diamond tiers threw light from the vaulted ceiling, while brown leather, deep-spaced couches dotted the corners. The minimalist furniture was designed by a famous Japanese designer who used sand-blasted glass in new and interesting ways.
The bathroom was something out of a dream, four times the one in Bharat’s room, and Sophia sighed openly at the French door placed there with convenient access to a small swimming pool, available only for the Villa occupants.
“I had forgotten,” Sophia murmured. “How beautiful things could be.”
Harrison clinked his crystal champagne flutes against hers. “That’s not something one should forget, Ms. Roy.”
Sophia had looked up the tariff for the Villa Aria, it ran in the seven figures after rupee conversion. The place was almost criminally expensive. She gave Harrison a polite smile. “The best kind of beauty is priceless, don’t you think?”
Harrison smiled, affirmed his opinion of Sophia being a player. “Indeed.”
They exited the bathroom and onto the private deck-come-terrace.
~~~~~~
Bharat was surrounded by his mentors, Henry, Donald, and Thierron. They were gesturing at him quite rapidly. He stared at them stonily.
“Something’s wrong,” she murmured.
“They’re just talking about how to impress me and my partners,” Harrison said lazily. “Speaking of, I have to call my partners and tell them to hustle ass. I doubt Bharat wants to stick around tonight.” The man had the balls to wink at her.
“It’s not like that,” Sophia protested automatically. Even though she knew Harrison was right.
Bharat expected things. Things she didn’t know if she could deliver on. There were so many conflicts inside her now. Desire, guilt, family loyalty, and sheer longing were warring and tearing pieces off her insides.
Harrison snorted. “You keep telling yourself that, Sophia.”
Then he excused himself, leaving Sophia alone with her disturbed thoughts and a glass of excellent champagne.
~~~~~
On the deck, Bharat was being grilled thoroughly by his Board members.
“This is a business meeting, Desi boy,” Henry muttered, for the second time. Henry called Bharat Desi boy when he wanted to make him feel particularly small. Like now. “Did you forget how business is conducted?”
Donald put in rather helpfully, “Isn’t she the same chick you saw on the cruise? Is she your off-shore entertainment or are you hers?”
Thierron remained silent. But even his expression held a hint of censure.
“Can you guys please stop with the third degree?” Bharat asked quietly. “I know this is a business meeting, Henry. I attended enough of them with you. And I haven’t forgotten how business is conducted. Did you forget I was the one who got Greenhound to commit to five point five million dollars at seed without even seeing the product?”
He turned to Donald and gave him a pointed glare. “I don’t ask you questions about your entertainment and you don’t ask me about mine, okay, Donny?”
Donald had the grace to look sheepish. “I was just…”
Bharat held up his water glass and tried to justify Sophia’s presence. “She is the daughter of an old friend. We just met and…connected again. I haven’t lost focus, gentlemen. But I think, after six years, I don’t need to prove myself every single time.”
Henry squeezed his shoulder, just hard enough to remind him that he could kick his butt if he had. Henry had fought in Desert Storm One in a sniper unit, as he was fond of reminding everyone every chance he could.
“We are taking as big a gamble as Greenhound is, Bharat,” Henry said quietly. “I don’t think you can fault us for being cautious about our investment.”
“Not when we know what you’re capable of,” Donald added.
Bharat smiled. It was a smooth, empty smile. “Yeah, we are all aware of what I am capable of. Sophia included. But, for some reason, she is still here and I’d like to keep it that way, if you guys don’t mind.”
“Bharat, we all want you to be happy,” Thierron said at last. “But I sometimes wonder if you even know how to be.”
Because Thierron had hit a nerve, Bharat sipped at his water and didn’t answer. “I know I shouldn’t have brought her here. But she asked, all right? She is bright. Studied literature and economics, pre-law at NYU. She could have insights into Caliban that we didn’t have before.”
“Yeah, that’s great. Just peachy. But she should not be sitting on a VC meeting and red-teaming us.” Usually, once a software and pitch deck was ready for pitching, a fresh team of people were brought in to check and run through both to check for flaws and inconsistencies – this was the objective red team.
Bharat sighed, ran a hand through his hair. Saw Sophia arrive at the deck with Harrison, murmuring something to her. She looked fragile and small and sexy. In her slim heels, she had endless legs.
Sophia gave him a small smile as Harrison left her side and raised her glass of champagne to him, from across the deck.
“I know. But she’s here,” Bharat murmured. “So, we are going to deal with it.” He smiled, and did the same with his water glass.
~~~~~
Sophia had been too young when her father went for pitch meetings. She’d not even known these meetings were called that before it became street jargon, popularized by mainstream media.
In fact, Rajeev’s first big startup investment bet had been JoyXS. Before that, he’d been playing the stock market, trading on future commodities just like everyone else on Dalal Street.
It was only in the 2010s, after he’d first tasted success getting in on early action of one of the ecommerce sites that he’d shifted base to Delhi and started angel investing in earnest. Sophia was almost done with high school by then, so she did not paying any attention to what her dad did to earn the money that paid for her life.
Nakul had been away at college and not concerned either.
Sophia did know that pitch meetings usually did not take place in rooms such as these, where the view cost thousands of dollars. Where champagne flowed like water and people talked everything but business.
She was sitting next to a woman named Mathilda Withers, who ran the numbers at Greenhound Capital, the quantitative analyst. Mathila told her that the firm was situated in Menlo Park, the most-prestigious Silicon Valley address. And she was only too happy to wax poetic about the infinity pool that the senior partners enjoyed.
Mathilda, Harrison, Julio, and Karl made up the Greenhound Capital team. All of
them with fancy titles and fancier clothes.
Thierron, Henry and Donald, all of whom had done nothing more than politely shake her hand and smile vaguely at her, were on Bharat’s side. But, and she didn’t know how she knew this, she knew Bharat was the only one who knew what he was talking about.
They were all here for him.
“Let’s talk about Caliban, shall we?” Julio, one of the EVPs in charge of the VC firm’s AI portfolio, invited Bharat.
Bharat nodded. Whipped out his phone and Smartcasted his pitch deck on the glass wall that separated the entertainment area from the deck.
“Welcome to the future of business intelligence,” he said solemnly.
Sophia sat up straight and paid attention.
For the next twenty minutes, Sophia listened as Bharat spoke of a revolutionary piece of software that would think for itself, think for the future, and put hundreds of people at a manufacturing plant out of work while it made a business more and more cost-efficient, ensuring greater revenue and profits.
She listened as he talked about predictive learning combined with deep linking that would burrow into current clients’ and future clients’ data in order to ensure competitive and repetitive ordering and pricing.
Of the various use cases this kind of technology could have on basically any sector in the entire world. Finance, stock markets could be played with minimal-to-zero risk. Manufacturing could become entirely automated, from small businesses to large corporations.
Billions could be saved in man hours, productivity, and the elimination of human error.
And Sophia was filled with a dull kind of horror.
When he wound down she was forced to ask him, “But…what about the people?”
Bharat blinked at her. As did everyone else. “I don’t understand, Sophia,” he said.
Sophia’s throat dried up as she felt everyone look quizzically at her. She licked her lips and said, “If what you’re talking about could be executed successfully…then this means that so many people are going to be out of jobs? Whole industries worth of jobs, right?”
“No.” Bharat shook his head. “That’s not what Caliban does. She just makes it easy to figure out the cost of doing business, down to the last penny. People who are smart will be able to figure out a way to leverage Caliban, think more, better for themselves and have a better quality of life.”
Against All Odds Page 11