Echo Online 2

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  “I never said that,” I replied with a smirk, “quite the opposite, actually. See, I went ahead and did some poking around, both with the numbers I’ve received from Bruce and the industry as a whole, and I was surprised to discover that, despite some shakiness back in the mid-2010s, the mobile card game market is a multi-billion dollar industry.”

  Melanie appeared to be mildly impressed, but let the air hang quiet for a while instead of interjecting with anything to counter or agree with what I’d said.

  “So, I did some math,” I continued, “and while I’ll admit I’m not a whiz by any standards, I worked out that Ripper, if it maintains the course, will be worth something in the realm of a quarter of a billion dollars in twelve months. Feel free to jump in at any time.”

  Again, Melanie simply sat there smiling, her anticipation having turned into calculation as she sized me up, until she finally nodded and let out an approving sigh, “I really like you.” she huffed without losing her smile.

  “How far off was I?” I asked, knowing for a fact that I must’ve messed something up.

  “Nothing concrete,” Melanie replied, sitting forward as she did, “though, and I’m only sharing this with you because you’ve been so transparent with me, I put that twelve month valuation of yours in six months, and that’s only because I’ve seen what he plans to roll out in terms of events and an internal marketplace over the coming months. Anyway, this is all beside the point, I feel like you’d have walked out of here by now if you didn’t have a counteroffer, so what is it?”

  “I keep my board seat,” I said firmly, “and seeing as we both agree this company is more or less definitely going to hit a quarter-billion dollars within twelve months, I’m willing to sell eight percent at twelve million.”

  And that was when Melanie’s brow furrowed for the first time, “I was under the impression you were halfway good at math.” she half-joked.

  “I understand I’m undercutting myself by a good deal,” I said while smothering the voice that was screaming that I sounded like a total douchebag, “but that’s only because I want our business relationship to get off on the right foot. Plus, again, I’m keeping my board seat and a nice two percent nest egg.”

  There was clearly still a part of Melanie that was confused as to why I didn’t go for a couple million more, but after a few moments she seemed to understand where I was coming from, “Alright, if you’re sure, I’ll call up my attorney and have him send over the contracts now.”

  “Believe me, I wouldn’t have been a passenger in my own car if I didn’t want to figure out an airtight plan.” I replied with a cocky little smirk, “So yes, I am definitely happy, provided that you are.”

  “Oh, I’m very happy.” Melanie chuckled as she got to her feet, “You two stay here, I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Not wanting to reveal my hand too quickly, I waited until I was absolutely positive Melanie was completely out of earshot before letting out a massive sigh of relief.

  “Holy crap, Buck!” Sam quietly squeaked, “How did you do that?”

  “I don’t know,” I laughed nervously, “I seriously have no idea. Did I just make twelve million dollars?”

  “You did!” Sam giggled before leaning in and kissing me about a thousand times, “You big, beautiful genius, you. And keeping that two percent? Ah!”

  “Right? I just figured I’d want to hold onto at least a little something,” I said proudly, “can you imagine if Bruce’s company goes gangbusters?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Sam replied eagerly, “I’ve seen it a million times before, I’ve just never been lucky enough to be on the ground floor.”

  “All done!” Melanie called out from somewhere behind us, “Just need you to sign the dotted lines and we’ll be finished here.”

  “That was fast.” I said, quickly regaining my composure as Melanie set down a pen and two sheets of paper in front of me.

  “The contracts were pretty much done already,” Melanie explained, not bothering to sit down as I did a cursory read over the relevant information and signed, “you’d be surprised what you can do if you have a decent letterhead and a template. I’ll be sure to get you copies as soon as possible.”

  “Here I thought they were all personalized.” I half-joked, “Mind witnessing, Sam?”

  “Sure thing.” Sam replied, accepting the pen with slightly shaky fingers and quickly signing on her dotted line before handing everything straight to Melanie.

  “And we’re done!” Melanie exclaimed happily, double-checking the contracts, “I’m surprised at how short those negotiations were, I was willing to go twelve for five percent.”

  “Funny you should mention that,” I chuckled as I got to my feet, “I was willing to do five for nine percent.”

  “Ha!” Melanie laughed, turning her attention to Sam, “Make sure you don’t let this one go.”

  “Oh, I won’t be.” Sam replied lovingly while we made our way for the door, “Anyway, it was good seeing you, Melanie.”

  “You too, Sam,” Melanie replied once we reached and stopped at the front door where she put her hand out, “pleasure doing business with you.”

  “As it has been with you.” I said, shaking Melanie’s hand for a moment before a look of realization spread across her face.

  “Hold on just a moment,” Melanie practically blurted out as she made for a room off the one we were in, “I’ll be right back!”

  “Is this the part where she goes and gets the hunters?” I whispered over my shoulder, “In which case, waiting is a bad idea.”

  “Got it!” Melanie called from the other room right before she came jogging back over to us with a slip of paper in her hand, “You’ll probably want this.”

  “A… check?” I asked, looking for any sign of corporate signatures or watermarks, “What’s this for?”

  “It’s your twelve million,” Melanie replied confusedly, “this was a personal transaction, not a corporate acquisition.”

  “Ah,” I let out, deciding to stop pretending for a moment that I knew everything, “well, okay then. This is… wow.”

  “Yeah,” Melanie chuckled, “anyway, be sure to let me know if you stumble across any more unicorns, Jareth.”

  “I will,” I said as we stepped outside, my eyes locked on the check, “see you at the next board meeting.”

  “Absolutely,” Melanie replied cheerfully, “have a safe drive home.”

  I’m sure that I could’ve continued the conversation a little longer, but by the time Sam had unlocked the car and I’d climbed in I was lost.

  Like pretty much every person on planet Earth, I’d considered what I’d do if I ever had a massive windfall of cash, but it was one thing to want to build a functioning Willy Wonka-style chocolate factory and another thing entirely to have a life changing check in your hands.

  I was genuinely briefly concerned that I was dreaming, but a quick look in the car's vanity mirror showed me that I wasn’t an evil-looking Tiefling with an axe to grind.

  Life had just kicked into whatever gear is the maximum in the Fast & Furious franchise, and I still had to go to work in a few hours.

  35

  My mind was still reeling as we hit the halfway mark of Melanie’s absurdly long driveway, and I genuinely couldn’t tell if I was on the verge of passing out or whooping with joy.

  “I just can’t believe this happened.” I murmured, “This… I literally have no reason to have anything to do with the tech business, and now…”

  “You’re a multimillionaire.” Sam giggled before slowly braking, “Do you mind if we swap?”

  I was kind of confused about her wanting to switch, but I smiled and nodded anyway, putting the check in the glove compartment and getting out of the car.

  “It’s just weird,” I chuckled as I passed Sam on my way over to the driver’s side, “like, this kind of thing doesn’t just happen.”

  “Well, it didn’t just happen,” Sam replied while I went to work getting my seat back into p
osition and adjusting my mirrors, “it was more like the Butterfly Effect.”

  “Minus Ashton Kutcher, right?” I joked, feeling no small amount of relief to be back behind the wheel of my car.

  “You’re a comic genius,” Sam scoffed after I’d put the car in gear and gotten us moving again, “but seriously, it was just one thing leading to another, leading to another, and so on and so forth. You lucked out a bit, sure, but this didn’t magically happen.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked semi-genuinely, “Feels kind of like the literal Lady Luck decided to throw me a bone.”

  “What I saw in there had nothing to do with luck and everything to do with you being amazing,” Sam replied, putting her hand on my thigh as she did, “Melanie could’ve just as easily thrown you out the door today and waited for you to get desperate enough to take her deal. Less than based on what I’ve seen her do in the past.”

  “But I only managed to pull any of that out of my ass because you warned me ahead of time,” I said, “there’s no guarantee that I wouldn’t have just caked my pants and ruined the whole deal if I didn’t know she was going to deliberately lowball me.”

  “Buck, you are amazing,” Sam reiterated, “and I’m positive that you would’ve been able to handle her even if I hadn’t told you squat. Stop arguing and take the damn compliment.”

  I smiled at that and rolled my eyes, “Alright, fine. I did good, thank you.”

  “No, thank you,” Sam replied happily, biting her lower lip a little, “not only do I get to go to work on Monday with a very happy boss, I am officially dating a millionaire. I can’t wait to tell Jane.”

  “You want to call her?” I asked, “I don’t mind.”

  “I think I’d like to see her reaction in person,” Sam said before pulling her hand up my thigh a few inches, “besides, I feel like there’re a lot more fun things I could be doing right now.”

  “Kind of driving right now,” I replied as we finally pulled out of the driveway, “I mean, the logistics of sex and steering alone are a nightmare.”

  “I’m not talking about sex, now am I?” Sam said with a cute smile while her palm made its way to my crotch, “C’mon, you’ve earned it, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a little bit of fantasy of mine.”

  “Having to explain to an EMT why your head is pinned on my dick by the steering wheel?” I chuckled while an undeterred Sam began slowly rubbing, “Do you know how distracting just that is?”

  “I promise I’ll be gentle.” Sam replied coyly before undoing her seatbelt and unbuckling my belt.

  “Coarseness isn’t the concern,” I said, my voice cracking slightly as Sam slowly undid and unzipped my pants, “what if someone sees us?”

  “Just don’t stop and we’ll be fine.” Sam giggled as her hand found its way into my pants and started rubbing my hardening cock through my underwear, “Please?”

  I let her plead hang in the air in the while, successfully but just barely hiding my desperation while she slowly stroked along the indent in the cotton, before finally letting out a long sigh and rolling my eyes, “Fine, but if this gets us kille-”

  “Trust me, it won’t.” Sam interjected, her hand practically diving into my underwear, “I’m good, but not that good.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I chuckled meekly as her fingers wrapped around my cock and started gently stroking, “you seem pretty adept.”

  “And I haven’t even gotten to the fun part yet.” Sam replied evilly before slowly pulling my throbbing member out of my pants, “Now, I know this may be hard for you, but I’m going to need you to drive at ten as opposed to ten and two.”

  It took me a moment to realize what she was saying due to my brain blood taking a half-day, though I got there eventually and moved my right arm down, spurring Sam to quickly shuffle around a bit, bend over the center console, and wrap her lips around the head of my cock.

  Not going to lie, the whole thing took me by surprise, not least the part where she immediately started swirling her tongue around while simultaneously stroking and sucking.

  Thankfully, despite all that, I was able to quickly adjust to keeping my eyes on the road and not watch Sam’s head start slowly going up and down, although I’d be lying if I said I was driving to the best of my ability.

  Not only was I cruising at a turtle’s pace, but every few seconds I had to catch and stop myself from trundling us into a tree.

  It wasn’t like I was about to ask Sam to stop though, not with the way she somehow managed to take almost the entirety of my length with what seemed to be relative ease while her thumb and forefinger expertly worked the base of my shaft.

  And her tongue, good God, her tongue.

  She had near-perfect timing with the way she’d swirl her tongue around my tip before moving it aside as her tight, wet lips made their way down.

  Then, right as I felt like I was about to get used to the tingling torture, she’d rotate her head slightly and push the head of my cock against her cheek while her tongue wrapped around my shaft and followed her steady bobbing.

  I was struggling to keep my eyes more than halfway open as I accidentally, and thankfully, turned down a cul-de-sac, and as I drew nearer my toes involuntarily curled in my shoes, making it impossible to manage my acceleration properly.

  That’s when Sam, upon feeling my member starting to twitch, let out a stifled moan as she took the entirety of me in her mouth, sending vibrations down my legs and, unsurprisingly, pushing me over the edge.

  “Jesus…” I stammered out as my hand grabbed Sam’s hair of its own volition and held her there while she swallowed, her suction wracking my body with almost painful tingles that nearly resulted in me peeling around the end of the cul-de-sac and into a late model station wagon.

  For a moment we both sat there, me having stopped us in the middle of the street while I struggled to catch my breath and Sam hummed a cheerful tune.

  “Told you I was good.” Sam giggled after I’d moved my hand and let her sit back up, “And you were going to say no.”

  “Yeah, heh,” I murmured with a twitch as I took my foot off the brake and set us off again, briefly forgetting that my cock was hanging out of my pants, “reckon there’s another one of those in my future?”

  “If you earn it,” Sam replied cheekily, “and judging by your track record thus far, I doubt that’ll be a long way off.”

  “Good,” I said just a tad too eagerly before clearing my throat and straightening up, “good. Where’d you learn to do that, by the way?”

  Sam raised her eyebrow at that while a cocky little smirk played across her lips, “Do you really want to know the answer to that question?”

  “I…” I trailed off, mentally weighing up my options as I looked at the overtly confident Sam, “Yeah, you know what? Nah, I think I’ll be alright.”

  “Smart.” Sam chuckled, “Now, home again, home again.”

  “Heh,” I huffed amusedly, turning my full attention back to the road, “jiggity-jig.”

  36

  “Took your time,” Jane scoffed from her chair before Sam and I had even made it into the apartment, “we’ve got to get into Echo.”

  “You don’t want to hear how the meeting went?” I asked amusedly while Sam continued to flatten her hair out.

  “I do, I really do,” Jane lied, “but Sergei’s been messaging me all morning and he needs us to get on.”

  “How come?” Sam asked as she walked over to the kitchen and got herself a glass of water.

  “They’re moving out,” Jane replied excitedly, “apparently the fog’s settled down a bit and the shoreline is completely unguarded.”

  “Wait, what?” I got out as my brain finally properly locked onto the conversation, “Where is everyone then?”

  “It looks like the halos pulled back into the city and just accepted that they weren’t going to be able to get near the water,” Jane explained, “the fog’s still there, but it seems to only be in line with the docks, and it’s clear
enough that Sergei and his boys can see the creepy ass monsters we set loose.”

  “So we’re going to go mess with the eldritch horrors ourselves then?” I huffed amusedly, “Seems like we’d get just as messed up as the halos did.”

  “We’re going to push straight through,” Jane replied after shaking her head, “we’ve got those APCs and stuff, so the goal is to just make it into the city and find somewhere to hide.”

  “Why can’t we just fly over?” Sam asked, “Seems like it’d be way quicker and wouldn’t risk driving right into a blockade or something.”

  “AA’s still active,” Jane sighed, “lost a small reconnaissance group of mages who flew over. Anyway, point is that we have got to jump into the game right now.”

  “I don’t know, I have work in a few hours,” I said, sucking my teeth, “I don’t know how long I’d be able to commit.”

  “At this point you have two options,” Jane replied somewhat firmly, “either you come across the water now, or you try to get across by yourself later. With no vehicles. Or guns. Or-”

  “I get the picture.” I interjected with a smile, “Alright, let’s just make sure we aren’t in there for too long. I’d like to eat at some point today before I have to go to work.”

  “I’m sure it won’t take too long.” Jane said, an obvious tone of relief in her voice, “Now, before we all jump into bed, how did the deal go? Are we happy?”

  “Well, that depends,” Sam replied while struggling to contain herself, “what do you think would make us happy?”

  Jane clearly wasn’t all too excited to start playing a guessing game, but she played along anyway, “I don’t know, a couple hundred grand?”

  “Try twelve million.” Sam giggled, the dam of her excitement giving way.

  “Bullshit.” Jane replied, blinking hard as she did and looking to me for clarification, “Seriously, bullshit.”

  “No bullshit,” I chimed in, “all we’ve got to do is cash the check and we’re millionaires.”