Jim thought for a moment trying to remember the science fiction novel he’d read that mentioned something similar. “You also said maintain?”
“Yes, such things as vitamins. For example, the organism that targets vitamin A, which is toxic at high levels, only feeds at certain concentrations. Below that level they start to die off releasing the vitamin back into your system.”
“Again, side effects?”
“None have been noted for the last couple of hundred years. In the early days there were some disasters with their use. A small area on Regis was wiped out. They tried a new strain of E. Coli, a bacteria that assists in digestion. It was designed to break down cellulose. The problem was an over production of gas. People literally exploded.”
Jim laughed. “I shouldn’t find that funny but I do. Are you telling me people farted themselves to death?”
“Yes, but we’ve solved that problem since then with more efficient forms. The older strain still exists in a mutated, nonfatal, variety. It’s rare, but when you catch it, it causes a malady called Regis revenge. It’s easily treated with medication.”
“You’re saying that I can now live on tree bark?”
“For a while, but it lacks certain nutrients. You’d have to vary your diet. By the way, your personal team of advisers is waiting for you in conference room five.”
“Could someone show me the way?” Jim asked, putting on the second shoe before jumping up from the chair.
“Angela, would you be kind enough to show Mr. Young to the conference room?” the doctor asked and turned to leave the room.
“Happy to, Doctor.”
Angela took Jim by the elbow and guided him toward a second door. “I’d better hold on to you just in case you’re still a little unsteady. You know, I had to fight to keep this shift. Just about every nurse in the hospital volunteered to take over and give me a day off. They all want to meet you. How did it feel, blasting through time?”
“Like driving off a cliff in an armored personnel carrier.”
“A what?”
Jim tried to control the flicker of a smile. “You can read about them in the Young Encyclopedia.”
They proceeded down a corridor then turned left into an open area with four doors. Angela referred to them as lift tubes, explaining that they were quite safe. To Angela’s surprise, when a door opened, Jim walked straight in. He then turned and asked her “What floor?” When told, he casually touched the control marked with a 2.
“I thought they brought you from that lab under anesthetic.”
“They did.”
“Then how did you know how to operate a lift tube?”
“Just seemed logical to me.”
Jim had developed a habit of amusing himself by confusing people. He failed to tell her that his first memory of an elevator was at the age of three, riding one up to his grandmother’s apartment.
“Thought these things would be voice activated like everything else.”
“Not lift tubes. It’s traditional from the days when computers couldn’t distinguish between a command and normal chat. When someone, in conversation, casually mentioned that Fred’s office was on the fifth floor the silly voice activated things used to change their destination.”
The door opened again. They exited into another corridor. Walking past three doors they stopped at the fourth. It didn’t open.
“Voice print identification.” The door asked.
“This is a security door,” Angela explained. “You open it by…..”
“Jim Young,” he announced. The door slid open.
“You saw one of these at the lab?” Angela’s voice was an octave higher than usual.
“No.”
“Logical?”
“No. Watching Star Trek. Thank you for showing me the way.”
“My pleasure,” she said softly. The look on her face told Jim that his confusion game had scored yet another victim. ‘Oh well’ he thought. ‘At least she’ll have a story to tell her coworkers.’
“Daddy, Daddy!” Colin and Michael trotted over to greet their father. Jim bent down and gripped both.
“How’s it going troops?” Jim said, giving them a long hug. “Come on let’s sit down.”
Around a table in the small, windowless room were the people Jim now knew he could rely on. Dr. Redmond sat at the far head of the table and Jason Cob, his appointed legal representative, to the left. Between the Doctor and Cob sat one of the females, Amy, his financial manager. The fourth member of the team, Doris, sat to Redmond’s left.
Jason was a young man with short blond hair. He looked too young, hence inexperienced, to handle such a unique client. But his looks were deceptive. In establishing Jim’s legal position with rights of citizenship, he rattled off laws and legal precedents from memory to every question that arose. When faced with a challenge, a cheeky smirk developed. He seemed to revel in the unusual. Due to Jason’s efforts, Jim was declared a centenarian. Technically he was over one hundred years old, hence eligible for tax breaks and benefits due one over the standard age of retirement.
Amy was a middle aged, all business woman. She seldom smiled which mildly annoyed Jim. Her reputation as a financial manager was well earned. Within ten minutes of Jim signing her to a contract, with one phone call she had made him more money than all of his preceding pay checks combined several times over.
The men were standing while the women sat. Jim reached round and shook all presented hands, then sat in the middle of three remaining seats.
“Good to see you without one of us wearing a suit,” Redmond said.
Jim put his arms around his boys when they took a seat either side of him. He looked down at Michael who was tugging on his sleeve. “I’m quite pleased about that myself.”
“Dad, Dr. Redmond’s friend Mr. Nagel interviewed us on 3V.”
Jim looked up at Doris.
“I didn’t think it would hurt, they quite enjoyed watching themselves in three dimensions,” Doris said with a confident smile.
“Dad,” Michael continued enthusiastically, “did you know they never heard the word cowabunga here?”
“Really?”
“So we showed them!” The two boys raised their right hands, slapping them in the air. “Cowabunga!”
“I’m sure the universe is now more culturally enriched for your demonstration.”
Jim had once heard from a school teacher that young kids didn’t understand sarcasm. Their beaming faces proved this as fact.
Colin wriggled in his seat, obviously close to bursting with news and exciting tales of recent experiences. “That 3V is great. I saw one last night about the Imperial wars. They’ve got a whole mess of new ways to blast guys. In 3V I thought one of the bodies was going to fly out and land on me. Doris said she’d find out about the Commonwealth Guard for me.”
Jim looked up at Doris. “I hope they haven’t been too much trouble for you.”
“No, no,” she replied. “If you don’t object I’d like to write a thesis on Earth children.”
Jim’s expression changed to one of shock. “And you’re going to use Colin as an example? What’ll people think?”
The room burst into a general soft laughter.
Doris stroked Colin’s hair. “They’re both perfectly normal. There won’t be any problems.”
“Ok,” Jim said, turning to Amy. “How’s my fortune doing?”
Amy picked up a pad lying on the table in front of her. Jim noticed that it was similar to the ones shown him earlier. It was probably linked to the database in her office.
“To begin with, the video tapes and DVDs,” she started. “We demonstrated the three examples you gave us and called for bids. The Konig network was the highest at four point six million G each for exclusive rights. We’ll also get two thousand Gs royalties per showing....”
“Ah... one moment,” Jim interrupted. “Wouldn’t the copyrights have expired?”
“No,” Amy said, shaking her head, “they’re perman
ent, passed down from generation to generation. The laws must have changed since your time.”
“In that case they’re all still copyrighted aren’t they, and not by me?”
Jason leaned forward picking up his pad. “They’re now your property. The companies that produced them are gone. The producers, directors and actors are all long dead. Their heirs are impossible to trace, it has been tried before. For all legal purposes you own the rights. There are a number of legal precedents. The last was a book called King of the Morrs. An amateur archaeologist found it in the computer banks of an old colony ship. I have already registered the list you gave me at the copyright office. You have quite a number of them. Did all the people of your time have such an extensive collection?”
“Not everyone. Just TV fanatics and people living in dull boring places like I did,” Jim said, remembering the fanaticism with which he had recorded movie after movie from TV through sheer circumstantial boredom. “A good proportion of what I have comes from a friend. He was a collector of classic and recent movies. When he went digital and converted his tapes, he gave me boxes of his old VHS ones. I was going to have a yard sale and sell them for fifty cents each but never got ‘round to it.”
Jason started to laugh, shaking his head.
“Well, it’s fortunate that you did not sell them,” Amy said. “One was aired last night and a second is showing tonight. Last night’s showing had the highest ratings of any program in the history of 3V.”
“Wow, that was fast.”
Redmond leaned forward to catch Jim’s attention. “Jim, things happen faster than you’re used too. An auction can take place within twenty four hours of the announcement. The board of a corporation can be assembled for a meeting within twenty minutes via 3V conference phone. They have instant access to data and can make a decision on bid price within an hour. Communications are virtually instantaneous through parallel space.”
Amy put down her pad. “We transmitted the three tapes and it took their technicians two days for a bit of restoration work. We insisted that they be shown in their original form, flat screen. That’s part of the contract.”
“How did you transmit them? Do you still have VCRs and DVD players?”
“Levin took care of that,” Redmond said, leaning back in his chair. “It took him about an hour to connect the outlet on your own VCR and DVD player to a 3V phone.”
“Ok.” Jim swung back and forth in his swivel chair with a satisfied smile. “Anything else?”
Amy picked up her pad again and continued. “The pizza. Rights were sold to the Ivanoff’s Better Foods Corporation for four point eight million Gs, plus stock in the company. It’s already on its way to them for analysis. We even sent the container. They want to reproduce it as close to the original as possible and that includes the box.”
“That was only one type of pizza,” Jim said. “Are they only going to make that one?”
“There was a piece of paper stuck to the box that listed the ingredients of others.”
“There’s also more information,” Redmond said. “Levin found paper in that bag you said was garbage. We believe it was advertising with things on it labeled ‘coupons’. It listed more than a dozen styles.”
“I see,” Jim said.
Amy again caught Jim’s attention. “They also want your sons to appear in a series of three commercials to testify to the authenticity of their product. They’ll pay one hundred thousand Gs each per commercial,” Amy looked up from her pad. “I received a call this morning from a Mr. Johansen of Ivanoff’s. He wants to use cowabunga for a catch word in the advertising campaign. He obviously saw the news last night.”
The figures quoted were beyond Jim’s ability to immediately assimilate into a working concept. If he had been told that his earnings were ten thousand or even a hundred thousand dollars he would have instantly had a plan for the money’s use. The vast sums now in question were bouncing off his understanding. “That’s a lot of money.”
“Jim,” Redmond said, raising an index finger. “You have to adjust your thinking to size. What was the population of Earth when you left?”
“About seven billion, I think.”
“There are now almost a hundred and thirty billion humans alive today, a bigger and more affluent market. The wealth of the upper levels of this society is unbelievable by Old Earth standards. There are two men who each own planets, and quite a few own continents.”
“I looked at those paper bank statements you gave me,” Amy said. “I was astounded that you earned so little money. The lowest income workers today make many, many times what you did.”
“I have a house?” Jim raised both eyebrows. He remembered the question he wanted to ask Amy.
“Yes, picked it up three days ago, someone wanted a fast sale so I had Jason use your power of attorney. Got it for about seventy five percent of market, it’s a good investment.”
Jim tried to adjust his imagination to the size of things. “What’s it like?”
“Oh, nine bedroom, fully automated servants, two swimming pools, one indoor, one outdoor, knock ball court and tennis court. It’s on thirty six hectares, mostly wooded. It’s one hundred and fifty kilometers from here, about half an hour by the tube.”
“How many dining rooms?” Jim asked. It was more of a personal joke than a quest for information.
“Three, plus two kitchens, den, a sports room...”
“Wait... I think I’ll let it surprise me when I get there. Could you tell me how much we’re worth, cash in hand?”
Amy tapped the bottom of her pad and looked through the figures appearing on its screen. “Do you want that in Gs or in your dollars?”
“In dollars please.”
“As of this moment, you have about two hundred and eighteen million dollars. That is, after deductions of the applicable taxes and my fees.” She looked up from her pad and added. “And we have only just started. Requests from museums and collectors are pouring in. We’ll be putting together sets of your empty beverage containers. I figure on getting about thirty sets of one Budweiser, one Coors, one Coke, one Seven Up and one Shasta Root Beer, at twenty thousand Gs per set. That is, after the residue inside has been analyzed and the recipes sold to beverage companies.”
Jim bowed his head and did a quick mental calculation. “That’s about three million dollars for my recycle?”
“That’s just the common ones,” Amy said. “That single empty container of Jack Daniels whiskey would go at auction for about one million of your dollars. I’d say those bags of what you called recycle and garbage would be worth about eighty million dollars.”
“Ah...” Jim said, sitting with his mouth open. “You don’t have any Earth made, empty whisky bottles?”
“We have quite a few from garbage dumps on Old Earth,” Redmond said. “But yours are the only ones in existence with the labels still on them and the smell of whiskey still inside.”
“We’ve also received a dozen inquiries from collectors about the cans with holes,” Amy said. “The ones caused by bullets from your chemical propellant weapon. Due to their unique nature, that should quadruple their value.”
“The ones Colin shot in the desert?” Jim said in amazement.
“As I said, this is just a start,” Amy said. “The bulk will come later from royalties, franchise, licenses and earnings from stock.”
“So much?” Jim said. “How come so much?”
“The techs are working on one of your DVDs right now; it’s called ‘Titanic’. How much money did that make on Old Earth?”
“It made millions just in the first week after it opened.”
“Multiply that by twenty due to the larger viewing audience. Multiply that by five due to the greater enthusiasm to see it. Multiply that by the number of videos you have. On top of that, you do not have to pay actors, a film crew, set designers and techs to make them, they’re already made. It’s all profit. And remember, the movies are only part of your assets.”
; “I told you that you have nothing to worry about,” Redmond said, slapping a hand on the table.
“By the way Doc, how’s the work on the encyclopedia going?”
“We have a team of about one hundred working around the clock. The decision was made to release the information slowly. The culture shock would be too great if we dumped it all at once on the population. A small example of this...” Redmond chuckled to himself. “...my brother in law Stalin has to get used to the fact that his historic namesake was not as saintly as was once thought.”
“Dad, can we go out and play?” Michael asked.
“I’ll take them out,” Doris said, standing and holding out a hand to Colin. “We’ll be in the park near the lab parking lot.”
“I’m too old to hold hands with girls,” Colin said. He jumped up and ran to the door.
“How’s your French friend taking this?” Jim inquired, folding his arms and smiling.
The doctor laughed. “Monsieur De Poulet petitioned for an injunction to stop publication of our findings. His grounds were security and in the public interest. The petition was thrown out, or should I say laughed out of court.”
“What’s with that guy anyway?” Jim asked. The thought of a powerful man with an aversion to his presence bothered him. The problems of adjusting and the cautious handling of his boys was enough to manage without some influential cretin complicating matters.
“It’s the family and history, particularly the Empire. Would you like a brief history lesson now?”
Jim turned to Jason and Amy. “I don’t want to keep you two. This is something you probably covered in school when you were six years old.”
“No, go right ahead,” Jason answered. “This is more fun than watching the Barnett show on 3V.”
“Well,” Redmond continued, “the early colonies were mostly isolated for the first six hundred years. They were primarily concerned with survival at that time. Communications took years and travel even longer. Then a Chinese scientist on...”
The Time Stone (The Time Stone Trilogy Book 1) Page 8