“Are they hurting your sales?” asked Poly.
“Not a lot, yet,” said Nettie. “Our big corporate clients don’t buy from gray market sources.”
“Though some pirated equipment is being relabeled and sold as ours,” said Lizzie.
“We find out about it when customers call our service people to fix them and the serial numbers aren’t valid,” added A.J.
“That’s bad,” said Nettie, “but our big content provider clients are even more ticked off about the anonymous routers and pirated signals.”
“The Sirocco Legislative Network is losing millions of galcreds of sales to pirates operating with untraceable network equipment,” said Lizzie.
“They’re one of our largest clients,” said Nettie.
“And they’re threatening to switch suppliers if we can’t address the piracy issue, costing us millions,” said A.J.
I was getting a bit dizzy from swiveling my head to follow the siblings’ conversation.
“What have you tried so far?” I asked.
I knew GalCon Systems employed some of the brightest people in the galaxy and didn’t want to suggest any steps they’d already taken.
“We’ve had undercover agents buy gray boxes and follow the supply chain, but there are so many cutouts we can’t get to the source of the equipment,” said Nettie.
“Have you brought in law enforcement?” asked Poly.
“Not yet,” said Lizzie. “It would be a lot better if we could handle this quietly, without getting them involved.”
“Which is one reason why we’re talking to you,” said A.J.
“Without having us sign a non-disclosure agreement?” I said.
“We trust Poly,” said Nettie, “and Poly says you know how to keep things confidential.”
“Nice job on handling that Dauushan princess kidnapping, by the way,” said A.J.
“Thanks.”
I leaned over and squeezed Poly’s hand, appreciating her vote of confidence. I addressed the siblings.
“What else have you tried?”
“We’ve upped internal physical and network security,” said Lizzie.
“And have done in-depth background checks on all employees with access to the router designs,” said Nettie.
“But we haven’t spotted anything yet,” said A.J.
I scratched my head, metaphorically. It wouldn’t have been classy to do it for real.
“The gray boxes are getting to market almost as soon as your own new products are released,” I said. “Can you tell when in the testing process the pirated designs are being ripped off?”
“The timing might help you figure out who’s responsible for the industrial espionage,” said Poly.
“Or at least the most likely vulnerability points,” I added.
Poly smiled at me.
“That’s a good idea, but it’s not as helpful as you’d think,” said Nettie. “Sometimes, pirates wait until we release our new products, obtain a few, and steal our final code for their gray boxes.”
“Can’t you track the companies that buy the first shipments?” asked Poly.
“We tried that,” said A.J., “but found that our new products were being stolen from distribution warehouses before they even got to our clients.”
“They didn’t need many new routers to copy the code,” said Lizzie. “One or two would be enough.”
“And the people we caught taking new routers from the warehouses were clearly hired hands,” said Nettie. “They were employed to steal specific boxes and managed to teleport them to untraceable locations.”
“So that approach went nowhere,” I said.
“Exactly,” said A.J. “And the equipment could have gone anywhere. Now the problem’s even worse.”
We all looked at each other and shook our heads. This wouldn’t be easy. Poly tried a different tack.
“You’d mentioned competitors getting your designs,” she said. “Any company in particular?”
A.J. started smacking his fist into his palm, looking far from happy. He nearly spit the words.
“Chapultepec & Castle.”
Poly and I looked at each other. Could Cornell and the thumb drive he’d passed to the tall woman wearing the navy blue pantsuit and the red, white and blue scarf at the Chapultepec & Castle booth be related to the Obi-Yu siblings’ problems?
Odds were good.
“We may have some ideas about how to solve your problem,” I said, “but it will take a while to get you up to speed…”
“…and we’d like to see some of GALTEX this afternoon,” said Poly. “Can we get together for dinner?”
“Sure,” said Nettie. “Mom’s handling tonight’s client dinner, so we’re off-duty. Where are you staying?”
“The Grand Pyridian,” I said.
“Dinner’s on us,” said Lizzie. “We’ll have an autolimo pick you up at six-thirty.”
“Where are we going?” asked Poly.
“It’s a surprise,” said Nettie.
The two former roommates exchanged looks. Poly seemed wary, like Nettie had played practical jokes on her in the past and she was waiting to see what would happen.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
Poly tugged me to my feet.
“Let’s get back on the show floor,” she said.
“It was a great pleasure to meet you ladies,” I said, giving them both theatrical bows. “You, too, A.J.”
He gave me a Windsor wave and a smile.
“They get bows and I get no respect,” he said. “Go on, get out of here. We’ll see you tonight.”
Poly was pulling me out of the deal room.
“Come on,” she said, urging me to hurry.
“As you wish, my love,” I replied.
“See,” said Lizzie to A.J., throwing another elbow.
This time A.J. grunted. If he had a reply, I didn’t hear it. We were already out the door.
Chapter 9
“Behind every small business there’s a story worth knowing.”
— Paul Ryan
After our detour to visit GalCon Systems, Poly and I resumed our original plan and headed for the small booths on the back wall of the convention hall. From attending other shows, I knew that the cheap seats—the least expensive locations—were where the small, entrepreneurial companies with the most interesting new ideas would be found. As we walked, the booths shrank, changing from the giant complexes for the major vendors to more modest thirty-by-thirty foot squares and finally getting down to tiny eight-by-twelve spaces barely large enough for a table and a couple of folding chairs.
The quality of the signage changed too, shifting from professionally designed banners and informational graphics to amateurish signs made by individuals who clearly had no understanding of layout, font selection, or complementary colors. I suspected a lot of the smallest companies had logos designed by relatives who’d dabbled in paint-by-numbers kits.
That made me think about the logo and graphics for Xenotech Support Corporation. I’d spent hours agonizing over the exact shape of the initial X in Adobe Illustrator and thought it was pretty decent, but I resolved to talk to Poly about the possibility of hiring a professional designer to advise us on how it could be improved. I’d need to make sure the designer understood galactic customers and nuances. It wouldn’t do to inadvertently offend species based on the design elements or have a logo that couldn’t be distinguished by aliens that didn’t share humans’ color vision.
We passed a firm selling a 3D printer and scanner combo that made custom Pez dispensers and bobblehead dolls based on the faces of anyone standing in front of their booth’s cameras. Another company along the back wall was selling software that consolidated feeds from the top one hundre
d dating sites and assigned BS-scores to potential partners’ profiles based on publicly available information and sophisticated semantic analysis. I squeezed Poly’s hand, glad that I didn’t need their services.
Next to the software company was a startup called Wand-A-Know selling “magic wands” that could detect potential allergens or undesired ingredients in foods and beverages, with presets for peanut allergies, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, vegetarians, lacto-ovo vegetarians, vegans, bell peppers, garlic, soy, milk, wheat and MSG. The tips of the wands would glow when a trigger substance was present. Poly and I talked to the founders—a nice young couple from Portland—and suggested they build their technology into cell phone cases so that users wouldn’t have to carry yet-another-gadget along with them.
My phone hopped on their table and demonstrated how its mutacase could extend pseudopod sensors and I offered to put them in touch with one of my suppliers on Orish to help them mock up samples. Poly noted that it would be great if they could come up with a version that would detect date rape drugs, like rohypnol, ketamine and gamma-hydroxybutyrate. The founders thought that was a great idea and said they’d get right on it.
As we were leaving the Wand-A-Know booth, we heard shouting and the sounds of a scuffle from farther down the aisle. Like moths drawn to LED bulbs, Poly and I headed toward the altercation. A man and a woman, both in business suits and carrying large canvas bags filled with brochures, were screaming at each other.
“You’re cheating on our taxes?” shouted the woman.
“It’s not cheating, it’s creative accounting,” the man responded.
“It’s going to put us both in jail,” said the woman, increasing her volume.
“I’ll head off-planet before I’ll serve time,” said the man. His face was getting red.
“All the GaFTA worlds have extradition treaties with Earth,” said the woman. “You can’t write off jewelry for your mistress as a business expense.”
“You’re just jealous.”
“No, I’m not. I’m not your wife, I’m your business partner. I don’t care who you screw in your personal life, but when you screw with the company’s books, you’ve crossed the line.”
“Our CFO said it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Our CFO is your mistress! How long did you think you could hide that little detail from me?”
“Long enough,” said the man, “until after we sold the company a few years from now. Then you had to stop at this booth.”
I looked at the crude banner reading Telepathic Solutions: We Know What You Want, that was draped across the heavy blue curtains at the back of the booth.
There were three very nervous people behind the table looking embarrassed and ready to crawl under it. Two men and a woman wearing black polo shirts with a company logo were trying to figure out how to get the arguing couple to take their discussion elsewhere.
I decided it was time to be helpful and pulled out my phone.
“Can you analyze their sonic wave forms and project sounds a hundred and eighty degrees out of phase to suppress them?” I asked.
“No problem,” said my phone.
The couple continued to argue, but now at near zero decibels. Poly stepped close to them and spoke. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but my phone showed me a real-time transcription.
“I have a recording of your entire conversation,” said Poly. “I suggest you continue your discussion somewhere more private or I’ll send it to the IRS myself.”
The arguing couple looked at Poly, then looked at each other, and finally glared at the three people behind the table at Telepathic Solutions before heading for the exit.
“Thank you!” said one of the men behind the table. He was older, with gray hair where he wasn’t bald. Poly and I walked up to the table and I shook his hand.
“Johan Fierst,” said the older man.
“Jack Buckston,” I said. “Xenotech Support.”
I pointed to the logo on my polo.
“And this is my partner, Poly Keen-Jones.”
Poly nodded and shook Johan’s hand, too.
The other two people behind the table introduced themselves.
“Dr. Robert Hu,” said the other man. “Pleased to meet you.”
He was a Chinese-American in his early thirties, an inch or two shorter than Poly. His accent sounded West Coast. Then the last person behind the table extended her hand.
“Deborah Zahn,” she said. “You have my thanks as well.”
She was older—probably about the same age as her partner Johan, with well-coiffed silver hair and a deep, authoritative contralto.
“What did you do to that couple?” I asked.
The three partners looked at each other. Dr. Hu replied.
“I gave them a free sample.”
“And they immediately started arguing?” asked Poly.
“Not immediately,” said Robert. “It took them a few seconds to get on each other’s wavelength.”
“So why did they start yelling at each other?” I asked.
“Because they could read each other’s minds,” said Deborah.
Poly and I did a double take. I’d worked with a company called TelePety that helped pets communicate with their owners, but that was based on a combination of advanced micro-sensor hardware and sophisticated heuristic software. It merely mimicked telepathy—it wasn’t the real thing.
“You can make people telepathic?” asked Poly. Her eyes were wide.
“Only on a limited basis for a very short time,” said Johan.
“We wanted something useful for front line retail and customer service personnel,” said Robert. “It’s so hard for front-line sales and support people to know what clients really want. Our solution changes that.”
I wiped my hand across my forehead. I was sweating. This was big. Really big. Scary big.
“You can say that again,” I confirmed. “Does the government know about your work?”
“No,” said Robert. “We just do sales and support solutions.”
“We’ve never done anything government-related,” said Johan.
Poly and I exchanged knowing looks. These folks were baby chicks destined for the broiler factory once the government found out about them.
“That’s good,” I said. “Have you ever considered the implications of your product for espionage?”
“Or police interrogations?” said Poly.
“Or psychotherapy,” I added.
“Or vetting potential immigrants,” said Poly.
“We just wanted to improve the customer experience,” said Deborah. “It’s so hard to figure out what customers want to buy.”
“True,” I said, “but the military and intelligence applications are undeniable.”
“And you don’t want to be in a position where the government makes you an offer you can’t refuse,” said Poly.
“And sets you up in a nice, comfy lab five hundred feet under Tycho crater,” I said.
“On the Moon?” asked Johan. “When would I see my grandchildren?”
“My dogs would hate low gravity,” said Deborah.
“I don’t think I’d like it very much either,” said Robert.
“Who else knows about your technology?” I asked.
“Just our immediate families,” said Johan.
“How many demos have you done this morning?” asked Poly.
“Just one,” said Deborah. “Our van thought we wanted to go to Las Vegas, New Mexico, not Nevada, and it was hours before we realized we were headed in the wrong direction from Provo. We just finished setting up our booth.”
“Great,” I said.
I pulled Poly close and we whispered to each other for a few seconds. We had a lot of cash in the bank
from Queen Sherrhi of Dauush and from Shepherd’s sources. It made a lot of sense to keep this technology out of the hands of the government so that we could figure out how to release it with proper safeguards for its users and its developers.
“I’d like to make you a deal,” I said. “If you’re willing to stop giving demos of your product for ninety days and give us a non-exclusive license to use it moving forward, my company will give you a million galcreds today.”
“But we spent thousands of galcreds to get this booth,” said Robert.
“And you’ll spend thousands more on lawyers trying to get you back to Earth,” said Poly.
“A million galcreds, split three ways, would be nice to have,” said Johan. “It would help me put my grandchildren through college.”
“And it would buy a lot of dog food,” said Deborah.
“You could feed them filet mignon,” said Robert, getting into the spirit.
“And ninety days would give us more time to refine the duration of the effect,” said Johan.
“How does your technology work, anyway?” asked Poly.
All three of the people behind the table froze. I jumped in.
“That’s not relevant,” I said. It was too soon to ask them to reveal the details of their technology. “But it would make sense for the two of us to test it and confirm it works.”
Poly looked at me uncertainly.
“You want to know what I’m thinking?”
“And vice versa,” I said. “It is bi-directional, right?”
“Absolutely,” said Robert.
“Let’s give it a try then,” I said.
Poly squeezed my hand so hard my carpals protested.
“You’re sure you want to do this?”
“I don’t have any secrets from you.”
Xenotech What Happens: A Novel of the Galactic Free Trade Association (Xenotech Support Book 3) Page 7