ShelfLife

by Barrie Seppings

  ‘One of the few who isn’t,’ said Trent. ‘Look, before we talk about Gav, I have to ask you about something Charles told me earlier today.’

  ‘Is that who you were in the boardroom with all morning?’

  ‘Among others. This is crazy, but he seemed to be suggesting you sold our source code to some Brazilians. The crew who launched Lifeswappr last week.’

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ Shanti put her hands to her mouth. ‘Trent, I’m so sorry. I should have told you about that.’

  Trent almost leapt out his chair. ‘What the? I was about to tell Charles to go fuck himself. Now you’re saying it’s true?’

  ‘No, no. I never sold it. I never even gave it to them. Truly.’

  ‘Then what? How the fuck did they launch a site identical to ours in a matter of weeks? Did they steal it?’

  ‘They found it,’ Shanti mumbled.

  ‘Found it? What do you mean found it?’

  ‘Or maybe someone found it and sold it to them.’

  ‘How is that even possible?’

  Remember when we first got to Singapore and I was hassling you to upgrade all our laptops?’

  ‘Kinda. Not really. No. Why?’

  ‘That’s because I lost mine.’

  ‘I can’t imagine you losing anything, ever. How’d you lose a laptop?’

  ‘I was at an airport. It was charging. I was tired and got distracted while I was on a call. I picked up the wrong laptop by mistake. By the time I landed, the tracer had been disabled. They probably pulled the drive from the case and did a hard transfer.’

  ‘Was it me, calling you? Was I hassling you about the site or something? I know I push you pretty hard sometimes.’

  ‘No,’ Shanti looked down and fiddled with her watch. ‘It was Amber calling me.’

  ‘What’s an Amber?’

  ‘Yoga instructor. Bali.’

  ‘Why was she calling you? Did you forget to cancel your meditation class or something?’

  ‘Something,’ Shanti mumbled.

  ‘Something? What something?’ Trent leaned in, eyes wide. ‘Like a relationship something?’

  Shanti nodded but didn’t look up.

  ‘What ever happened to the ice queen of hard code?’ Trent slumped into his chair and interrogated his hair with his fingers. ‘What is wrong with everyone today? Why is nothing making sense any more?’

  Shanti bit her lip and stared at the wall.

  ‘Oh Shanti, you’ve got a lot more going on that I give you credit for, don’t you?’

  Trent looked on in horror as Shanti’s face crumpled and she began to sob. ‘Oh Jesus, was it that serious?’

  ‘Not for me,’ Shanti wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve. ‘She got a bit attached, I suppose, and I didn’t want to just ditch her like she was some stupid boy. I couldn’t tell her she was just a distraction.’

  ‘A distraction? From what?’

  ‘From Gavin, you idiot!’ Shanti slammed her fists down on her thighs. ‘Okay, I said it. You happy now? I screwed this whole thing up because I fell in love with Gavin even though I wasn’t supposed to.’

  Shanti resumed sobbing, her face in her hands.

  ‘The only one who has screwed anything up here is me.’ Trent placed a hand on his own chest. ‘Is it awesome that you lost your laptop and someone stole all your code off it? No. Also not awesome is Gavin running off to a warzone, presumably to get away from you. Oh, and we should also add “getting sued by my mother” to the list of things that are not awesome, now that we’re making one.’

  ‘What is wrong with that generation?’ Shanti shook her face out of her hands to look at Trent. ‘Your mother. My uncle. They’re supposed to be family but they treat everyone like a box on an org chart.’

  Trent laughed a little. ‘Hard to believe, but we’ve got more than just family issues to deal with right now.’

  ‘Who else is lining up to screw us out of our future?’

  ‘Charles.’ Trent reached for the termination contract and handed it to Shanti.

  Shanti’s eyes narrowed as she scanned the document. ‘What is that fat shit up to now?’

  ‘Looks like he’s trying to take us out of our own org chart.’

  ***

  Gavin shuffled through the front door of the apartment and let his duffel drop to the floor.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered.

  ‘You’re so stupid,’ Shanti unfolded her arms and flung them around his neck. He leant into her as if she were a lifejacket and he were drowning. She grabbed a fistful of his collar, and waited for him to surface.

  ‘Hey,’ she shook him to try and make a connection. ‘It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.’

  ‘It was a fucking war zone, Shanti.’ Gavin’s jaw trembled as he fought off more tears. ‘That’s what happens. People shoot, people die and no-one knows what the fuck any of it means. I don’t even know what happened to the body.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I got bundled into a van, hustled on to a plane and given a couple of tablets. I woke up over Myanmar. When I landed back in Singapore they just scanned my passport and said “welcome home” like I’d been golfing in Phuket. I’ve screwed the company, haven’t I?’ Gavin rubbed his eye with his palm.

  ‘I think it’s screwed us, to be honest,’ said Shanti.

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘We need to talk to Trent, but he seems to think it’s all over for us anyway. We’re getting kicked out.’

  ‘Kicked out? By who?’

  ‘The investors. And that sack of cholesterol, Charles.’

  ‘It’s because of me, isn’t it?’ Gavin took a step back. ‘Shanti, I’m really so sorry.’

  ‘And you should be. But the investors didn’t even know about you being in the Middle East, so there’s something else at play.’ Shanti crossed her arms. ‘Why did you go to Syria, anyway?’ She knew the answer, she just wanted to hear Gavin admit it.

  ‘Technically, it’s in Turkey. I was testing a new ShelfLife listing to see if it was legit.’ Gavin swallowed and looked around his bare apartment, avoiding her eyes. ‘You were always bugging me about quality assurance, so I was doing something about it.’

  ‘Gavin, I know you went because of me.’

  ‘You do?’ Gavin looked directly at Shanti.

  ‘And I love you for it.’ She reached behind his head and pulled him towards her. ‘I’m the one who should be sorry.’ Their kiss seemed to last for days, or at least until there was a knock on the door.

  ‘Are you done with running away?’ Shanti whispered, lingering to assess his response.

  He blinked a few times, eyes moist.

  ‘I think so. It’s a lot to take in. Wait here,’ he said and returned to the front door.

  Gavin began to smile at the sight of Trent but caught himself, memories of the last few days flooding back. ‘Mate, I’m sorry. I just wanted to, y’know.’

  Trent grabbed him for a fierce bro hug. ‘It’s okay, man. You’re alive, you’re here and you finally got Shanti to act like a human. We should be celebrating.’

  ‘I don’t feel a whole lot like celebrating, to be honest.’

  ‘Then let’s commiserate instead,’ said Trent, placing a wrapped bottle on the kitchen counter. ‘Do you have glasses?’

  ‘Four tumblers. Same as your place. Same as my place,’ said Shanti reaching into a cupboard.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, as the original co-founders of ShelfLife, I believe it is time for us to speak freely. I’ll go first,’ said Trent as he arranged the tumblers, cloudy from a thousand dishwasher cycles. ‘It is my professional opinion that we are well and truly fucked.’

  ‘Pour one for Peter,’ said Gavin staring at the glasses. ‘He loved his vodka.’

  ‘You weren’t responsible,’ Trent raised a hand.

  ‘No. I am. He’s about as fucked as you can get, because of me.’

  ‘We don’t know that for sure,’ said Trent.

  ‘Wel
l, he looked pretty fucked lying in the dirt in Antakya.’

  Shanti placed an arm around Gavin’s shoulder. He shrugged, but made no attempt to move away.

  ‘Trent’s right. There have been no reports of Peter, nothing in the media. And not just in the local press. It’s weird, like you were never even there.’

  Gavin looked up at Trent. ‘So then where is he?’

  ‘Who knows? But someone bundled you out of Syria or Turkey or wherever you reckon you were and got you back to Singapore in a real hurry. So maybe they got Peter out as well,’ reasoned Shanti.

  ‘Why would anyone do that?’ Gavin looked around the apartment, as if he might find the answer written in the corner of one of the anonymous corporate artworks.

  ‘I’m starting to think someone wanted to get you back here, with us,’ said Trent, lifting his glass, ‘They didn’t want any loose ends. They want to get rid of us as a box set.’

  ‘If anyone should get fired, it’s me,’ Shanti volunteered. ‘I’m the one who lost the laptop with all our code.’

  ‘They’re not playing favourites. We’re all getting the axe,’ Trent threw his drink back and grimaced. ‘Charles is throwing us out of the company. He convinced the investment board that we should all be replaced. He’s blackmailing me into agreeing with them and signing over our stake.’

  ‘Serious?’ said Gavin.

  ‘Completely. Oh, and my mother wants to throw me in jail for a period of not less than seven years.’

  ‘I made friends with a member of the Syrian Resistance Army. Or one of the Syrian Resistance Armies. He’s like ten years old,’ Gavin stared into his glass and took a slug. ‘Saved my life.’

  ‘Cute. What’s his name?’ asked Trent.

  ‘Trent, can we just cut the fucking banter and work out what’s going on here?’ Shanti slapped the benchtop. ‘Gavin’s been shot at, there’s still one photographer missing, maybe dead, you’ve been gone for a week, then you spend the day locked in secret meetings only to announce we’re getting kicked out of our own company? What the actual fuck?’

  ‘You forgot the part about his mother trying to put him in jail.’ Gavin looked up at Shanti, the fatigue visible on his face.

  ‘We’ll get to family issues soon enough,’ said Shanti. ‘Let’s start with Charles. How is he going to kick us out?’

  ‘He’s setting our island on fire and then offering us a boat.’

  ‘I handed him the match, didn’t I?’ Gavin’s chin sank to his chest.

  ‘If we don’t sell our shares to him for his specified price, he’ll trigger the Dereliction of Duty clause in our agreement with Vertica.’

  ‘He gets to keep the company’s reputation intact and all the risks disappear with us. He knows the company’s about to go ballistic so he’s trying to take it all for himself,’ Shanti clenched her fists.

  ‘What’s his specified price?’ asked Gavin.

  ‘Works out to just over a mil, Sing dollars.’

  ‘Are you fucking crazy? A million dollars? Why are we even discussing this?’ asked Gavin. ‘I’m done. I don’t know if you’ve ever been shot at, but it kinda changes your perspective on things. Let’s take the money and go home.’

  ‘Wait a minute Gav,’ Trent motioned for him to calm down. ‘After we split it and tax it and pay fees and withholding and god knows what else they have up their contractual sleeves, I reckon each of us would be lucky to walk with less than a hundred gee once we convert it into real money. I put more than that into the company in the first place.’

  ‘Hundred gee more than I have right now,’ said Gavin. ‘And a hundred more than anyone I met in Syria.’

  ‘With ShelfLife at the scale it is now, it could go on to make hundreds of millions,’ said Shanti, toying with her glass. ‘No wonder they kept a lid on your trip to the warzone.’

  ‘And on Peter,’ said Gavin.

  ‘You might have been right all along, Shanti. Charles has been playing this game the whole time, acting as the middle man between our idea and the real investors,’ said Trent. ‘If we fail, he washes his hands and moves on. Not his money, not his problem.’

  ‘Didn’t he put cash in as well?’ said Shanti.

  ‘You know, I always assumed he did, but I think he just pledged that villa in Bali as equity instead,’ said Trent.

  ‘That’s bullshit. Marty told me foreigners can’t own land outright in Bali anyway. You need to partner with a local,’ Gavin rubbed his chin. ‘Some poor villager thought he was going into property development, but the land was actually collateral for a startup he didn’t even know about. That Charles is a slimy fucker, eh?’

  ‘It doesn’t even matter anymore. Now that they’re positioning ShelfLife for an IPO all he has to do is push us out, take our share and leverage a buyout from the Singaporeans.’

  ‘And he’s using the lost code as evidence we can’t be trusted to run the company,’ Shanti with a note of resignation. ‘That’s how he’ll cut us out.’

  ‘He doesn’t need to use that. I handed him the hatchet when I went off to Antakya.’

  ‘I appreciate you falling on your respective katanas, but it was actually me,’ said Trent. ‘I fucked it up. For all of us.’

  ‘You? How?’

  ‘If we don’t take the deal - all three of us - Charles is going to make me take a drugs test,’ Trent stared into his empty tumbler. ‘He wants a goddamn urine sample.’

  ‘How does he even know you’d test positive?’ Gavin asked.

  ‘All those party people I’ve been hanging with, they’re Charles’ friends. He introduced me to them. He set it up. Just like he set this whole thing up, all the way down the line. We did all the work, the investors took all the risk and he’s about to make all the money.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ asked Shanti.

  ‘I still say we take the settlement cash. Shanti can pay out her uncle,’ said Gavin, refilling their glasses. ‘Peter said he had to downgrade his insurance coverage when he was forced to go freelance. I want to find his wife in Dubai, give my share to her.’

  ‘Love the sentiment, Gav, but even if we wanted to, we couldn’t. My mother just unleashed a pack of lawyers on me. If she wins, any entitlements I am owed by ShelfLife, be they cash, shares, high fives or whatever, all go straight to her.’ Trent pushed himself upright. ‘And because your shares were issued by me before we incorporated, she’ll claim those too. Sorry to say.’

  ‘I must have missed this part when I was in a war.’ Gavin wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘How does your mother become entitled to the profits that Charles is blackmailing you out of?’

  ‘It was her cash that started this thing.’

  ‘I thought it was your money that started us up,’ said Shanti.

  ‘It was, in the beginning. Then we ran out, so I sold my shares in The Vandten Corporation.’

  ‘Who the fuck are The Vandten Corporation?’ asked Gavin.

  ‘My parents’ holding company. A private equity firm has been angling to buy Vandten and break it up for the underlying assets. That’s why they paid so much for my shares.’

  ‘That’s like out of Wall Street or something. Nice move,’ said Gavin.

  ‘Except for the part where I’m apparently in direct violation of my shareholder’s agreement for selling my shares to a hostile private equity firm.’

  ‘When did we run out of money? I thought that’s why we moved to Singapore, so we could take on the funding from the investment co-op?’ said Shanti.

  ‘It was just after Saigon,’ said Trent.

  ‘You sold shares in your parents’ company to bail me out of that mess?’ Gavin looked aghast.

  ‘No, that money came from when I got fired for impersonating a surgeon.’ Trent lifted his glass. ‘I sold the stock mainly for me. I wanted to get out of the family business. Start afresh. I used the money to prop up our balance sheet so Charles could get us a better valuation from the investors. Which is how he’s going to make an absolute fortune fro
m a minority stake he didn’t even pay for.’

  ‘He’s a lot better at this game than we are, right?’ Shanti shook her head.

  ‘Impersonating a surgeon?’ said Gavin.

  ‘Story for another time. Charles has me on the drugs thing, but if it wasn’t that it would be something else. That’s just the icing. He always planned to steal the entire cake.’ Trent looked to Gavin then Shanti. ‘I’m sorry I convinced both of you to give up your real lives for nothing.’

  ‘It was better than pushing pixels around for an ad agency,’ said Gavin. ‘And you saved Shanti from becoming a waitress.’

  ‘You’d make a lousy waitress,’ said Trent.

  Shanti waved his joke away. ‘It wasn’t for nothing, Trent. Look at what we created. We found a way to let people to change their lives, even if just for a little while.’

  ‘We’ve started up a mini-industry, y’know? There’s a whole ecosystem popping up around it. Companies that produce custom ShelfLife video profiles. You can buy specialised insurance packages,’ said Gavin. ‘There’s a consultant in LA who assesses your current lifestyle and then recommends the perfect ShelfLife rental to help you feel better about yourself.’

  ‘Better how?’

  ‘He books you into a life that’s way more challenging or boring than your real one, so after a week you come home grateful for what you’ve got.’ Gavin took a sip and shrugged. ‘I see the appeal.’

  ‘All the more reason Charles wants to steal it all, right now,’ said Trent.

  ‘At least we’ll be able to say we were running ShelfLife when it was cool,’ said Gavin. ‘Charles is going to be the guy who ran it during the lame period.’

  ‘What do you mean lame period?’ said Trent.

  ‘The government wants it all safe and sanitised and not very interesting anymore. People will get bored with it. That’s partly why I went to Syria. Partly,’ said Gavin, shooting Shanti a look. ‘I wanted to be able to say I rented one of the cool lives before ShelfLife jumped the shark.’

  ‘That’s right, in a way,’ said Shanti. ‘I mean, all the interesting stuff, the challenging part of the build, is all done. We should be proud of what we’ve made.’

  ‘I love that you’re still jazzed by how cool it is and you’re proud of the code, but I promised you guys a big exit and we were really, really close,’ Trent placed his palms together under his chin. ‘What if I go talk to the investors?’