Chapter 21
Houston, Texas
Friday
5:17 p.m. Central Time
“So let me get this straight, Marcus,” Talbot Davidson asked. “You have a completely reusable launch vehicle, but you will not allow the press to know who is flying on it?”
“That is the plan, Talbot.” Marcus swirled his wineglass a couple of times and selected to set it back down and stick to the water. He was bored with the meal and had other things that he needed to be doing. But he was in town and needed to stoke the fires with his fellow billionaire and competitor Talbot Davidson of Davidson Multinational and Davidson Aerospace. Davidson owed him a favor. It was time to call in that favor.
“You’re missing out on a lot of promotion,” Davidson replied.
“Not my thing.” He shrugged it off. “The time is coming when the market for the Dorman Defender will be sorely needed.”
“The world has already been reset, man. We made out like bandits.” Talbot grinned knowingly. Marcus just sat stoically and didn’t respond. “The incursions into Ukraine and Taiwan and tensions between North and South Korea will last forever. Davidson Multinational has rolled in billions in support contracts.”
“To forever wars.” Marcus sarcastically raised his wineglass.
“I’ll drink to that!” Talbot followed suit and gestured the toast with his already raised glass. “And more to follow.”
“Talbot, aren’t you worried about the wars going on and on and on?”
“I’m worried about them not going on and on.” Talbot seemed stunned by the question. “There will always be wars, Marcus. Somebody has to see to it that the wars don’t get out of hand. I see it like being firefighters battling a forest fire. Forest fires happen. They’re Mother Nature’s way of clearing out the old and bring in new. But humans, well, we fight the new and cling to the old. Too much new all at once, well, is just too much for society to handle. So, we fight its growth rate not its growth. We are ‘flattening the curve,’ to borrow a slogan.”
“It’s more like a euphemism at this point—but I seem to recall this speech from a TedTalk, Talbot.” Marcus wasn’t impressed. “And I quote…‘It is our job as freedom-seeking humanity to seek to the new but at a rate which doesn’t destroy us’…unquote.”
“Hahaha! Did I actually say that? Sounds like me.”
“Yes, it was you. Eight years ago, in Paris,” Marcus said. “And then again at Davos.”
“I recall that. I think Gates went on after and talked about depopulation or some such nonsense.” Talbot screwed up his face. “Now that guy—”
“I think you’re both over the precipice. Well, or at least standing on the edge looking over the chasm.” Marcus let himself laugh to lighten the conversation’s edge. “If you asked me, and you didn’t, I’d say there’s more to exploit and maneuver through than these little skirmishes.”
“Do tell. There might be another couple billion in it somewhere.”
“Look, you know me. I stay out of global affairs except when it enables opportunity.” Marcus leaned back and pushed his plate away. He wasn’t interested in food at the moment. “And, honestly, I don’t really care what one country does to another, unless there is opportunity there for me. I guess that’s where you and Multinational come in. But there’s one thing that these damned pandemics and skirmishes and uprisings have shown me and that is it is too chaotic to make predictable outcomes. Predictable outcomes are what create incomes.”
“Man, you sound just like you did at Stanford, back in the day.” Talbot looked back at him with a reminiscent smile on his face. “So, what do you propose we do about this chaos?”
“‘Too many chiefs and too many Indians,’ is what Gates would say.” Marcus circled the conversation back. “But I don’t agree. The world is like a combination of Minecraft and The Sims 2, really. Probably why Musk is convinced we live in a simulation. Honestly, I couldn’t care less. A simulation or real world—what does that even mean? Nah, you see, in Minecraft you can build stuff, you can go to the Nether or the End, you can meet something akin to God if you beat the Ender Dragon, or you can just hang out in there and player-versus-player to your heart’s content. Hell, there are entire servers where all the kids do is PvP one fight after the next across the World Map, in Sky Wars, in Bed Wars, and other such scenarios endlessly. Sounds a lot like our forever wars here. The Sims 2 is about the same, but more like the modern world of building and interacting in neighborhood environments and not all pixelated as hell. But the coders that made these games, Notch and whoever the hell did The Sims 2, they are the real winners.”
“Damn right. Gates bought Minecraft from Notch for like two billion U.S. dollars. And there was Baszucki whose part of Roblox is worth over four billion.”
“Yes, but not my point.” Marcus glanced at the timer in his contacts virtual display and decided to get to the point. He had a lot to do and he didn’t want to spend all night with Davidson. “Who can we sell our world to?”
“I don’t get it.”
“We are inside Minecraft or The Sims 2 or pick your world-building game, doesn’t matter which. All we can do is manipulate this world from within.” Marcus breathed a sigh of frustration. “We can PvP and build and craft until our hearts are content and then some. Even if we found a portal to the End and defeated the Ender Dragon and met God, we’d get dropped into the world back at the start or something as equally frustrating. It’s an endless trap. We can’t get out of it. The UFO conspiracy nuts call it a ‘soul trap’ that we are in. We can’t be Notch and sell the world to somebody else for two billion dollars.”
“Jesus, man, I don’t think I’ve heard you talk like this since that time we dropped acid in college,” Talbot said. “So, if we’re in this trap and can’t sell our world and move on to the next project, like Notch for example, then what do we do? What would you propose?”
“Take the trap.”
“Take the trap?”
“Yes. Forget the Ender Dragon and meeting God. We take the world. All of the world. We stop the world from the endless single-player adventures and give it purpose. Purpose to become so big and ominous and in a different direction than the programmers planned for it. Then and only then will we be able to see if there is anybody that shows up from elsewhere interested in negotiating for it or to set it back on the intended path,” Marcus said.
“Wait, you mean take over all the world?”
“Yes. Take the world.”
“Take the world. Now that I’ll drink to, for sure.”
“I need Davidson Aerospace to deliver on the order I requested a few years back,” Marcus said abruptly.
“What? What order? You mean…”
“I mean.”
“When?” Talbot looked surprised.
“About ninety hours from now.” Marcus checked the countdown in his virtual view. The most recent update from Georgia and Singang had the clock showing ninety-two hours, seventeen minutes and counting down. His tracking data for Vladimir and Michael showed them inbound to the rig and soon to be there. They were on schedule.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Holy shit,” Talbot whispered and looked about the restaurant, as if they were being watched or spied on.
“Holy shit indeed. Can you make delivery, Talbot?”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Talbot. Can you deliver?”
“What? Uh, yes. It was done. I’ll deliver.”
Marcus then picked up his wineglass. He preferred to think of it as half full. He swirled it twice and then held it up. “To Notch.”
“To Notch,” Talbot said reluctantly and finished his glass nervously. “Jesus, Marcus. You’re really doing this?”
“Yes. Yes, we are.”