Chapter Forty-Seven – Closing a Deal

Chapter Forty-Seven – Closing a Deal

“Interior of home-like space. Ruins in the back. Sections on fire. Sheets and furniture from Le Tres Beau’s Autumn collection are scattered on the ground.

EAST BLADE
Don’t worry my love, I’m here for you!”

–Excerpt from Screenplay of Katanation Street, Season 30, Episode 4357, aired Jan 2052

***

I really shouldn’t have been enjoying myself at someone else’s expense so much. It felt… wrong. Mean, at the very least. Like stealing candy from a kid.

Now that I thought about it, I was pretty sure I’d stolen candy from kids before.

Jessica was sweating. I wasn’t that keen on reading people, but even I could tell that she was stressing out to the max. Her hair was plastered to her forehead and she kept chewing at her bottom lip. “That price isn’t entirely reasonable,” she said.

I shrugged a shoulder. “We could buy some other building. I’m fond of this one for… reasons, but there are others. Right Myalis?”

Myalis’ drone wobbled. “Within the next twenty blocks, there are seventeen more areas for sale with a similar footprint, two of which are on the top floors of their respective buildings.”

“See,” I said. “Not too sure how much those are going for, but it’s a buyer’s market, right?”

I had no idea what a ‘buyer’s market’ actually was, but it sounded right.

Jessica nodded. “That’s true. Would you consider keeping the price at four thousand points?”

“That’s a lot,” I said. “Half a day’s worth of fighting aliens, easy. Three thousand is a lot more reasonable.”

Jessica fidgeted. “I think my clients would appreciate a higher price than that.”

I nodded. “That’s nice.”

As we spoke, Myalis was helping me keep track of the building’s value, the graphs, which I could only just barely understand, filling the edges of my vision. The building’s top floor was now hovering just under one billion dollars in value, with three big companies holding the majority of the shares for it, and a few dozen stragglers hovering by the edges.

Of course, that wasn’t the actual value of the floor. That was the very much inflated value that some idiots had placed on it. As far as I could figure out, Jessica’s company was basically splitting however many points I sold the floor for evenly amongst those who owned shares when I eventually sold the floor.

The things fluctuating so much were parts of the ownership of the floor. Which was a bit weird. You either owned it or not, I figured, but maybe there was some accounting bullshittery going on that I wasn’t aware of.

Point was, if they closed the deal with me, then a bunch of corps would get some exclusive blueprints and such. If they didn’t, then… actually, I wasn’t sure what would happen if they didn’t, that wasn’t my area, and I didn’t care all that much.

“Let’s meet in the middle,” I said. Jessica perked up at that. “But, but, I’ll be looking over the crap you guys want with those points, if I see anything too skeevy I’m vetoing it, alright?”

Jessica nodded along. “That sounds very fair. Let me just confirm with my clients, and I’ll be back.”

I waved her off, then backed up a bit before slumping. Fortunately, I had a Lucy to slump onto. She was the perfect height for that.

“Tired?” she asked.

“It’s not even two yet, and I already want to go back to bed,” I muttered.

“You’re such a baby,” she whispered. “You know, all those fancy sorts are probably watching you right now? What’ll they think?”

“I don’t care,” I said.

Lucy giggled and pulled me into a hug. “Here, this’ll help.”

Part of me wanted to protest, but I’d be damned if it didn’t help a little. “Thanks,” I said before plating a kiss on her head. “So, what do you think we should do with this place?”