Portland.
The name reflected the planet’s roots: it served as a waystation until it was all-but accidentally settled and went on to become a thriving port-of-call. Now it was the kind of place where everyone had time to give a shit about the environment and attempted to live in careful, balanced harmony with their natural surroundings. It was a real hippy-dippy kind of place where you just wanted to punch everyone in the mouth for their smug self-assurance and leisurely attitude toward life and work.
Man, it just pissed you off. Here you were pulling a double shift to get this load to Micron Gamma Six before the twin suns went down and you had some grass-eating, hemp-wearing dock foreman who was all like, Chill out man, it’ll get done, and It is, what it is, bro. You knew what it is. It is — er, was — getting late, and you had a godsdamn ex-wife who felt the need to overspend herself and that somehow became your problem, and if you wanted to eat this month you needed the bonus you got from making good on that delivery. So hurry it up, Barley Moonwhistle, or whatever the fuck your Indian name is….
…well, you get the point.
Life moved at a different pace on Portland. Yet, unlike most such places, it wasn’t far from the hustle and bustle of the working Storyverse. It was, in fact, dead center between Hustleton and Bustleville. As if mocking your impatience, the founding father’s words were found over every portal in needless German: Arbeit Macht Spiel. Also: Hang Loose; Chillax, Bro; Work Hard, Play Hard; and a hundred other bullshit, escapist platitudes that made it a wonder anything got done around here. Yet it does. Within the hour, you were back on the space-lanes and felt sort of bad for calling that guy a slackass. Maybe you should’ve looked into getting an apartment there. You heard the winters were cold but the skiing was righteous. Dude.
The Founding Father’s tower (now the Corporate Headquarters of GoogolSoft) was the first and last thing one sees when leaving or arriving. Clearly visible from any of the zoned commercial areas, it towered above all else, a wonder of biological architecture. Form met function met form again. It was grown out of several trees and a handful of organic crystals which constantly hummed and sang as light reflected and refracted off the gleaming, arboreal-slash-mineral structure.
Inside this building, the Board of Guiding Hands (they long abandoned the term “Directors” as an oppressive bummer of a word, I mean, who were they to direct anybody? You know, man, like, wow. Dude.) were having their weekly gab session. Just getting together to catch up, discuss initiatives and try some more of Sage Moonwhistle’s totally awesome brownies. Maybe ask her how her husband Barley was doing down at the docks. That sort of thing.
Feet up on the table, tuxedo jacket unbuttoned and revealing a T-shirt declaring: “Life Is Surf,” sat CEO and all-around cool dude, Brinniam X. Port. (You can call him “Brin.” Or “Boss-dog,” if you want). He called the meeting to order.
“Whassup, peoples.” He lifted his head slightly in the half-nod that had become the corporate salute of GoogolSoft.
The other Guiding Hands lifted their chins right back at him.
“Alriiiight.” He smiled with all that smug self-assurance noted earlier. “Hey, got a couple things to talk about, so, let’s get right to it.” He put his feet down on the floor like a proper adult and elbowed up to the table. “Unless anyone has any business they want to get out of the way?”
A finger went up — well, an equal amount of people away, since it was, of course, a circular table.
“Yeah, Flint, lay it on us, man,” Brin said, encouraging the middle-aged guy with the salt-and-pepper beard that looked like five generations of tumbleweeds got windswept into the valley of his face.
“Man, I just gotta say again, these brownies are fucking excellent, Sage. For serious, man.” Flint held up the last bite of his brownie in awkward salute to Sage, who demurred slightly but was clearly proud of herself.
Everyone nodded and murmured assent. They were indeed, fucking excellent.
Brin applauded lightly. “Totally. Totally. Good stuff, Flint, thanks. Anyone else? Previous business? Anything to table?” He leaned in to a speaker phone in the middle of the table, “New girl? Anything to say? You getting all this?”
A second of silence was followed with, “I’m good. Loud and clear.”
Brin nodded with more enthusiasm than that exchange was probably worth. “Cool. Well let’s get to it, shall we?” As the third or fourth call to attention, everyone agreed it was time to get to it. “The Infi-Net fucking rocks, huh guys? Can we just get a quick amen on that?” More murmured assent and self-congratulatory nods were passed around. Totally, they all agreed. “Even better than projected at this point. I mean, we all knew this was going to be big, right? But it’s growing at a pace that is simply… I mean, really, wow. It’s mind-boggling isn’t it?” More nods. Not a whole lot to really take issue with thus far. “In no small part, thanks to one special girl.” The assembly looked tentatively toward the speaker phone. Brin grinned in a premature display of excitement. “I totally have a surprise for you guys.”
Everyone straightened up. They liked surprises. Shit, who didn’t?
He pointed to a descending vid-screen on the wall. They all swiveled toward it. The new girl on the speaker phone cleared her throat.
“Everybody ready?” Brin asked the group, who couldn’t be any more ready. They took their eyes off the screen to nod affirmations. The Boss-dog hit a button on his console and the giant, angelic face of Kendra Shields came up on the screen. “Bam!” Brin embellished.
Everyone oooo’ed to each other.
“Hey everybody!” The pop star chirped and waved excitedly. They found themselves waving back.
“Kendra Shields, everyone!” Brin needlessly introduced the teenage pop-queen. Everyone applauded anyway. “Thanks to Kendra’s early endorsement of the Infi-Net we are seriously in the hearts and minds of, like, everybody in the Storyverse. Her ringtones, singles and upcoming album all exclusive on the Infi-Net.” He paused pregnantly.
Everyone applauded some more.
Kendra’s beatific face beamed from the other end of the Infi-Net. “Hey, thanks guys! I’m real excited about all of this, and I’m proud to be a part of GoogolSoft’s next big step.” She made corporate pandering sound vaguely sensual.
“You getting this, new girl?” Brin leaned toward the speaker phone more than was strictly necessary.
“Live and in color, Boss-dog,” the voice affirmed.
“Pretty awesome, huh?” he prompted.
A slight lag between speaking and responding happened, but then: “Very awesome,” the voice agreed.
“Totally,” Brin agreed with himself as well.
The rest of the Guiding Hands at the table nodded. Sage added a thumbs up.
The CEO returned his attention to the screen. “Well, thanks again, Kendra, I’m sure you’re busy rocking what you do out there, so we’ll let you go.”
The girl mugged for her Net-Cam. “Well, we’re shooting the video for Kitty-Kitty Bang-Bang right now, and then off to do some promotion on the new album, Shh, I’m Yours, available for download next week.” Everyone clapped obligingly. She gave an adorable little wave, winked, and threw up the two-fingered peace gesture before the screen went dark.
Everyone swiveled back to the round table, all aflurry.
Brin grinned from ear to ear. He let the room come to a natural simmer. “Well, I think that’s enough excitement before lunch don’t you?” The room agreed. The room always agreed. “Cool, you guys are free to get back to kicking ass and chillaxin’.”
The Board of Guiding Hands began casually dispersing. Mostly they discussed how awesome that just was. Two of them talked about where to have lunch sex, one guy hopped onto his cellphone to tell his excitable daughter about who he just saw, and Jibimy was trying to get Sage’s attention on a memo she sent out last week RE: a canned food drive for hungry pandas or something.
“Diana, could you hang back a minute?” Brin called to one of his peeps. Diana nodded, excused herself from a conversation, and came back from the trending herd. She hopped back onto a chair and then onto the table with a quick flutter of her wings.
Diana — CEO and also a Lowman Brown hen — and the speaker phone waited until they were all that was left.
“All right, cool. Let’s discuss some real business. R.T., you still there?”
“I’m here, Brin,” the voice answered.
“Awesome.” Brin smiled in a way that made me feel uncomfortable to write.
