The next morning came way too soon. Even though I hadn’t exerted myself much the day before, it had been a full day even before all traveling and the rescue. I’d been exhausted and when my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light.
I woke to whispering voices outside my door and soon my door was opened quietly and someone left something on the desk before leaving just as quietly. I sat up to see that my clothes had been washed and folded neatly for me. Before bed last night, Thomas’s wife, Denise, had shown me to one of her daughter’s rooms and given me a robe to change into. Now, with the clothes freshly laundered, I got up and got dressed. It was just after ten in the morning and I padded my way downstairs to see who else was up.
I found Jake, Thomas and Denise sitting on one end of a long breakfast table laden with way too much food for just the three of them. Thomas spied me first as I came through the kitchen entryway.
“Ms. Smith. Good morning to you. Please sit and join us for breakfast.”
“Thank you, Mr. Carver. Everything here looks delicious.”
“Please call me Thomas or Tom.”
“Then I’m Abby or Abigail. I prefer Abby, though.”
“Fair enough, Abby. Jake was just telling me that you’re the one I need to be thanking for last night turning out so well.”
“I don’t know about that, Thomas. It seems to me that you and your people figured out how to get the job done and then you did it.”
“Jake, is she being straight with me?” Thomas had a confused expression on his face.
“She is. Knowing Abby, she doesn’t see what she did as being that significant because she wasn’t down in the mines helping you dig. Her contribution wasn’t real work.”
“That’s a load of shit, Jake. Without her map and guidance, there’s no way we could have gotten to those miners in time. Never mind the fact that without her pointing out all the structural weaknesses after the quake, the mine would probably be shut down for a month or more instead of week.”
“Hey, don’t yell at me. I know exactly how important she was to the rescue. She’s the one that has no clue.” Jake smiled in a self-satisfied way as I scowled at him.
I finished my bite of pancake and explained, “Once the scan was complete, I looked at the map and had no idea how to rescue them. You were the ones that figured it out and did it. If the rescue had depended on my abilities, those miners would still be down there.”
“And without your map of the changes in the mine, we couldn’t have come up with a plan in the first place. Regardless of your feelings about it, Carver Mining owes you a debt of gratitude. I am in your debt and if there’s anything you need, please let me know.”
“Don’t forget that you also owe me, again. I got her here and in time. As to owing Abby, good luck with that. I’ve been trying to pay her back for years and there doesn’t seem to be anything that she can’t already get for herself. More importantly, before this conversation is over, you’re going to owe her a lot more than you realize right now.”
“That sounds ominous, Jake. Even for you. How did you get in Abby’s debt? That’s not something that happens to you very often. It’s usually the other way around.”
Of course, because my life sucks sometimes, that’s when Mark showed up, like a damned rotten unwanted, bad penny. “I can help you understand that one. I even brought a visual aid.”
Before I’d even had a chance to finish my pancake and run for the door, Mark had queued up the video and had the Carvers enthralled. In between bites, I muttered to myself about how I was never going to save his sorry ass from a fire every again, if this was going to be the thanks that I got. Jake must have overheard my musings because I heard him quietly laughing to himself. That laughter got a lot louder when the video ended and Denise asked me the usual question. This time, I had an answer.
“I was thinking that I was helping a nice, caring, person. Turns out I was wrong. Next time, instead of running in to save Mark, I’m going to pull out some marshmallows and slowly roast them while the house burns!”
While Mark and Jake got themselves under control, Thomas turned to his wife and said, “I think we should introduce Abby to Isaiah. Do you think he could get here in time for the picnic?”
Jake was on him in a flash. “No way, Thomas. I got dibs. Her and Mark are dating. Keep Abby out of your evil machinations.”
“Dibs?! Dibs! Tell me you didn’t just say that when referring to me. Like I’m a trading card or the passenger seat in the car. You might be old, but I will take you down.” Jake had the decency to look sheepish at my chastisement, but he was still going to pay for that remark. “You can be certain that I’ll remember this the next time we negotiate, if there even is a next time.” Jake winced at that last bit. Good.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Easy Abby. He didn’t mean anything mean by it.” Mark was quick to intercede. “It’s just something that the families have been doing for years. They play matchmaker with their grandkids and try to pair us off together. It’s not just these two, either. There are around twelve families involved. Even though it hasn’t ever worked out, they keep trying, totally oblivious to how ridiculous their pairings are because everyone of them thinks that their grandchildren are perfect. They aren’t though and the clash of spoiled personalities can be epic. I never been paired up with the Carvers, because their daughters are younger than I am. Conner’s about the right age though and I’m sure there’s going to be some back room wheeling and dealing going on soon. I’ve already prepped him in how to handle it. Rose, on the other hand, I haven’t said a word to. I can’t wait to see how she’s going to take the idea that she’s being traded around like a thoroughbred.”
“Somehow, I don’t think she’s ever going to have to go through any of that. Connor either. Jake and I will work it out when we get home.” I smiled sweetly at Jake and then at Thomas. Denise, meanwhile, came over and hugged me.
“Well done! It’s about time someone came along and put these two old fools in their place.” I really like Denise.
“So, Jake. What’s all this about negotiating with Abby? And why am I going to owe more than I already do?” Thomas was doing a wonderful job of changing the subject and I decided that since I was in his home, eating the excellent breakfast prepared by his lovely wife, that I would let it go. For now.
“Last year, Abby used her scanning equipment on some of my mines. The results were impressive. Within a few days, she had better maps of my mines that I did and she even found sources of ore nearby that we didn’t know about. Those areas had previously been explored and nothing had been detected. The worst outcome that I had was a five percent increase in mine revenues. She did the same thing with your mine last night, once the rescue plan had been chosen. Abby has asked me to negotiate with you on her behalf, for those maps.”
“Yesterday’s map was impressive, but I don’t remember seeing anything on it that would increase mine revenues.”
“Hypothetically, what if there were another vein that you didn’t know about? Remember, your first two veins are completely played out and the third isn’t as big as the first two. You probably only have two years left before you have to close up shop here.”
“Three and a half years.”
“Fine. What would it be worth to you for that mine, your very first mine, the one that you’ve built your empire on, to last another ten or fifteen years?”
“Nice try, Jake, trying to toy with my emotional attachment to that mine, but it won’t work. I’ve done my homework and had the area explored. There isn’t anything more there to be found.”
“That’s exactly what I would have said about my mines. I would have been wrong. Just as wrong as you are. But that’s not important right now. How about we set a price for the information. If Abby’s wrong, then we’ve just wasted some time. If she’s right, then all the hard work of negotiating will have been done already. Besides, Abby’s not ready yet with her presentation. She’ll need a few hours. We should let her work while we’ll talk.”
Mark and I bussed our dishes and helped Denise with the post-breakfast cleanup, while Jake and Thomas started trading numbers. We finished up just in time for the yelling to start and we all left them to their fun. Mark headed back to his room to start rescheduling his trip, while I started putting together all the files I’d created last night. Jake may have been bluffing about there being a new vein, but he wasn’t wrong. The reason Thomas had never found it was that they’d built some of their processing building right over the vein. I suppose that when he’d started the mine, he’d explored that area with the techniques available at the time and hadn’t ever broken out of the mindset that there could be anything there. Although large, the ore body was pretty far down and I thought that there was a good chance that Thomas wouldn’t have to move the building when they mined the ore. That would be for him to decide.
I finished up the existing mine report and moved on to the properties surrounding both Thomas’s and Jake’s mines. There were four of them that would be ideal extensions to their existing mines. One for Jake and the rest for Thomas. I farmed out the task of looking up their owners and seeing which ones were for sale to Shauna, with instructions to lock up as many of them as possible with options to purchase. My final report was for Jake’s existing mine and I finished it just before my VR session with my team at VR Health Services.
I hooked up my VR rig and connected it through my phone to the internet. My plan was unlimited, so there was no extra costs involved. It was a typical meeting where we ran through all aspects of the surgery we were adding. I did a run through of the surgery, making sure that all the instruments were there and that the body was showing all the correct indications. Then I did the surgery four times, each with an increasing level of difficulty. The first time, the surgery was textbook perfect. The second time, the program added two complications. In this case, an artery that started bleeding and a weak heart that needed to be restarted. The third time even more things went wrong, including the nurse handing me the wrong instruments and the patient being morbidly obese. The fourth time, the program put in many of those same elements and then proceeded to simulate a power failure in the hospital and only the emergency lights and the heart monitor worked.
I was wrung out by the time I took off the VR helmet and gloves. Doing surgery this way severely limited me from using my abilities as I couldn’t scan the patient while I was working, since there wasn’t a patient there, only a program of one. With the exception of my perfect knowledge of those surgeries, I was in the same boat as any other doctor performing those surgeries.
With the call over, I repacked the VR rig and took another shower, wishing I had another set of fresh clothes to change into. VR surgery, is sweaty work, even if it is blood and germ free. I found Denise after I’d finished freshening up and she showed me how to connect to their printer. With my presentation ready, I checked in on Shauna’s progress and found that she’d already been able to secure options on two of the properties. The other two hadn’t returned her calls. I moved the presentations on those two to the back. I wouldn’t present them, unless Thomas agreed that he wouldn’t try to buy them out from under me.
With my ammunition in hand, I went in search of Thomas and Jake. Hopefully, Jake had managed to negotiate well with Thomas. There was a lot of untapped potential on and surrounding his mine.