"Can you hold on a sec, Bushra? I don't have my hat. Iter, can you help me find it?" I dissembled on the doorstep, then pulled Iter back inside toward the bedroom.
"If you are cold, you can expend Focus to reduce the effect of environmental conditions," Iter mentioned, as he followed.
"What?" I stopped short, "No, wait, one thing at a time. What is this?" When we passed out of view of the front door, I brought up the journal, where the two messages were waiting, and directed Iter to them.
"Oh, excellent, We suspected such a thing was possible. Ms. Patel has quite the determination, does she not?" Iter nodded.
"What should I do about it?" I hissed in a low voice.
Iter looked surprised. "It is not for Us to say. As the Hero, Our role is to support you." He inclined his head. "You may do whatever you like. However," he continued, "We would advance that this is an excellent opportunity. Your circumstances and those of Ms. Patel seem in alignment."
Iter seemed in favor, but I still didn't feel like I grasped the essential points. "Can I cancel either the quest or the party later, if I want?" Was this a one-way decision, in other words?
"Certainly. You can dismiss either a previously accepted quest or a party member at any time." Iter responded confidently.
"Okay, then." I suppose we could go into details later. I quickly accepted both the quest and the party member invite. It was quite anticlimactic:
08:16:22 Me (Hero): New Quest from Bushra Patel: Reclaim Stolen Honor! – Accepted.
08:16:22 Me (Hero): New Party Member: Bushra Patel – Accepted.
I grabbed a comfortable slouchy beanie from the dresser, and headed back outside.
"Sorry for the wait," I said, locking the door and descending the stairs. "Hope you like breakfast diners, Alameda's full of them."
"Works for me. We driving?"
"No, the place I'm thinking of is only a few blocks away. We can walk and talk, if that's okay?" I suggested.
"That's fine, but are you sure you're up for that? I don't mind driving." Bushra examined me with concern.
"No, really, I'm okay. The drugs they gave me work wonders," At least, I assume they did. I hadn't taken any of them. "I'm fine. Walking in some fresh air will be good for me."
Bushra seemed unsure, but also unwilling to press. We headed down the road toward Park Street, containing half of the island's restaurants, including the Eastside Cafe. The sun was bright in the sky, but the Northern California winter cast a light chill over everything. The sidewalk was wide enough for the three of us to walk side-by-side, with me in the middle. Bushra glanced around me to Iter, who was looking around with enjoyment at the brilliant morning light.
"Does he understand us at all?"
"We do, Ms. Patel." Iter shocked us both by leaning slightly forward and speaking to Bushra directly.
While I goggled, Bushra seemed disgruntled. "Then why didn't you speak English before?" she asked crossly.
"Now that you have joined Mai's group, We are able to converse as well." He smiled disarmingly, but Bushra looked dissatisfied.
"Didn't trust me?" Bushra frowned, then sighed. "Well I guess I don't blame you."
I stared ineffectually at Iter for a moment, then gave up. "Well, Iter is surprising in a lot of ways. But I'm surprised by your story, Bushra. The frame-up seems much more overt than mine was." I looked at her questioning face as we walked. "In my case, you could conceivably deny malicious intent, except on behalf of the vendor who named me directly. And even they could have been protecting someone else, or lying for some other reason. Complyze wouldn't even have to be aware, they could be just as ignorant as everyone else. I may not have been anything but a convenient and unlucky patsy," I smiled self-deprecatingly. "But in your case," I paused, and chose my words carefully. "You were the intended target, and two officers of the company appear to be clearly lying to set you up."
Bushra was silent, eyes down and jaw clenched.
"There's no chance Jon was confused, or misconstrued something as an advance, was there?" I inquired gently. "He's never struck me as underhanded or cunning in that way."
"No. I've never been so much as alone in a room with Jon. Or Thorsten."
"I believe you," I replied, because it needed to be said out loud. "But that means there are some powerful people who are directly involved in screwing you over. They may be watching you closely, suspecting your next move. We either have to protect ourselves, or find a way to hide what we're doing. Ideally both."
We were all quiet for a while.
"But that does make me wonder about my case, again. It seems so petty, in comparison to what they gain from you."
"Maybe you just pissed someone off?" Bushra offered.
"Maybe," I replied, not convinced.
✦ ✦ ✦
The Eastside Cafe was one of a dozen or so restaurants in Alameda that catered specifically to the breakfast and lunch crowd. Not the most popular, nor the highest rated; if there was a niche it filled, it was that it was close to both the local retirement home and the hospital. When we walked inside, the average age of the customers dropped by maybe a couple years (of course, that's without taking the god into consideration. I think the average of anything and infinity is infinity). The booth seats were old but kept in good repair, the tables chipped but clean. It was run by a Vietnamese family I'd become passingly friendly with over the years, and the staff were all related in some way. The menu had a mix of typical Western fare and Asian dishes They weren't haut-cuisine, but it was all delicious and comforting. It was low-key, inexpensive, and one of my favorite places.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
"Good morning!" the older of the two waitresses called out as we entered, then moved swiftly to take the order of an elderly couple by the window. t was seat yourself, so I walked over to a clean and empty booth and sat down. Bushra and Iter followed. I looked at the specials written on a whiteboard above the cash register.
"Do they serve vegetarian food?" Bushra asked, her back to the whiteboard.
"Yeah, though probably not vegan." I replied.
"That's fine, I'm not vegan."
The younger waitress came and dropped off menus, napkins, and silverware with a friendly greeting. Then she went back to the register and sat down on a stool, pulling out a textbook and notepad from underneath the counter.
"So, Iter, what do you think of the food in the US?" Bushra asked, looking through the menu.
"We don't care for it." Iter had also picked up his menu to examine it.
Bushra chuckled, "I get that. When I first came here, my brothers and I couldn't stand American food. Home and food are so closely related."
"The texture does not agree with Us."
Bushra looked over at Iter, a little confused. "So are you here with your family, or…"
"No." Iter responded simply, putting down his menu.
"Oh." I could see Bushra's puzzlement grow on her face. "Well, you keep saying 'we', so I was wondering who else you were referring to." Ah, yeah. The god had been doing that since I met him, so I'd completely gotten used to it.
"We mean only Ourselves," Iter replied, seeming equally confused.
At their reflected perplexed expressions, I jumped in. "Iter's comprehension is great, but he still struggles with some things, like pronouns."
"Oh! Sorry," Bushra quickly offered, eyebrows rising in surprise and distress.
"No apologies required." Iter graciously responded.
Bushra and I placed our orders, while Iter demurred. I took a surreptitious peek at my map, and saw the exclamation mark had disappeared from Bushra's location, but her marker was now a gold color rather than the blue of everyone else in the restaurant. Because she's a party member now, I wondered? Iter's marker was still blue, though.
The food arrived quickly – I'd picked an omelet with spinach, bacon, and Jack cheese, while Bushra opted for an eggplant parmesan. Iter watched on with disinterest.
"So," I offered between bites. "You have the code. What state is it in?"
"I have a proof of concept app and documentation, plus the source code. It's still in my Cloud Service account from when I was a student. It runs in isolation, but it has none of the integrations or API frameworks we'd been building recently. I can't access any of that anymore."
"It would probably open us up to lawsuits if we used any code after you joined Complyze, anyway. I'll want to take a look and see the state of the UI and supporting materials, and how far off from a marketable release we might be.
"Sure, I can get you an account." Bushra replied, working quickly through her eggplant. "You'll need the hardware, too – AR displays."
"Are they specialized? Will we need some kind of hardware partner?" I frowned at the growing complexity and costs.
"That was the plan. Something about different revenue streams and lock-in with the devices." She wiped her mouth with a napkin. "But I built the prototype with existing AR gaming hardware, since it was easier. So it's not absolutely necessary."
"Gaming hardware, hm?" I pondered, picking up a piece of toast from my plate. I'd done competitive analysis often, but this was the first time against my own company. Well, against Complyze, I corrected myself. It made sense for a product targeted for an enterprise market to focus on integrations and other improvements for scale and stability. The hardware aspect was new, something our company hadn't done before. Maybe this was a diversification play? At any rate, they had better resources and a head start. It was going to be nearly impossible to play catch up.
"If we want to do this, we need to find a way to shift our target market so we're not competing directly against their strengths" I proffered, taking a bite of toast and thinking about the implications of using off-the-shelf hardware.
"Fine by me," she said as she finished off her last bite of eggplant. "I'll build it, you figure out who will buy it. That's the plan." She grinned.
"Well, it's kind of backwards, but we need to start somewhere." It was less like defining a market and building a new product to meet it, than taking an existing product and trying to alter it in order to expand to new markets. Not the first time a young startup had to pivot to find a better product-market fit, but I think this may be a new record by pivoting before the company was actually created. Or maybe not. Silicon Valley was weird. "So I'll dig into the app once you set up an account for me, and we'll go from there."
Bushra looked excited, but I had to raise the next point.
"The next thing we need to consider is finance." I looked across the table. "We're going to incur costs, and we all need to eat." I finished my last piece of toast, glancing at Iter. Well, most of us at any rate. I turned back to Bushra. "Do you have any source of funds for this new venture?"
"I've a small amount of personal savings, but with the bonus clawback there's not going to be much left. The stock grant was going to set me up, but they took that, too." She looked at me, frowning.
"I have some savings, too, and at least I don't have any clawback to worry about." I decided to put all my cards on the table. "I also have a 401k that I'd prefer not to touch. I don't have any wealthy relatives, and we're not that close, anyway. Since I won't be getting any severance, " I grimaced, "I'm going to need a source of income to pay daily expenses."
"I'm living with my parents right now, so my rent is zero. I have some hefty student loans to pay, though. And I… can't ask my parents for money." She went silent, looking down.
It was quiet for a few moments after that. I contemplated the crumbs remaining on my plate. Then a serene voice spoke up.
"What amount of funds are you seeking?" Iter asked.
I raised my eyebrows, then thought for a moment. "Well, that depends. We'll need to put together a business plan. First we figure out all our costs, and then look into pricing to see what we can charge. But we'll need to know the market we're targeting for that, and how far off our product is from selling to them, so…" Both pairs of eyes were looking at me as if I'd started speaking in tongues. "It's not an immediate problem, but it won't go away." I rubbed the back of my head.
"It's not quite getting back at the company that stole from me," Bushra began, contemplating. "But this seems more exciting somehow. 'Success is the best revenge' or so they say." Her lips quirked up into a grin. "Would be nice if we could stick it to them at the same time, though."
"Yeah, well it's not going to be easy. We'll see what I can learn, once I've seen what you've built." I was trying to keep it noncommittal, but I have to admit the idea was tantalizing. Making things, building something new, finding people who need it – this was why I chose this career to begin with. Figure it out, then figure out what to do.
"If resources are your obstacle, it may be We can assist you in obtaining them." Iter announced calmly. We both turned to him inquiringly, but Iter merely pursed his lips in contemplation.