Volume 3: My days in a college fraternity Chapter 128 Attempting the First Formal Contact
Holly handed Tommy a California beef burger while he was sitting on a bench on the street. Then she sat down next to him and looked at some white-tailed deer by the lake in the distance:
"Are you sad?"
Tommy nodded, opened the wrapper and took a bite of the burger, "There are some."
"You rarely feel down like this." Holly also unwrapped the burger in her hand, took a bite, and turned her head to look at Tommy. "Sometimes, I even suspect that you are a robot developed by those weirdos in the computer science department, without any emotions. When Renee talked to me about this, she didn't say that you would be sad too. She only said that you persuaded her that it was okay and that we would contact each other after this matter was over."
"Renee?" Tommy came back to his senses after hearing Holly's words. He swallowed the food in his mouth and asked, "What's wrong with Renee?"
Holly looked at Tommy in surprise. "Look at what this jerk said. What happened to Renee? Didn't Renee's parents persuade her to separate from you temporarily to avoid trouble because of the lawsuit you got into? But you caused her to be in trouble with the other side's lawyer's investigator? Now you ask me what happened to Renee?"
"It looks like we were not on the same page just now, Renee... Yes, Renee and I are separated temporarily, but I am not sad, anyway, there are so many blonde girls in BDP." Tommy said while biting a hamburger:
"But if there's really no one else, would you be willing to pay to patronize me?"
Holly rolled her eyes speechlessly: "You're not sad about the breakup, so why are you acting like you're reminiscing about your old relationship in the sunset?"
"Bob's TV direct sales company is suspected of selling some inferior products and needs to be temporarily regulated. Only products that have passed the review can continue to appear in live advertisements. Guess which ones have not passed the review yet?" Tommy said vaguely while biting a hamburger.
Holly thought for a moment and said, "Whatever they are, they include our OSS?"
Tommy nodded. "Yes, there are only two products that have not passed the review. One is our OSS. The reason is that they are worried that most consumers cannot verify the quality of the product because they do not have computers. Therefore, they will select qualified software reviewers to verify it. After confirmation, they will allow it to be sold. The other one is developed by a company under the fundamentalist church. It is said that drinking it can increase spiritual power and feel the existence of God. "
"That is to say, you are not sad at all because your girlfriend broke up with you. You are sad mainly because you can't continue to make money by selling software." Holly sighed: "Renee is worried that you will be sad."
"Superficial, Holly, I taught you never to talk to people in superficial terms. I don't care how much money I make, okay? I'm sad because Lotus used its connections to cut off the access of ordinary people in Florida to knowledge. I'm sympathetic, not sad because I make too little money, and we're still advertising." Tommy ate the burger in a few bites, then wiped his mouth with the wrapper, rolled it into a ball and handed it to Holly:
"Remember to throw them away after eating."
Holly sighed. "You just said that OSS was removed from the shelves, and then you said that ads were placed? What are you selling? Without the software, the only thing Actor can sell is Jason's gigolo service."
"This is not a conflict. Our advertisements will not sell software, but will be directly used for fundraising. Let Bob continue to promote the conspiracy theory and tell everyone that some people have taken action against Actor. Actor has encountered many obstacles and can no longer sell software. Therefore, the families in Florida can only donate money to support us. I'm afraid the donations will not be too much." Tommy said with some sadness:
"It's like when you were a kid helping your parents with housework to earn some extra money, you would always get paid in full. But if you didn't contribute and just asked them for money, you obviously wouldn't get much."
Holly looked at Tommy in surprise: "Tommy, OSS has sold more than 40,000 units in Florida. Even after deducting taxes, the company's account should have nearly a million in funds. And you actually let those people use money to support you?"
"I can't let you down. With the money Jason earned in Mississippi, I have about $1.3 million. I'm about to give it to you." Tommy looked at Holly.
"Apart from necessary expenses and investigator fees, use the remaining funds to contact Compaq or Commodore at the lowest possible price to purchase a batch of cheap computers with an equal amount of software. Once the signal appears, all of them will be sent to universities in Massachusetts that have SSD chapters."
"What's a signal?" Holly frowned: "You never told me before."
Tommy shook his head confidently: "I don't know, maybe the other party withdrew the lawsuit? Maybe they had an internal conflict, or maybe we got some key testimony? The signal is not fixed, I can only judge according to the situation. I'm not a real robot, how can I guess what the signal is."
"I wanted to talk to you about Renee, but then you started talking about work." Holly ate her burger and looked at the sunset in the distance. "Renee said she didn't know what you were busy with. Although you would take time to accompany her every weekend, she didn't know your work, and you didn't seem to want to talk to her about it."
"Renee is a good girl. Her parents made the right choice. Why would they let their daughter get involved in such unnecessary trouble?" Tommy said calmly:
"So, do you feel now that you are more important to me than her? If I had pursued you to be my girlfriend, the situation would have been completely different and it would definitely not be as peaceful as it is now."
Beep beep~beep beep~Tommy's pager rang. He picked it up and took a look. Then he stood up and walked towards a nearby phone booth. "Thank you for your comfort. Although the comfort was wrong, I am very relieved. It's just that I don't have time to be sad about Renee now. Susan called me."
"Susan?" Tommy walked to the nearest phone booth and dialed Susan's number: "What's wrong?"
"There is a high-class lady named Dorothy who has some impression of Jim Manz you mentioned." Susan said.
Tommy asked, "Where are you and that chick?"
“San Francisco.”
"Very good, find a hotel, book a room and wait for me. I will have a long enough conversation with her." Tommy hung up the phone and looked at Holly who was walking over: "I think the signal will appear soon."
…
"Tommy Hawke." Jim looked at Tommy's photo in the Stanford Daily in his hand. "Before he was seventeen, he was a happy country boy with mediocre grades. At seventeen, his mother died and his sister was taken away. This guy who was supposed to be an ordinary worker after graduating from high school was forced to be reborn by this damn society. His academic performance continued to improve. In order to obtain a resume, he did whatever it took to become a co-producer of Nickelodeon, organized a Caribbean summer camp, helped his high school and himself make a lot of money, and got an admission letter from Stanford."
"My father used to be a worker, but he lost his job. He first worked as a shipbreaker, and then he opened a small shipbreaking factory. My brother is a car mechanic, and my sister is in elementary school. How did that guy learn these tricks? Equal rights in science and technology, equal rights for women..."
As he spoke, he picked up the remote control and pressed the play button. The commercial video on TV immediately started playing again. In the commercial, Tommy Hawke threw his suit jacket to the crowd and shouted inflammatory words.
Robert pointed at Tommy Hawke on TV and said, "They sold 43,000 units in Florida in just over two months. What is the sales volume in the software industry?"
"It's garbage level. Lotus sold 60,000 units last month." Jim gave a statistic.
Robert shrugged. "That is to say, they made nearly a million. Before the plagiarism lawsuit was resolved, they made so much money from this software suspected of plagiarism. For the court, it was enough to make their impression score drop."
"Is there nothing worth digging about his father? The points lost for plagiarizing and making money can be easily made up by the two gimmicks he threw out." Jim asked, his eyes fixed on Tommy in the photo.
Robert shook his head. "No, the poor people at the bottom. The more we dig into this kind of people, the more dissatisfied the court and the jury will be with us. They will think that we are oppressing them unequally. What we dig out will not have much impact on this case. Alcoholism and gun possession have no direct connection with his company copying software. His father can't even tell the difference between a computer and a game console. The other party has arranged a professional lawyer to guide his father and relatives. They all know how to deal with this kind of court investigation. What's more, the people there are tough. Leonard's car was stolen four times in two days."
"We have to divert the energy of this little guy named Tommy Hawke and make him really stop. There is no time to help Actor Company put on various protective clothing. Do you have any suggestions?" Jim looked at Robert and asked.
Robert shrugged. "According to previous experience, if there is really no other way, some employers will arrange for him to be hospitalized for a period of time. But Jim, that is only when rich people are involved in criminal cases..."
"No, no, no, I won't do something stupid that will get me into trouble." Jim interrupted Robert. "Check what he did with the money, whether it was equal rights in science and technology, equal rights for women, or bringing knowledge to poor people like Prometheus... If this guy donates all his money except for the lawsuit, I think the best option is to contact him privately and settle the case."
"This feels a bit dangerous. Obviously, all software companies are eyeing Lotus, but only Actor came out to cause trouble for us. It's a bit like bait. I always feel that there are other companies behind it, but investigations show that these guys from Actor have never contacted those large software companies."
"Ring, ring, ring~" The phone on the table rang, and Jim picked up the phone: "This is Jim, I..."
Seeing that Jim didn't finish his words and was stunned on the spot with a surprised expression, Robert asked in surprise: "What happened?"
After a long time, Jim hung up the phone and looked at Robert: "My old colleague from National Review called me. He came to my house with a letter of permission and asked about me and the article as usual..."
"Are you worried?" Robert asked puzzledly, "Worried about a college student?"
Jim looked at Robert and said matter-of-factly, "Of course I'm scared. The other side has nothing, understand? I have Lotus behind me. We may look like the same assholes, but the weight we carry is completely different at the moment."
"So what are you thinking about?"
"Try to have the first formal contact between the two parties to see if there is any possibility of settlement and withdrawal of the lawsuit." Jim said seriously: "At least let me know how big the other party's appetite is and how much money they want."
