Rex was a master at this craft, of drawing someone in and having them willingly spill the beans and go along with his plans. He never thought of himself as charismatic, but he could be very persuasive, pulling strings someone didn’t know they had. Frank was absolutely willing, there was no doubt. He was just as enthralled with these ideas as Rex himself. “What do you propose then, for this testing? Did you bring a revolver? How about a very sharp knife?”, Frank asked, grinning deviously. “Nothing of the sort”, said Rex, as he approached the prestige of this magic act. “I don’t want to test the physical security. I want to test the financial security.” Frank suddenly looked puzzled, and replied, “My financial security? I hadn’t considered it. One moment, if you’ll excuse me.”
Frank presented his secure comms device linked to Splicer, and pressed the only button on the surface, before bringing it up to his ear. “Hello. Yes, this is Frank. Good evening. No, nothing is wrong. I don’t mean to trip any alarms; I simply have a question. Under the terms of my contract, am I protected financially as well as physically? Yes. It is a tricky question. You’re not… I see. Well, if you could have someone contact me with more clarity and a definitive answer, I would very much appreciate it. Goodbye.” Frank turned to Rex and said, “this is becoming very interesting. They don’t know, or at least the All-Seeing Eye didn’t know. He said he didn’t know what that would look like or how it would be implemented, but he will pass it upstairs. I suspect they will have an answer for me soon.”
Bonus: Beat The Market snippet
Moments after Frank’s call, Beat made a call of his own, because he sure as hell didn’t know how this was supposed to go and couldn’t be saddled with disappointing a very early adopter. In some people’s estimations, Frank was almost single-handedly responsible for at least 5 people signing contracts in the early years. He’s the kind of customer everyone needs, an evangelist with a big mouth.
Beat’s director picked up right away, expecting some degree of urgency, especially since it was after hours. “Ted, this is Beat”, came the voice on the line, “not an emergency, but kind of a big concern. I just got off a secure comms call with Frank. Do you wanna wait til tomorrow or do you have time?” “We should make time, Beat. You know how long Frank has been with us. He’s the closest thing we have to a VIP. What’s going on?”, the director replied. “Well Frank had a question I couldn’t answer, so I wanted to defer to someone who may know more or be willing to say no, if the answer is no. I’ll get to the point. Frank asked if the Splicer program provided him financial security as well, and mentioned his contract”, said Beat. The director was quiet for a moment, and Beat could hear the faint sound of him rubbing the light scruff he’d have on his chin by this time. Probably mulling it over. “I suppose”, the director began, “we could always say yes and figure it out later, unless he wants details. You know what, he will want details. Run it by the AI teams and see if it adds up. I want to be able to explain it. Call me back in ten minutes and we’ll come up with a plan.”
Great, Beat the errand boy, running around gathering answers for the director. Could be worse, Beat thought, as he started messaging the heads of the AI teams to scratch a quick call together. In five minutes, he had 3 of the leads available and joining a call together. He ran the question across the leads and pretty much stumped all of them instantly. One of them, Terry, eagerly spoke up. “You know what? It just might be possible, but only for this customer…”