The Last Network - Chapter 49

[[Category:The Last Network]]
{{Infobox scene
| italic title   = <!--(see above)-->
| name           = Featuring
| story          = [[The Last Network]]
| characters     = [[Rabbit Wilson]]<br>[[Paolo Soto]]<br>[[Omar Gomez]]<br>[[Frank Meyers]]
| organizations  = [[Anslem Devices]]<br>[[Together]]<br>[[Peared]]
| date           = June 15, 2024
}}
==Double Move==
Rabbit strode down the jogging trail, an angry white man in a black suit. He cut past little dogs on leashes and housewives in yoga pants. He was beyond bullshit. His money was flowing in the right direction. How dare Paolo question his priorities. 

He’d put $14 million into Peared. It was a loan from himself to the company. Now, he wanted to be repaid. For the last three months, Peared cut him a check for $1.5 million dollars. In another six months he’d have his money back. The rest of the profits were going to fund Omar’s Army. 

If everything went according to plan, Together would go broke the same month the loan was repaid. At that point, he could listen to Paolo and upgrade the service. Paolo wasn’t wrong, he just didn’t see the entire chessboard. Peared did need a new coat of paint. It could use a couple new bells and whistles. It needed a real marketing budget. Now was not the right time for any of that. This was war time, and he needed to dictate the terms of battle.

Peared could not compete on product or presentation. While Rabbit had invented teleportation, he didn’t have the sophistication or polish the Valley did. Fighting on features and functions meant losing. He needed to keep everything in the trenches. 

In the Valley, companies would not expand until they got the core experience right and found a passionate userbase. Once they had that, they would build on their success. If the core experience was rotten, the company had no chance. 

Rabbit needed to mow every new Together user down until they stopped coming out of the trenches. Once that happened, the Valley would look at its wasted investment, Peared’s crappy overseas users, and they’d abandon the space. Then and only then would Rabbit invest in his own product. 

Still Paolo had no business telling Rabbit how to run his. Paolo’s job was to do what Rabbit told him and to keep his opinions to himself.

His phone rang. It was Frank Meyers. He dismissed the call. It rang again.

“This better be good Frank. I’m in the middle of something important.”

“Something important, Rabbit?”

“Yeah, business. You wouldn’t know what that was.”

“Are you going into dog walking or are you trying to find another rich divorcee to marry? If it’s marriage, find one that hides her cheating better.”

Rabbit looked around. He couldn’t see Frank, but a man wearing AR glasses, khaki pants, and a black polo shirt was approaching him.

“Why are you following me around Frank? Don’t have anything better to do?”

“I’m just coming by to share some news with you. We just acquired Anslem Devices.”

“Who the fuck are they?”

“Don’t play dumb, Rabbit. All those insults [[about]] copying you really got under my skin. You are a talented guy Rabbit, a major asshole, but still a talented guy. The thing is that you are a derivative thinker. Your playbook is taking one thing and recasting it in another space. You don’t invent anything. You just see angles. So, I thought about it some. How the fuck did you come up with Peared? There wasn’t an Isaac Newton under an apple tree moment. That’s not something you do. Then I had my big aha! You copied someone else and put your own twist on it.”

Rabbit swallowed hard. The man in the AR glasses was within fifty feet of him. He was holding a document, waiting patiently. Frank continued.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do this in person. I’m not a registered process server, but what’s great about Together is that I can see the look on your face. It’s priceless. Are you shitting out a prune or wondering what’s coming next?”

The man approached and handed Rabbit the document.

“Rabbit Wilson, you have been served.”

Rabbit opened the light blue cover and read the first page.

“Next time, think before opening that big mouth of yours Rabbit. We bought the company whose code you stole. Now we are suing you for intellectual property theft. Oh, the irony. This makes us the original and you a petty fucking plagiarist. See you in court friendo.”

==Scene==
[[The Last Network - Scene 49|Scene 49]]


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