The Last Network - Chapter 57
One Door Opens
Sonny used to care about everything. Now he was dead eyes and one-word answers. His body language said it clearly. He was done with this bullshit. Rabbit watched him from his office. Was Sonny already out the door, another defector in a long line of losers, or was he simply giving up? Best case scenario, Sonny was going to stay, but mail it in day after day. At least that would mean the rest of the team was safe. If he had one foot out the door, then Rabbit had a real problem on his hands.
Stealing the Immercast Mafia would be quite the score for someone, and it would leave Peared’s cupboard bare. That’s how things worked in this town. Techies latched on to good bosses who got them bigger paychecks. When the boss left, they were sure to follow.
Sonny was not going to lie about the stolen code. It was shit code that barely lasted six months, but it was in the early versions of the apps. Sonny would have rather built the interfaces from scratch; instead he settled for replacing everything Rabbit stole once it couldn’t keep up with growth.
A few million people had used it. Between that and Sonny’s stance, there would be legal damages. Rabbit would get no help from his side, no chance of pleading dumb and hoping an arbiter would slap him on the wrists. Right now, they had him dead to rights. Rabbit’s only move was to drag Together into the mud and make them look as bad as Peared. He hadn’t considered that before.
The Valley cares about reputations. Rabbit’s was already shit. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain. This was a new edge.
The first step was to discredit Frank Meyers. Thanks to his divorce, Rabbit had learned a thing or two about restraining orders. He didn’t have enough on Frank to file yet, but a pattern was building. He just needed to bait Frank into crossing a line, then call Nadia’s lawyer up. Rabbit had underestimated Frank, but he now understood just how invested Frank was in their feud. Rabbit was going to rope a dope him.
Frank Meyers was about to become a big liability for Together and Thorn.
Lawsuits were next up. He didn’t have as strong a case as Together. Code has all sorts of legal protections, while business models have none. He could thank the movie studios for that nonsense. Still, Together had copied him closely enough that he could counter file. He’d never win the case, but it wouldn’t get tossed out. All he needed was get to discovery and start digging into their files. There’d be something in there he could use.
As for Peared, Rabbit came from the school of Lomansey: “Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink.” He answered to himself and kept documentation to a bare minimum. Another edge for him.
The real play was to get to Thorn Capital. The firm liked to pretend it was above the fray, but they got down in it just like everyone else. They were the ones that put Frank Meyers after Rabbit. They were the ones that created the Teleportation Industry Alliance and left Peared out. They were the ones that were buying his supplier and shutting down the division that serviced Peared. There was a pattern there. A big nasty institution was trying to put the little guy out of business. Even worse, it wasn’t above using physical harm to do so. They wouldn’t like that story seeing the light of day. Not one bit. His final edge.
In the grand scheme of things, Together was nothing to Thorn and their reputation was everything. He could make this work. He just needed to set the right trap for Frank.
He felt the wire steady underneath him. Fuck those fucks. It was time to move forward again.