Winning Mars | Page 5

dissected their ideas like frogs in biology class, fat with data from his eyepod and earbuds. They might wear new fashions, they might even wear eyepods, but they didn't feel it, they didn't get the world had moved on, and they weren't on the train.
"No," dad said. "Really."
"How'd you find out?"
Dad just turned to look at him. The full-spectrum houselights glittered in his eyes, making them seem to sparkle with glee. "I worry."
"Don't."
"No," Ron said. "You don't. Don't get used to this lifestyle. It's not good for you."
"It's been good to you," Jere said, spreading his arms to encompass the house, the view, the muted laughter of the guests inside the house, the glow of his fucking Merry Christmas sign, so much like Neteno.
"That's different," dad said.
And how so? Jere wondered. Because he made your fortune in the eighties? Because he had it for so long? Because he planned your life, so perfect, so he'd have a pile before he had kids, a pile so big he could never outgrow it? Because, at the carefully calculated age of forty-three, he finally decided to have kids? Look at him, almighty, sitting on a wad of assets so big it would take a bulldozer to move it, a wad that wouldn't be returned to circulation until he died. His two only kids, held hostage by the thought of the money, the money, OMG the money, probably never getting any of it, except for dribs and drabs dispensed at his whim.
"Want to make a difference, lend me some money at lower rates than the sharks at ChinkBank."
A frown. "Don't call it that."
"Why not? They're twisting my nuts. And don't change the subject. Be a lender. Make some points. That would make some real difference, dad."
"Ron."
"What?"
"You're a big businessman now. Call me Ron. Because you aren't my son, raising your voice to me at a family get-together, at a party, when I'm trying to help." Ron's voice got low, rough and deadly towards the end.
"I'm sorry. Dad."
Ron just looked at him.
"Ron."
Ron nodded. "I've considered your pitch to borrow money at market rates, and I regretfully decline. In light of your current position in the market, I can't jeopardize the well-being of the rest of my family."
"Great." Jere said.
There was silence for a time. Jere waited for his dad to tell him to leave, before he embarrassed him further. But the old man let the silence draw out.
"My other offer stands," Ron said, finally."
"I'll take it," Jere said.
"You don't have to."
"No, I want to."
"You don't need to do this for me." Ron said, through a thin and deadly smile.
"Send him," Jere said. He turned away and began walking back to the house.
At the big glass doors, his father's voice found him. "There might be hope," he said.
Not without affection.

Pitch
He took the meeting with dad's friend in his office, because dad always said you meet friends in restaurants, you meet business in your office. Plus, he told himself, it probably wouldn't be too hard to impress the old bastard, who surely hadn't seen an overtop-Hollywood view, unless it was from some sales job, calling on midlevel interactive pukes who'd torture him with promises they had no real power to keep.
But the fucker just walked in, sat down, and looked at him. Never even glanced at the view. As if he had always lived there, as if he was still living there, as if television still ruled the world, and God was right in his heaven, or whatever they said.
The old bastard's CV scrolled on his eyepod. Evan McMaster, producer of Endurance, one of the last of the reality shows. Ten years dead and good riddance at that, the netbuzz said, 'cause it was a timewaster of the worst sort, putting people with zero physical stamina and skills into situations where they were sure to kick it, except for some heroics of the group at the end. Surely scripted. Jere grinned at the irony.
"I'm amusing to you?" Evan said. Rich, gravelly voice, the kind that came from years of cigarettes and booze or expensive operations. He looked fifty, which meant he was probably at least seventy, especially if he palled around with dad, who at seventy-four was also scraping the last of the best med-tech before the docs threw up their hands and said, in fatalistic voices, We're not miracle workers here!
But Jere had to give him credit. Evan didn't wear animated clothing, have his hair dyed neon green, or even carry an eyepod. His jacket was black and boring and imperfectly tailored, like it had been made by real, imperfect humans somewhere in the world, rather than grown to his shape. He wore a boring gray collarless shirt underneath, devoid of even a corporate logo. He even had a big clunky metal watch, one of those