Page 40 of Soul Mates: Hercules Valentine and I

I grin too. “You have to be a believer to conquer the impossible,” I say, which is another of Grandfather’s quotes.

“Yes, and Hugo was tired of funding Grandfather’s shot in the dark.”

I sit up on the edge of my seat. Now, we’re venturing down new roads regarding my family’s history with the Valentines. I grunt thoughtfully to encourage Max to keep talking.

“But Hugo was never one to leave money on the table. He tried to make Grandfather pay him a percentage of any future development of the app, according to what capital he put into it. Grandfather wouldn't take that deal. To avoid battling it out in court, Hugo offered to sell all rights to Grandfather if he could come up with the millions he’d already sunk in the project. He gave Grandfather one year to repay him. If Grandfather failed, then he would have to negotiate a licensing agreement with VTI.”

“Apparently, he paid him back,” I say.

“Along came Mom’s M.O.D.EL app, which gave Grandfather more than what he needed to pay Hugo.”

I swipe my hands together. “Done deal, then, right?”

“Almost. Hugo never expected Grandfather to come up with the cash. But M.O.D.EL was successful right out of the gate, and then Smarter Walls completed development and packaged it with Climate Condition—they sold like gangbusters. Grandfather raised the one hundred and thirty-seven million.”

I stretch my bottom lip. “Yikes. Is that how much Valentine gave him?”

“The amount includes forty-seven percent interest accrual.”

“That was a bad deal.”

“Yes, it was. And with his renewed faith in Grandfather’s genius, Hugo financed market research, which concluded that TRANSPORT in its most basic form was enough to revolutionize the telecommunications sphere.

“And that’s when Valentine said hell to his prior agreement, and took Grandfather to court anyway. But by then, Grandfather had more than enough wealth to take him on. Valentine tried to prove that Grandpa withheld pertinent data from him, but the court ruled in Grandpa’s favor. That didn’t stop Hugo, though. VTI tried like hell to pillage every sector of GIT, searching and trying to steal anything they could on TRANSPORT. Knowing that, Grandpa hid all research and programing code here”—Max lifted his palms toward the ceiling—“in this house.”

I’m riveted by what I just heard. My mind is racing, putting all the pieces together. “So VTI had someone ransack this house?”

“We believe they did.”

“Did they find anything?”

Max stretches the book open even more before handing it to me. I eagerly take it and study it. My mouth drops open. “It’s missing pages 333 through 370.”

“Yes. And we think an equation for the full development of TRANSPORT was pasted to those pages.”

I’m on the edge of my seat. “How to solidify negative-zero non-nomenclature light?” I ask.

“Yes.”

I dip my chin slightly as my brain sparks on all cylinders. I love this feeling.“But you saidanequation, nottheequation.”

A small but proud smile forms on Max’s lips. He does that on purpose. He wants me to catch all his indirect inserts, testing my evaluative thinking.

He adjusts suddenly in his chair to reach into his jacket pocket. He takes out a check card and hands it to me. “This is for you.” The check card is a payment from Grove Industrial Technologies. “Go ahead,” he says, still grinning. “Scan it.”

I take my cellphone out of my jacket pocket and use my camera to scan the barcode. The numbers come up.

I yelp as my eyes bulge at the amount. “Three hundred and forty-eight million?”

“It’s your first royalty payment for Killer Firewall and TRANSPORT.”

My head is light. I never asked to be paid for my contributions to GIT. I always saw it as my duty, my way to earn my parents’ respect and approval. However, with the check card in hand, one that makes me a millionaire by my own merit, I’ve never felt so vindicated, so free, and more importantly, so respected.

Max sits back in his chair and crosses his legs. “You earned that, Pais.”

With tears of joy rolling from my eyes, I know this for certain: I’ve earned every cent paid to me—I truly have. It wasn’t easy bringing TRANSPORT to the finish line. Since the day after my tryst with Hercules, I’ve changed. I think it's because he gave me something that I’d subconsciously craved since the moment we laid eyes on each other—himself. After making love to Hercules—and that’s exactly what it was for me, making love—no other boy would suffice. So I put all of my focus back on classwork.

Also, the Wednesday after Dandi moved out, after class, I thanked Jillian for leading me to my cheating ex-boyfriend and untrustworthy roommate. She said it was nothing and then revealed that she’d gone out with Boyles before I had. She’d caught him and Dandi in another part of the library.