Chapter 11

My Best Friend is a Mooch.

Almost two months ago, Tee offered to turn my Tokens into cash for me. He’d even convince me to put the 18,000,000 Tokens I got from the achievements up for sale by stating that the price of Tokens was likely at their current premium and that the 90,000 I received each cycle was more than enough for anything I wanted to buy. The price at the time had been $153 each. Since then, he’d run up $9,853,975 on my credit card, and I hadn’t seen a cent of the money he promised me.

So I invited him over to the hotel and asked my family to go out for a few hours. We were now sitting at the dining room table in my hotel room. I’d closed the curtains and turned out the lights for his visit. The only light source was a desk lamp.

I tilted the desk lamp to point at his face, making him lean away from the brightness, and then shoved my credit card bills across the table to him. When they’d increased the card's limit, they’d changed it so I received weekly statements instead of monthly. There were a lot of bills.

“Where’s my money, Tee?”

Tee gave me his friendliest smile. “I’ve invested it for you.”

I scowled. “That wasn’t our arrangement. You said you’d sell my Tokens for me, and I agreed to give you 1%.”

Tee laughed nervously. “Are you going to break my leg? Because it’s going to cost you Tokens to fix them.”

I chuckled back. “I’ll take you to the hospital. We can put the bill on your credit card. I’m sure you’ll be able to walk in six months.”

“That sounds painful. You know how I feel about pain.”

“Exactly, now where is my money? You’ve been dodging me more and more while we're out of the game. I’m getting suspicious.”

“I’m busy.”

The lamp had tilted down, so I raised it back up, shining it in his face, blinding him again. “Doing what?”

“Running the business you invested in.”

“You started a business with my money.”

“Well, yeah. I’ve got to do something when I’m bored.”

“How much of this business do I own, and what’s it called?”

“It’s called Morgan Tee Enterprises and your share is 49%. Since I’m doing all the work, I deserved the controlling interest. I signed the paperwork on your behalf, so it’s all legit.”

I stared at him. He hadn’t stopped smiling. I wasn’t sure if he was messing with me the way I was messing with him or if he was being serious. “How big is this business?”

“Well that’s a bit of a story.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Tee rotated his chair, turning side on to put his feet up. His smile didn’t go away. “So, you know that website I showed you for selling Tokens?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s mine. I made it. And it’s currently the biggest Token exchange on the planet. I’ve been using the transit station’s system and my hacking ability to spam our sector with information on it. So it’s the most well-known Token exchange on the planet.”

“Good for you.”

“Good for both of us, you mean. It’s a subsidiary of Morgan Tee enterprises. Anyway, about the time you got your big reward, I managed to find several major hedge funds that were interested in bulk purchases of Tokens. I used your initial investment to convince them that we were a major player and started a bidding war. The current market price for Tokens sold in lots of one million is a little over a billion dollars USD.”

I’d been assuming he had sold some of my Tokens, but not all of them, which is why I wanted to talk to him about his spending. I wasn’t prepared for him to have sold them all.

“Wait, are you saying you sold my Tokens for eighteen billion dollars.”

“No, I sold them for almost thirty. I said the current price was a little over a billion dollars. And I’m not finished yet, so don’t interrupt me.”

When he didn’t continue, I mimed zipping my lips.

Tee grinned.

I decided I didn’t like it when he grinned. It made me nervous.

Tee seemed to sense that and his grin grew. “Since the initial sale a few months ago, I’ve used my website to buy and resell almost two billion Tokens. I have a fixed buy price on the website of $250 USD a Token, and most people don’t look past that number once they see it, especially if they live in the third world, and that’s where the majority of our Tokens are coming from.”

I groaned. “Please don’t tell me we’re extorting people in the third world.”

“We aren’t. We are redistributing wealth. A guy working in a cellphone factory makes maybe $300 a month, Morgan. Each time they go into the Great Game, they’re making around 10 Tokens, even if they’re completely clueless. That’s ten grand a month selling through my website.”

“Okay, that sounds fine, I guess, but also unsustainable. I mean, hedge funds can’t continue investing in Tokens forever.”

Tee laughed evilly. “You would be surprised how many billionaires are willing to part with a billion dollars if it means they can secure immortality for the next thousand years. And multi-millionaires are willing to spend the same percentage to secure another century.”

I was beginning to believe that he was telling the truth. “How big is Morgan Tee Enterprises?”

“In another month, we will be a trillion-dollar company. I might not know anything about defending a station, but a lot of my analytical skills translate to business quite well.”

My brain disconnected over the number. It was absurd. The only question that came to mind was, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why make so much money.”

“Boredom initially. When I first started the website, I was stuck in the orb, which wasn’t fun. I was hoping to make enough Tokens to buy a body. But when you earned all those Tokens and let me sell them, it started a chain reaction that made our website get bigger and bigger, and now we have control of almost a trillion dollars.”

I glared at him. “Why the hell am I paying your credit card bill then? You don’t need my money.”

Tee laughed at my glare. “I don’t, but it’s funny to watch you think you're paying my bills.”

“The credit cards in my name, so I am paying your bills.”

“You’re not,” Tee said, laughing harder. “We own the bank. They know the cards in my name, but I’ve told them to send you the bills with yours on it.”

Okay, that was pretty funny.

If it was true.

“So we own a bank.”

“Yeah, I bought it, so they would keep upping the limit on the credit card and start to send you weekly statements.”

“Wait, so higher limit credit cards don’t do their statements weekly?”

“Of course not. That would be ridiculous.”

I picked up my phone and called my bank. I had a dedicated line because of how high the limit on the credit card was. At least, that’s what they had told me.

Charlotte picked up being her usual cheerful self. “Hello, Mr. Winchester. How can I help you today?”

“I’m sitting here with Tee. The individual I’ve told you about. He claims we own the bank.”

Charlotte laughed. “You do indeed, Sir. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Is the credit card in my name or his?”

“Yours. But he’s told me to tell you it’s in his. For fraud reasons, I’m not going to do that. Practical jokes don’t protect me from liability. I’m transferring thirty billion dollars to your personal account as we speak, per Mr. Tee’s instructions. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Ah, transfer a billion to my father and brothers accounts and add a note to my brothers’ accounts that says no more mooching.”

“Not a problem, Sir. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No, that all. Thank you, Charlotte.”

“Have a nice day, Mr. Winchester.”

“You too.”

I put down my phone and started to laugh. “You beautiful asshole.”

“I find that feature my least compelling, but you do you.”

I laughed harder.

My life was absurd.

First I owned Mars and country, and now this.

It took me almost an hour to pull myself together and think rationally. This was insane. But once I did, I had a few questions.

I put away the lamp, opened the curtains, handed Tee a beer, and flopped down on the couch. “Are we buying anything else with our money besides buying and selling Tokens?”

“Mostly farmland,” Tee said, losing his smile. “Most people don’t realize it yet, but production is down. The two days everyone is spending in the Great Game make it harder to harvest and plant crops. The 100 mandatory cycles will cause food shortages in another six months. The third world will starve. I’m putting half of our earnings into buying farms and converting them to staples like rice, corn, and wheat, so that doesn’t happen.”

That was a good use for the money. I approved wholeheartedly. I tried not to show it. I didn’t want Tee getting a big head. “What are you doing with the other half?”

“That’s going into barren land. No one is thinking long-term yet. Land that is useless today will be farmable in a century when your technology catches up.”

“What about resources?”

“We’re doing a little of that too. I’m also buying robotics companies. Humanity is being exposed to new ideas, so technology is about to take a massive leap forward. And if you somehow survive past the first 100 cycles, you need to automate jobs to keep your faction stable.”

“That’s a big if.”

“Before you broke the game, there was no if. Now that there’s an if, so we need to make plans for how humanity will support your station if it happens.”

My eyebrows rose. “Wait. You’re doing this to make the station stronger?”

“Well, it was initially for boredom and to get me a body, but now it’s to help the station. Why did you think I was doing it?”

“I thought you were trying to save humanity from themselves. You were talking about diverting a famine.”

“I was talking about diverting a famine because starving people don’t make good decisions or effective members of a faction.”

I shook my head. “You are definitely the weird one in this friendship.”