"Powers family?" he wondered. "Is Rudra helping him discreetly? Or is it some plan of Max? Maybe he is trying to attack my finances."
"What does the Powers family want with us?" he asked Alfred on his wrist band.
"We have been trying to setup a deal with them for a long time but weren't really successful. Now suddenly Mr. Manjunath Powers, the CEO and patriarch reached out to us. He says he want to have a talk with you about the collaboration with us before they confirm on it," said Alfred.
"He wants to have a talk with me. I hardly know anything about them or the deal. You have been managing the firm all these years. Any idea about what he might want?"
"No clue, Master Balthazar. It is extremely perplexing to me and others too. Even the board of directors haven't the slightest idea about it."
"OK. When is the proposed meeting?" asked Balthazar.
"He is currently at the city of Adontus. He requested that we meet over lunch at the Ambrosia Restaurant," replied Alfred.
"Fine, I will meet him there. Are you coming? Send me the details now. Confirm the appointment with him," said Balthazar.
By lunch time, he met with Alfred and together they reached the Ambrosia Restaurant and Hotel. Ambrosia was one of the most famous Hotels at the city of Adontus. The Hotel is close by the city hospital and was the place of residence for most of the patients. Being the most famous hospital in the alliance, it provided the Ambrosia hotel a lot of customers.
The Ambrosia Hotel was a very large one with over a hundred floors. The bottom three floors were the restaurant and the remaining provided accommodations to the customers. The went to the second floor where there were private rooms which were often used for business lunches.
As they provided their identity at the second floor of the hotel, the attendant directed them to a private room. "This would be your room, Sir," he said bowing towards them and left.
They were greeted by a tall almond skinned woman as soon as they knocked on the door. She welcomed them inside.
"Hello. I am Sheila. I manage sourcing at the Powers Materials and Manufacturing Ltd. I was the one who contacted you regarding the meeting. We can discuss the plans while Mr. Blyth can meet Mr. Powers at the table behind the curtain," she said directing Balthazar towards a curtain.
Balthazar passed through the curtain and saw an orange-haired man, sitting at a table. He was a stout man with a physique similar to Rudra.
"Young Master Balthazar, I presume?" the man inquired.
"Yes. Mr Manjunath," answered Balthazar.
"Yeah. Let me introduce myself. Durga Pratap Manjunath Powers, Powers Family patriarch," said the man shaking Balthazar's hand.
"Please have a seat. Let us have some food before we begin," he said gesturing Balthazar to take a seat by the table.
"The Ambrosia served here is considered one of the best drinks in the alliance territory," he said pouring a glassful of dark blood colored liquid in a glass. He quickly ordered a few other dishes to be brought to the table and began eating through them.
As Balthazar took in a gulp of the ambrosia, he felt a cold burning feeling down his throat. The liquid went into his stomach and a strong energetic feeling soon spread all over his body to his fingertip and even his senses felt like refreshed and focused.
It was so good that he drank another mouthful immediately. He was intoxicated by its taste and the feeling it gave. "I agree. This is one of the best drinks I ever had," said Balthazar nodding to the Manjunath's comment.
"You have been quite famous these days, regarding your adventure at the frontier. I hope you have recovered from you injuries."
"Oh yes. I am fine. Mostly recovered."
"You are taking this chance to improve your influence in your family and taking over your father's properties, I believe."
"Yes, more or less," said Balthazar wondering why he researched into his life.
"Good. Good. I respect that. You are carrying forward your father's legacies even though you have followed your own path and made a name for yourself," said Manjunath looking at him with admiration.
"Thank You, Mr Manjunath. I am but a young junior. Nothing compared to your achievements and experience."
"I have been here for less than a week and am hardly acquainted with the business. I am quite surprised when I found out that you wanted to talk to me. I am confused as to what compelled you to talk to a junior such as me out of the blue. Though, it may sound rude. Could you please satisfy my curiosity?" he continued.
"Hmm. I believe you are close friends with my son, Vijaya Rudra," said Manjunath decidedly indulging his request.
"His full name is Vijaya Rudra Powers? Never knew that."
"It is actually Vijaya Rudra Vishwakarma Powers."
"I guess having long names is the tradition of your family," said Balthazar with a smile.
"Yes, it is. It's a bit odd to find such large names. That's why he hardly reveals his full name. I came today to talk to you about my son."
"Let me cut straight to the point," continued Manjunath. "I have a daughter and a son. My daughter neither has the aptitude nor the interest in managing my empire. I always had my hope on Rudra. Though he is not interested in it, he has the aptitude for it. He is also good at the sciences and engineering."
"I want him to take over after me as soon as possible. I couldn't convince him to drop his silly plans to develop himself at V.R. and games. He is very stubborn. I want you to fire him. I will provide a very lucrative offer for your company," he said showing an offer on his wrist band.
Balthazar looked at the offer and then at Manjunath. "You really want to do this?" he asked Manjunath like he suggested extremely ridiculous. He never thought that helping out Rudra resulted in a meeting with the CEO of Powers Materials and Manufacturing Ltd.
"Yes, I would like my son to join me as soon as possible."
"You think he would stop with his plans, if I fire him?"
"He would have no other options. What would he do?"
"He was planning to get away from cyber drome a long time before I came. I just offered him some financial support."
"Well that still pulls his hopes up. It will take him much longer time to realize that he is wasting his time on a wrong path."
"Now I know where he gets his stubborn, unbending attitude from," said Balthazar with a smile.
"Are you calling me stubborn?" asked Manjunath angrily. He was quite frequently called so and wasn't something that he disliked.
"Please, don't misunderstand. I consider that quality of Rudra to be very admirable. It is hard to find such a tenacious and undefeated spirit. I am sure he gets that quality from you."
This seemed to assuage Manjunath's anger a bit.
"You know how stubborn Rudra can be, probably better than me. You honestly think he would stop if I fire him. Also, most of the team would follow him out. He would sooner or later establish himself at some other place. He is also good at it and I am fairly certain he would be successful at it."
Manjunath was quiet and was thinking whether he thought the wrong way about his son. A friend of his son was willing to bet on his son's career than collaborate with him. Maybe he should give his son a chance.
"Let us put aside our collaboration for some time and talk about Rudra. You obviously want him to settle into his career as soon as possible. To be frank, I don't care much about a V.R. cafe. I consider Rudra to be like an elder brother. I wouldn't have invested in it if not for Rudra. Especially since the cyber drome is owned by my own family."
"How about you decide on some target for Rudra in the V.R. like profit margin etc. If he is actually not good at it, he wouldn't match at it. I am just giving him a good start."
"Maybe that is one way, I can go about it. I can talk with him about that," said Manjunath somewhat grudgingly.
"Just try it for a couple of years. He already saved up money and was planning to get out the city to establish a cyber cafe. He was already offered a position by other gaming organizations. The only reason he stubbornly stayed behind because he wanted to take his team along with him."
"Really? I didn't know about that."
"Yeah, he was considered stubborn by others too."
"Hmm, OK. I will reconsider my position about Rudra."
Balthazar was glad that he could help his friend out. He owed Rudra a lot and wouldn't really mind losing the chance of a good collaboration with the Powers Family. But he would have to do a bit of explanation to Alfred and the board of directors.
"Forget all this. I hardly met any of his college friends. Let us talk about some other stuff."
They continued the meal for more than half an hour and left the restaurant amicably.
"So, what happened? Why did he want to meet you?" asked Alfred.
"I started a new cyber cafe. My friend manages it and also plays as a profession in V.R. games. He turned out to be his son. So, he wanted to talk about him," explained Balthazar.
"That's it?" Alfred asked him.
"Well, he wanted to know more about me. If I had any intentions of misusing his friendship. Also, kind of wanted to understand about the V.R. business."
"OK," said Alfred half-heartedly. Although he was sure that Balthazar had left something out, he decided to not inquire further. He had a decent discussion with Sheila regarding a collaboration with the Powers Materials and Manufacturing Ltd and didn't really care as long as it went through.
They parted way after lunch and Balthazar decided to pay a visit to Rudra and the rest of the team at the Dreamz Cyber Space. As he entered the premises, he met Slaine at the manager counter.
"Hi man, what's up?" asked Slaine.
"Nothing. Just wanted to talk to Rudra about something. Where is he?"
"His old man just came. They are having a talk over in a private room."
"Oh! He is already here. Cool!"
"You know about Mr. Manjunath Powers?"
"Yeah. I had a meeting with him over lunch."
"That would have been some discussion. What the hell would you be discussing with him?"
"My father had a mining company. We discussed collaboration between them."
"Ya, how goes the recruitment?"
"It is good. We have managers to maintain it round the clock. There are a total of 24 members working for the cyber cafe now. We can do with a few more personnel. But it is manageable."
"We can go with a few automatons if required. I also sent a few million to Rudra recently to improve on the security."
"Oh yeah. He was confused but did spend about 5 million on updating the security here."
"You are considering the issue far too lightly. You don't have the cyber drome pouring money into you for the team. You need to get hold of your own gear. Handle the workshop on your own. We will have a lot more work than before."
"I thought you would be providing us those stuff in place of David."
"Me? I hardly have the connections in the industry to pull that off. With the cyber drome opposing us, it will be that much harder. We need to handle it on our own. Establish a guild and workshop for that purpose."
"Man, you have planned a lot."
"Well, I am your boss. Need to do at least that much. Also, maybe it is best if we get a few V.R. cabins for the workshop. Even for the guild management, we need to have shifts."
"Ya, we already planned that. Rudra, Lizzie and I will plan to make sure atleast one of us is online most of the time."
"Anything else?"
"None, we even set up an ice-cream machine, a small fast-food stall and another refrigerator in the first floor. Lizzie wanted to setup a small toy stall too. She went out for getting it done. She is very enthusiastic about it."
"Oh. That's good."
"Yeah, talk about yourself. The cafe isn't even open yet and I am already tired."
"Haha, get a few automatons to handle the stalls. It would be easy work."
"Already bought them. Rudra says he would set them up by night. All the food and toy stalls will have them. Only manager, assistant and technician counters will have people on the 2nd and 3rd floors."
"I thought 3rd floor was for the workshop. Why are we having a manager for it."
"We still need to gather influence for workshop. In the meantime, Lizzie insisted to setup up private rooms in the 3rd floor."
"Not a bad idea. I guess, I can leave Lizzie and Rudra to handle everything here."
"Yeah, are you staying for the opening tonight. We are having a small party at midnight."
"No, No. I am sorry, but I am kind of busy."
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In the meantime, at the manager's cabin, Rudra was in a heated discussion with his father.
"You are always asking me to come and work along with you and prepare to succeed you. Now you want to set me a deadline in a field which you are hardly acquainted with? That is ridiculous!"
"Well, you have been playing around with this for more than 5 years. You have gotten nowhere. How much more time do you need. Soon, I would be asked to groom someone else in the family if you continue along this way. The maximum I can avoid that is for another 6-7 years. To be successful you need to have a few targets and deadlines. So, we are going to discuss it," said Manjunath sternly.
"OK. What do you suggest?"
"You are setting up a workshop, right?"
"Yeah, obviously"
"I learn't a bit about them. A new game, vita-nova is being released So, let us say that you manage to make it 2nd rate workshop by three years and develop it into a first rate one by five?"
"That is a bit fast and is really hard to do so in such a time frame."
"I have complete confidence in you. I believe you can do it. And I don't suggest waiting form more than 5 years for you to start at the firm. I believe if you are a part of good guild, you can have the game as a secondary occupation or a part-time one. So, I think it is a good time limit."
"But that is still hard without any financial backing."
Manjunath looked at him seriously. Rudra did tell him five years ago that he didn't want any of his father's money and would live on his own. Manjunath hadn't forgotten about that incident and still a bit angry about him.
"I don't want money from you to directly invest into my workshop. I am suggesting stuff like sponsorship of competitions and rental of virtual properties in the game."
"That is acceptable. You can always contact me regarding these. We have a deal. I will have someone understand and join your workshop as a liaison."
"Sure. That would work."
The talked about various things about Rudra's work in the V.R. and caught up with their lives over the past 5 years. Rudra even managed to convince him to use the V.R head gear and play the game vita-nova to get a first-hand experience at the game.
When they got out of the room, they saw Slaine and Balthazar listening halfheartedly to Lizzie rant about the possible effects of the new somnium technology on the economy and various training institutions. Manjunath immediately joined them and started listening to Lizzie with rapt attention.
Rudra pulled Balthazar to the side along with Slaine.
"So, you are staying for the opening tonight?" he asked Balthazar. Ever since Balthazar had insisted him to increase the security of the cyber cafe, he had a feeling that there might be some security issue with him.
"No, I can't really stay overnight here. It is best I don't."
"I understand."
"Also, I have another 25 million in my account which you sent. I hope you didn't intend to use all of that to upgrade the security here. We already have sensors and automatons around the place and employed a team of 5 guards from Meretseger Security services."
"No. No. Just keep it. I think we might need it later for the workshop. Maybe some somnium V.R. cabins or headgear. We can discuss it later."
"I heard my dad came to visit you."
"Ya, we just had a talk about you and the cyber cafe in general."
"Knowing my dad, he would have warned you to not indulge me or something like that."
"He did try but I could convince him to give you and cyber cafe a chance to prove ourselves."
"Thanks for everything."
"It's nothing. It is not like I am going to loose anything with setting up the cyber cafe."
He owed a lot to Rudra. Rudra was going to set up a cybercafe in a few months anyway. He just sped it up a little. He spent a little more time playing a couple of V.R. games while Lizzie continued to discuss the cyber cafe and V.R. world with Manjunath.
"Why don't you listen to her ideas. They are quite impressive," he said looking at Rudra.
"I listen to her every day and night. You listen to her. These are new to you," he retorted and went back to playing with Balthazar and the rest. He felt his father telling him to listen to his girlfriend to be quite ridiculous.
He left at about 5 p.m. and began his usual rounds at the racetrack with Robert and Anubis. Then, they hit the gym and got beaten up by Salazar. As he reached his room, he found a V.R. cabin/capsule waiting for him by his bed.