Billionaire Grump

Chapter 1 Lucius The lobby is teaming with cacophonous meatsacks, and I’m late. I readjust my giant headphones and up the volume until the sound of heavy metal drowns out the infuriating voices. Yeah. That’s a little better, though what I really need is a pair of glasses that can use Augmented Reality to filter out the people. Alas, such glasses do not exist yet. Oh, well. Such is life—or sic vita est as the Romans would’ve said. Pretending I’m alone, I stride past the security desk. The guards know better than to check my ID. After all, I own the company that owns the building. When I’m halfway to my elevator, I begin to have hope that I’ll make the meeting. Thanks to my reputation, everyone steps aside and makes way for me. Wait. Spoke too soon. A man stands in my path. A man whose name I don’t recall, but I’m pretty sure he’s a VP of something dumb, like marketing. Does he not realize how late I am for the Novus Rome meeting? Everyone knows it’s my highest priority at the moment and is thus sacrosanct. The man doesn’t seem to have a clue. He’s clearly not high enough on the corporate ladder to be needed for the meeting. Or he is high, but in the other sense of the word. Mindbogglingly, his lips are moving. As in, he’s talking to me. I give him the IANE, my patented “I am not entertained” glare. His lips are still moving. Bullshit like this is why my dream is to replace all my employees with robots. I’d give a billion dollars to do that, or a couple years of my life. And maybe even my Russell Crowe-signed Gladiator poster. I pull away the right earcup. “What?” “Hello, sir. I just wanted to tell you that our last campaign went outstandingly well and—” I tune out the rest. I can always tell what people are really saying, and in this case, it is: Promote me. Please promote me. I know I don’t deserve it, but pretty please promote me. The irony is, he has just hurt his chances for that promotion with his rudeness. That is, if I recall his name come the end of the year… I place the earcup back in its place. “Excuse me, I'm late.” Ignoring his stammered apologies, I stride purposefully to the elevator, and this time, my expression is such that no other meatsack dares interrupt me. As I walk, my stomach rumbles. Damn it. I should’ve eaten something. My stomach growls in agreement. I hate this and anything that reminds me that I’m a slave to biology. As soon as I can upload my brain into a robot body, I’m doing it and never looking back—but for now, I hope there are snacks at the meeting. Reaching my elevator, I check the clock on my phone as I wait for the doors to crawl open. I’m a minute late. Hopefully, Eidith can smooth things out with the real estate guy—whatever his name is. Actually, given how much I want this particular plot of land, I should really try to remember his name. I pull up my calendar, open the meeting invite, and repeat the stupid-sounding last name over and over in my head. Yep. Got it now. I step into my elevator and press the top button: LXXXVIII. My phone rings. I frown at it, until I realize it’s Gram calling. Accepting the call, I jab at the “door open” button to make sure the elevator doesn’t close. My grandmother is the only person whose calls I always take, and I don’t want to lose reception and thus needlessly worry her. “Lucius, pumpkin, how are you doing this beautiful morning?” she asks, and I can picture her dimpled smile on the other end of the line. “Hungry and late,” I say, not doing a good job of avoiding another accusation of sounding like the Grinch. “I keep telling you, and you don’t listen: you need a good woman to take care of you.” Sure. I’ll add “find good woman” to my to-do list, right after “get a hole in the head.” “How’s your back?” I ask in lieu of a reply. Gram pulled a muscle while opening a jar of peach jam the other week, which prompted me to fire her home attendant and replace her with a burly bodyguard. His job involves opening all future jars in Gram’s house in addition to looking after her. “Oh, much better.” With a chuckle, she adds, “Turns out Aleksy was a masseuse back in Poland.” I take a thoughtful sip from my water bottle as I process what I’ve just heard. The bodyguard got handsy with my grandmother? Do I need to fire him or raise his salary? “Wait, didn’t you say you were late?” Gram asks. “A little. No big deal.” “Go,” she says. “Call me after.” “Will do.” She hangs up, and I smash the “door close” button. The doors slowly slide closed—way, way too slowly. This is what you get when you opt for looks over function. The doors are in the Roman style I prefer, but all the adornments make them move slower than a turtle that’s been bitten by a radioactive snail. Then, when only a tiny opening remains, a dainty, sandal-clad foot with sparkly pink nail polish wedges itself between the doors. A foot that’s close to perfect—so much so, it serves as another unwelcome reminder of my biology. The person the foot belongs to is brave. Had this door been designed with efficiency in mind, this maneuver would’ve severed the foot, and the elevator would’ve gone on its way as if nothing had happened. Alas, the engineer I hired was clearly a tree-hugging vegan because the elevator doors open back up, just as slowly as they closed. I glare at my watch again. Five minutes late now. Motherfucking f**k. I turn my attention back to the foot and prepare to rip into its owner.