"As I can see, you use an iPhone," Sundar pointed out, his gaze flicking to the sleek device placed on the table.
I nodded. "Of course I am. Apple's user interface is so easy to use."
"Well, try this phone then," Sundar said, gesturing toward the handset he had placed besides my iPhone just moments ago.
I raised an eyebrow before picking it up. The phone felt a little heavier than my iPhone, with a plain, unassuming black casing. It looked like a basic Android device, the kind you might see in the early days of smartphones. Functional but far from stylish.
I pressed the power button. The screen lit up with a minimalist boot logo, and my eyes widened as realization struck. Holy shit… is this one of the first Android phones?
Looking at Sundar with a mixture of curiosity and disbelief, I asked, "Did we create this phone?"
Sundar shook his head. "Only the operating software. The handset is a generic one we purchased in bulk from China. Don't think too much about the hardware, it's not the best, I know. Just check out the OS. Do you like its usability compared to iOS?"
As my fingers navigated the interface, I noticed how smooth it was for such an early prototype. The menus responded quickly, and there was a certain flexibility in customization that iOS simply didn't offer. The implications were staggering. Somehow, my presence in this world had altered the timeline so much that Android had not yet been released. And somehow, without me even trying, it was being developed in a company I owned.
I looked up from the phone. "This is good. Did you create it?"
Sundar shook his head again. "My team did. Three of them came with me from Google—Rich, Nick, and Andy. They developed it together and named it Android OS. Right when he asked me to not work on Chrome, Chad also asked them to stop developing Android and focus on YouTube. They kept doing it in secret, or on own their time, because they knew Chad wouldn't like that we were focusing on other projects. Last week, they felt the progress was good enough and asked me to pitch it to you."
I nodded slowly, piecing it together. No wonder this guy was Google's CEO for so long. "So what's your plan with this?"
"My plan?" he repeated, sounding almost surprised by the question. "My team is full of inventors and tech enthusiasts. Our job is to tell the owners what we have developed, not how to sell it."
"And yet, you have an MBA from Wharton," I said, leaning back in my chair. "You came to me after misleading Chad into thinking I needed you for a personal tech problem. If you don't have a plan, then I overestimated you by a large margin."
Sundar's lips pressed together as he considered his words. Finally, he said, "I have been told in no uncertain terms that my team needs to focus exclusively on making tech, not on the business side. I don't mind doing that, but I had this idea I wanted to share. I don't know how successful it will be, but it's something. On the surface, it's an idea most businessmen won't like, which is why I'm hesitant."
I motioned for him to continue.
He took a deep breath, his fingers drumming lightly on the desk, before speaking. "If you agree, we could release this OS as open-source software. It's very easy to customize for any half-decent developer. That way, we won't have to go into the phone industry directly, but we can control it indirectly."
"And how will we earn money from it if it is open source?" I asked. "What incentive do we have to keep developing it and releasing the latest updates?"
"We'll tie in our apps in the phone," Sundar replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "YouTube, Netflix, Spotify, Chrome, to name a few."
"And you have developed these Android apps already?" I asked, leaning forward slightly.
"Oh, yeah," Sundar said with a confident nod. "The first three are done, but Chrome still has some bugs that are being worked out." He then pointed at the phone resting in my hand. "If you press the middle icon at the bottom of the screen, you can check out what we have here."
I glanced down and spotted the icon he meant. It looked similar to the one I remembered from the original timeline, but without the signature Google colors. Instead, it used various shades of blue, giving it a sleeker but less recognizable design. I tapped it, and the screen transitioned into a browser interface. It felt strangely nostalgic—familiar yet different. It had been years since I had seen such an early browser. Chrome had become so dominant that by the mid-2010s, nearly every browser in the market was influenced by its design.
"Now scroll a bit, try searching for something," Sundar instructed.
I raised an eyebrow. "You added a search engine as well?"
He shook his head. "No, but I integrated Google into it, at least for now. By the time we launch it, we'll release a search engine too. Even if it's just a basic one."
This man was far more ambitious than I had expected.
Still, I followed his instructions and typed "shoes" into the search bar. The results loaded quickly, and right at the top was an ad for Nike, as expected.
"That," Sundar said, pointing toward the ad on the screen, "is our revenue, or will be our main revenue source. When people use our OS, we'll have unlimited data on them. We can use that data to show customized ads based on their preferences. I know it doesn't sound like much now, but eventually, this ad revenue could be massive. That's how we'll earn."
I thought it over for a moment before nodding. "Okay, you got it."
"Really?" Sundar asked, his voice tinged with excitement. "So, we continue development on Android?"
"Development?" I repeated firmly. "Android is our first priority right now. Hire as many engineers as you can and get it done at top speed. Our competitor is Apple. With the way their smartphones are selling, we have to launch this as soon as possible if we want a fighting chance."
Sundar nodded with equal seriousness. "I'll start work on it immediately. I was thinking—"
As he began outlining his ideas, my mind wandered for a moment. I had decided early on that I wouldn't get directly involved in business ventures and would focus on the entertainment industry instead. Yet here I was, getting pulled into the tech world; a field I had little real expertise in. All because of Chad, who strutted around like the self-proclaimed Gigachad of the company.
I looked at Sundar again, and the answer became clear. Some restructuring was inevitable. Chad could remain CEO of YouTube, but Sundar needed to be placed above him to encourage innovation on projects like Android and Chrome. Chad would hate it, but that was the price for stifling creativity and obsessing solely over YouTube.
Before I could ask Sundar for his opinion, the door to my trailer opened and Benji stepped in.
"Is it time already?" I asked.
"Almost," Benji said, his expression serious. "Before you continue filming, I wanted to talk to you about a guard who was racist to Sundar."
"Forget it, Benji," Sundar said, waving a hand dismissively. "It was nothing."
"It wasn't nothing," Benji shot back. "Comparing you to terrorists just because of your skin tone is not okay."
"Is he one of ours?" I asked.
"No," Benji shook his head. "He's Warner's. If he were ours, I would have asked Paolo to kick him out already. You wouldn't have even known."
I turned to Sundar. "What exactly happened?"
He looked reluctant, but after a moment, he recounted the incident in detail.
I closed my eyes for a moment, then rose to my feet. The plates of food in front of us were barely touched, but my appetite was gone. This needed to be dealt with immediately.
"Troy, you don't have to—" Sundar began.
"No, I need to set an example," I said firmly. "Come along. You can have lunch later."
He said nothing more and followed me out, with Benji at my side. We crossed the set, drawing curious stares from crew members who paused mid-task. I understood why. A big star leaving their trailer to confront a security guard was not something they saw every day.
Paolo intercepted us near the lot's edge. "Is everything okay, Troy? Should I get the team ready to come along?"
I shook my head. "Just going to the guard at the entrance. You can come if you want."
He nodded silently and took the lead, moving with the steady precision of someone who took his duties seriously.
Benji discreetly pointed out the man as we approached. "Hey," I called out, my voice carrying just enough authority to make him straighten. "What's your name?"
His eyes widened slightly when he recognized me, but he quickly composed himself. "Greyson Dominic."
"Grey," I said evenly. "Did you lose any friends or family, or anything of importance, in the terrorist attacks two years ago?"
He hesitated, his gaze flickering toward Sundar, who stood just behind me. I said nothing more, simply fixing him with my unblinking Joker stare.
"No," he muttered at last, shifting uncomfortably.
"Good," I said with a short nod. "Now you have. You just lost your job. I liked to think the British are better than their American counterparts, but I guess I was wrong. Calling someone a terrorist because of their skin color or nationality is not acceptable to me. At all."
"Please don't do this," he said quickly. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it."
I shook my head. "Unfortunately, you did. A single racist, offhand, and pathetically unfunny comment can have consequences for the person on the receiving end that you can't even fathom. So no, sir. Even if you apologize to the person who deserves it, you don't deserve to walk away without consequence."
"Troy," Simon, the production manager, hurried over. "Is everything alright?"
I turned to him. "Fire him."
"But—"
"No buts. If Grey isn't out of this building by tomorrow, I won't be coming on set."
Without waiting for a reply, I turned and walked back toward the trailer. Benji and Sundar fell in step behind me.
"You know," Benji said with a grin, "you are such a movie cliché. You totally acted like a white savior back there."
I laughed at that.
"White savior or not," Sundar said, "you looked like a total badass."
I placed a hand on his shoulder. "Stay with me and the company, and one day you'll be powerful enough to be a badass brown savior."
(Break)
"Mr. Caron, it's strange that you're interested in acquiring us when something similar is happening elsewhere as well. Isn't it true that Phoenix Holdings is trying to acquire NBC Universal too?" Rupert Murdoch asked, swirling the amber liquid in his glass.
Andrew glanced at Bobby, who was leading the negotiations.
"We're just weighing our options," Bobby said in a measured tone. "My employer has come into some money, as everyone knows, and he is looking at various companies to invest in. News Corp happens to be at the top of that list. It's a great entity with an even greater history. We at Phoenix would take full care of it. We could even add a clause in the agreement allowing you to remain CEO for the next decade."
Murdoch raised an eyebrow. "That's a very generous term, but you haven't considered one important factor."
Andrew leaned forward. "What's that?"
"I don't want to sell News Corp," Murdoch said, his tone absolute.
Andrew and Bobby exchanged a quick glance before Bobby asked, "Then why let us get this far at all? Why not shut down any discussion from the beginning?"
Murdoch slowly rotated his chair toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, gazing out at the amazing New York skyline. The silence stretched, and for nearly two minutes he didn't say a word.
"Mr. Murdoch?" Andrew prompted at last.
When Murdoch turned back, the genial old man was gone. In his place stood the sharp-eyed mogul who had dominated the media world for decades. "Had you or your boss done even the slightest research on me, you would know I would never give up my company, even if you promised to make me CEO forever. News is my life. I won't have some liberal kid take over my company and turn it into a propaganda piece."
Andrew almost pointed out that Fox News was already a propaganda machine (like all major networks to varying degrees) but held his tongue.
"Then why did you allow us to go through your books?" Bobby asked, his tone sharper now.
"Curiosity, mostly," Murdoch replied, his expression softening just a fraction. "But since I like Troy a lot as an actor and a singer, I can make a concession. I would be willing to sell him the entertainment side of things for twenty billion dollars. This would include our film and TV library, the film studio, the animation studio, all production facilities; basically, everything we own that is not related to news or our flagship TV channel. Take it or leave it."
Andrew's jaw nearly dropped at the audacity of the old coot.
"But your entire company's market cap is twenty billion, and your biggest revenue source is from news or your flagship cable channel, which you're not even selling. How does it make sense to buy just a portion of your assets for the same amount?"
Murdoch smiled thinly. "Unfortunately, that's how markets work, young man. You need something from me that only I have, so naturally I will charge you a premium for it."
"We have other studios as well," Bobby countered.
Murdoch's eyes glinted. "Ah, but here is where you should be more honest. You want one thing above all else from this deal: X-Men and the other Marvel IPs."
Andrew and Bobby kept their expressions neutral, though Bobby asked, "What makes you say that?"
"It isn't difficult to deduce when you see the full picture. And I run the news," Murdoch said, standing from his chair. "That will be all from me today. I know you two don't have the authority to decide on my offer, so go back to your boss and tell him. He has one week to accept it. After that, the price will be twenty-five billion."
(Break)
"That man has lost his mind in his old age," Andrew said the moment they were back in his car. "Why would anyone pay that much for just part of the company?"
Bobby sighed, his gaze fixed on the road ahead. "You're right. It's overpriced, especially given the current market conditions, but we can't do much about it. Troy wants X-Men badly. And while the markets have crashed, none of the big players are selling at today's valuations. Everyone believes prices will bounce back within a few years."
"True," Andrew admitted. "Even Paramount CBS, the worst-performing studio, is asking twenty-five billion for its movie and TV business. Disney isn't selling anything. NBCUniversal wants thirty billion, and Warner Bros is demanding a whopping forty billion. Everyone is trying to outdo the other. It's insane."
Bobby exhaled through his nose. "Nonetheless, we have to take this to Troy. Only he can decide whether to accept it or not."
(Break)
"Uh-huh," I said into the phone, processing the numbers Andrew had just given me. "Listen, I'm in the middle of a meeting. I'll get back to you in a bit, okay?"
I hung up and turned toward the man I was meeting, Howard Stringer. "Sorry about that."
"It's fine," he replied with a smile. "I understand some calls are unavoidable."
"Thank you for flying in all the way from Tokyo," I said.
Stringer nodded. "I had to see my family in England, so this trip served a dual purpose. Anyway, what would you like to know about the company?"
"Everything," I said without hesitation. "I need to know if it would be worth it for me to buy the whole Sony Corp. Give me your honest opinion. I promise this conversation will not leave this room."
Stringer gave me a nod before beginning his story.
________________________
AN: Visit my personal website to read ahead, or check out my second Hollywood story set in the 80s.
Link: www(dot)fablefic(dot)com