This is a story of technology pirates, revenge and redemption, and someone caught in the middle. "John Smith" is a technology wunderkind, and the owner, head and chief innovator for the Naismith conglomerate, which includes Azimuth, Inc., or AI, the conglomerate's main thinktank and world leader in computer-based animation.

In an attack by the Yellow Dragon Syndicate, he puts his life on the line to safeguard AI's world-changing tech from these criminals, and only through the use of this tech is his life saved.

But the use of this tech also had far reaching consequences, to Johnny and the world.

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             note: pictures used are publicly-accessible pictures from the net. No i.p. or copyright infringement is intended.

He studied the little icons built into the drawing program, sort of like a combination of the old Adobe and Macromedia icons. Easily mastered. He used the light pen to tap the pencil tool on the screen and started drawing. He began with an oval shape and started drawing a face. Soon he was manipulating the computer with his usual expert hand. Why no tablet-style touch-screen controls, voice-driven or 3D virtual controls, he asked the lady out in front, but he didn't get an answer.

The instructions on how to run the program weren’t that many nor that unfamiliar. They wanted him to exercise his drawing skills, the receptionist said, and they didn’t want him to be hamstrung by a lot of rules, a lot of instructions, or having to learn new controls.

It made the assignment refreshingly different from his current job at Pioneer LDC. He used to be one of the staff artists at Pink Pineapple, but after years of doing… “racy” anime, he decided he wanted to draw something more than just racy anime. So he decided to take a job at Pioneer.

His first assignment for them was out of the country - a little project for the Americans - no more than a week’s worth of work - to design a new female animated character, and that's it - totally up to him, and no other instructions. Something to be used for a new computer animated feature, they said, in the hyper-reality style of Final Fantasy and the like. And the Americans had specifically asked for him, his boss said, because of his background. That made him wonder why.

So he started drawing her – the new animated character. He was told to use his own ideas on how she should look. All the Americans required that the girl be as good-looking as possible.

He imagined her in his mind, and started putting in details. The instructions were simple: draw a full face of the girl straight from the front, one left view (or right view, or both - his preference), and one from the back. He was also to do the same thing for the torso and limbs. He was also to do a perspective view of the girl, one in the nude, and one in clothes. They were needed for the computer rendering, they said.

Also, the measurements and scaling had to be as accurate as he could make it - no distortions. That was because they need accurate measurements in the animated movements that would be applied to the character. The little scale ruler on the left of the screen was a big help in this.

He drew the heart-shaped face first, and then the big round anime-eyes. He made the big irises an iridescent green, with the prerequisite large pupils. He also decided to give the girl red hair, or more accurately orange hair - she couldn’t really be called a redhead, with her hair color a cross between red and yellow - deep gold on the side of red - and he did it with a lot of body and lift, some big soft curls, and bangs hanging sexily over one eye. He then lengthened the hair in the back so it was easily long enough to reach the ground. He then drew really long and thick lashes and pencil-thin arched eyebrows. He gave her a small pixie-like mouth, perpetually curved in a subtle, friendly smile over a small chin. Even teeth could just be glimpsed, with canines that he made just the teeniest bit more pointed than normal (he thought they made her sexy in a dangerous kind of way). He then drew a small nose and a long narrow neck to round out the effect he wanted.

He then started with the torso. Narrow shoulders, hourglass shape, but lengthened into supermodel proportions. He paused and then re-did them a little bit and the lady now had more in common with Barbie than a Victoria’s Secret model, with an impossibly narrow waist and wide hips - a little wider than what would be expected for a supermodel-tall girl. And no body or pubic hair, of course (drawing body hair wasn’t usually the practice among Japanese anime and manga artists). He then made the breasts large and extremely shapely, typical of the hentai heroines that he used to draw. He then started with the limbs, which he didn’t give too much importance to. The drawing ended up with arms and legs without too much detail, smooth and plain, but with the right touch of curviness, especially in the thighs. He had to repeat that twice so that they would match the round ass and hips he was going to draw next.

When he finished, he then went over the drawings, filling her out with color. He decided to give the girl a very light and even tan color throughout her limbs, torso and head - like she regularly spent time at the beach, with the tan slightly fading, except without tan lines, of course. He barely stopped working, and was finished in a few hours. A very credible manga character, if he might say so himself. But nothing out of the ordinary: a very beautiful, voluptuous anime girl that was about six feet in height - just at the upper edge of the height range for a supermodel. Given American women average about five-four nowadays, his anime girl was pretty tall. He saved his work and, as instructed, punched the button that he was told was the one which would start the computer rendering process. He decided to surf the net a little bit while he waited.

There were no speakers so he put on the wireless headphones hanging on a stand beside the monitor. He then clicked the little Google Chrome button and started visiting his favorite sites. Unbeknownst to him, this was Valerie's trigger to start the subliminal security routine John had instructed her to run.

Essentially, with hypnotic suggestion via subliminal audio and video, Tetsuo was conditioned to forget the images he had drawn, and replaced them in his mind with a generic one that John had composed based on a collage of existing anime art. Truth be told, anime was not that unique, and was easily replicated, so John's collage looked extremely credible though very derivative. Like Tetsuo's, it had all the elements of anime art, but it didn’t have the gestalt that made Tetsuo’s a contiguous whole, and so much better besides.

So, in Tetsuo's mind, when he thought of what he had drawn, what he would see would be John's bogus brunette anime girl. But the subliminal programming would only kick in when he left the company grounds.

After more than an hour, which he thought was too long, a green icon started blinking on the screen's taskbar. He shut down the browser and clicked an icon. A live-picture version of his girl was displayed. Tetsuo moved the mouse to change the perspective of the picture. The graphic looked very closely like a picture of a real girl - the computer had normalized his drawing a great deal, making the picture look like that of a real person’s, like the computer-animated people of the Final Fantasy and Animatrix movies, but more true-to-life. But there still remained a few jarring notes: the breasts, the big red bouffant-like hairstyle that almost reached her waist (in Tetsuo’s original drawing, it was up to her ankles), and the bigger-than-normal eyes. But all of these exaggerated features weren't too over-exaggerated that people would think her abnormal. Just abnormally hot.

To him, it shouldn't have been so spectacular - he’d seen it a million times in the anime features that he worked on, as well as on his drawing board and computer monitor back home. In fact, he thought it all a little too tame. But it was just that this picture looked like that of a real girl’s. A really drop-dead gorgeous, super-hot girl. It was his anime girl brought to real life. One item that he didn’t like, though, was that the computer had added pubic hair. Sure, it was in the same shade as the hair on her head, and was very thin, and trimmed into a neat triangular shape, but it affected his anime sensibilities – anime artists traditionally didn’t put body hair. Still, like any typical Japanese, he accepted the change.

He brought out a blank, recordable blue-ray disk, and started to copy the image files onto the disk. He was totally ethical and didn't intend to use the images in any of his future assignments or illustrations. He just wanted a souvenir. But when he instructed the OS to make a copy of the images onto his disk, he was shocked that the images would use up the entire twenty-five gigs of space. Looking at the directory, he noticed there were over six thousand hi-res RAW files to be copied. The file type was okay - they were just like the files that his Canon DSLR camera saved. But RAW files were big files, and there were six thousand of them! He thought about it, shrugged to himself and triggered the copy routine anyway. When it was finished, he slipped the disk into his backpack and went out to look for the secretary he introduced himself to earlier. His job was done.

(Of course, his copying of the pictures triggered a warning in Valerie. She stopped the copy routine and copied instead pictures of John's amalgamated brunette anime girl onto his disk. There were only about a hundred of them, and they didn't even use up a gigabyte, but Tetsuo wouldn't know that until he opened the disk later, and by that time, he'd be far away and it wouldn't matter anymore.)

Later, when Tetsuo was ushered into John's office, his American sponsor was flabbergasted to find out that he had finished the work in less than eight hours when they were expecting him to take close to a week. Tetsuo apologized for his impertinence but John said that he was happy. Tetsuo was no less flabbergasted when he discovered that John was completely fluent in Japanese, with hardly an accent.

John switched on his desktop computer and took a peek at Tetsuo’s work. He looked at the drawings of the redhead for a moment and then switched to the computer rendering. He whistled. “Wow! I am impressed Tetsuo-san. You are truly a master.”
Tetsuo looked down in false modesty, and said that it was nothing. Nevertheless, John said he will still get the commission for the full week, and he’d be getting a bonus on top of that. They shook hands again, and John walked Tetsuo out of the sprawling complex and out into the California sunshine. Tetsuo was completely unaware of the security system that they passed. The firm had spent millions to make the security systems as unobtrusive as possible, and John was glad for it.

John asked what he’s thinking of doing with six days free time. Tetsuo told John that he decided to take his advise and to take some time to see the sights. He’d heard a lot about Silicon Valley, and he wanted to see all that he can. John told him that it was hardly a tourist attraction, and the thirty or so buildings that comprised the “valley” was not exactly tourist-type scenery. Tetsuo shrugged, and he said that as all right. Besides, who knows, he might meet his idol, John Lassiter, the genius behind Toy Story. He told John he’d been his idol for a while, after watching the movie.

“Not Steve Jobs nor even a Bill Gates?” John asked.

“Iye. Mr. Gates is a fine person, and undoubtedly a very smart man, but Mr. Lassiter was from Pixar, and I’ve always wanted to work there since I found out about it. Even now with all of his problems, and accusations of sexual misconduct."

“You have? All right, I’ll see if I can give your resume to Pixar. Who knows, you just might find yourself working there.”

Tetsuo’s eyes lit up. “Domo arigato, Mr. Smith. I am forever in your debt.”

“Well, let’s see how it goes, first.” He flagged a cab and gave the driver instructions to bring Tetsuo to his hotel. They shook hands and, before the Japanese artist could step in, John whispered the trigger word for the post-hypnotic suggestion into his ear. In a minute, the animation artist will forget what he did and saw - specifically the drawings he made, and the computer-rendered images made from them. All he'll remember was that he finished his assignment and that the customer was happy. If pressed, he'll just say that he helped with drawing up a new animated character - just another typical anime character you always see (and that statement would even have the virtue of actually being true). If pressed for details, he'll say that he couldn't remember the specifics since it was just one of those forgettable drawings. He'd refer to the pictures he copied and will associate that with his work. And John's secret project would remain secret.

In fact, the reason he was selected was because of his genetic background. Truth be told, they could have picked anyone. In fact, they could have just had the thing entirely computer generated, or had one of their in-house artists do it. But Johnny wanted it done by a human so the image would have human touches that a program couldn't do.

It so happened that none of their in-house people had those genetic traits that made them easily hypnotized and susceptible to suggestion. But when they did an outside search, they found Tetsuo.

Smiling pleasantly, John waved at the little Japanese as the taxi sped away.

His friendly smile faded as the taxi rounded a corner, and his expression transformed into his usual preoccupied look. He turned on his heel and walked back in. After the prerequisite security procedures, he stepped into what looked like an extra-large elevator. When the doors closed, the back wall of the fake elevator opened and “John Smith” walked into a big room full of security personnel and people in white lab coats running around doing who knows what.

He took off his fake glasses, completely transforming his face into someone else’s, stepped into his real office and punched up the same image that he had displayed in his fake office. The effect of the glasses on John’s look was that good. He knew it required a lot of attitude to make the disguise work. If they knew, people would think of Superman’s Clark Kent alias in the comicbooks.

He looked at Tetsuo’s awfully sexy computer-generated girl, whistled again, and called in his assistant, Telly.

“Graphic’s done,” he said.

“OK,” Telly said curtly.

“You seem awfully excited,” he said with mild but humorous sarcasm.

Sarcastically, she smiled brightly. “Is this better?” she said.

John laughed. She was always finding ways to make him laugh. “Get me a coded version, and put it on a disk, please.”

She peeked into his computer screen and jotted down the filename in the central server’s main directory. She caught a glimpse of the redhead in the screen, thinking how beautiful the girl was. A short pang of jealousy shot through her but it went away quickly. “You got it, Boss.” She spun around and minced back to her desk, her little ass swaying saucily, enhanced by the tight black miniskirt and the high heels she was wearing.

She must find it really difficult to walk in that tight skirt and those high heels, he thought, but the sexy, mincing walk was awfully cute. But then again, he had always thought her cute, if not sexy.

Telly was a PhD in a couple of disciplines, and was currently one of the team’s experts in chemistry and polymers. Far from feeling demeaned by her position as John’s glorified secretary, she felt truly privileged. Though John was not a PhD (in fact he did not even finish college), he was currently the foremost expert in computers, AI and robotics, and had a lot of expertise in plastics (Telly’s area of specialization), electrical engineering, biology, physics, and was fluent in more than a dozen different languages. To her, that particular skill of his was a little funny given his technical bent, but it really helped that John was able to speak a lot of different languages because this allowed him to smooth out the many arguments that usually came between the members of his multinational team. Telly felt truly honored to be working side by side with this living legend, as well as feeling a little dewy-eyed every time she found herself around him, and didn’t feel her career was being held up by her being John’s PA – she was able to continue her research on mutable bio-plastics and memory metal with all the resources of AI and Naismith Holdings, given that John only required her to work as his assistant three days a week. For Telly, it was like having the proverbial cake and eating it, too. Although, if she was being honest with herself, she found her working more on John’s stuff more than hers, and it was her choice.

She deliberately dressed provocatively, or as provocative as office decorum would allow, for him. She had a big crush on the man, and would have been greatly surprised if she found out that John had a big crush on her, too.

- - - - -

Many corporations, especially those in the Silicon Valley area, had asked for John’s assistance before, and did not complain about his exorbitant fees. In fact, there was a long waiting line for his services. Everyone knew he was worth it. But, surprisingly, John had sort of dropped out of corporate life, and everyone was wondering where he had gone. No one knew, nor would they have believed that he was still in the midst of them, running this little clandestine-like operation. To the world at large, Azimuth Inc. (or “AI” as the staff fondly called the company) was a small high-tech graphics company, doing subcon work for companies like Pixar and Silicon Graphics, as well as some computer graphics work for some of the film companies from Hollywood and New York like Sony Pictures, Columbia and Warner Brothers. AI’s cutting-edge computer, electronics and telecom services were also in demand by companies like AT&T, Bell, NASA, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Sony, British Telecom, Telecom New Zealand, and Boeing.

In the company's mission-vision statement, it talks about how it wants to set the direction for the world though its innovations, discoveries and inventions, and they chose "azimuth" to reflext this: azimuth means "the horizontal angle or direction of a compass bearing," which was appropriate for the company's vision for itself. But John told his mother that he just thought "azimuth" sounded cool, and, besides, the initials of Azimuth Incorporated would be "AI," which sounded even cooler.

In truth, AI was a research company owned lock, stock and barrel by “John Smith” and his mother (he never knew his father, and grew up with two mothers - his birth mother, Veronica Naismith, and his mother's wife, Wilhelmina Lloyd), or, if you prefer to call him by the name on his birth certificate, Jonathan Naismith-Lloyd although to the world at large, he is more known as Jonathan Naismith. That's because he was the sole owner of Naismith Limited – now the fifth largest company in the world.

Naithsmith Limited was one of a handful of megacompanies that wasn't publicly traded. So, although it was officially ranked the fifth in the world, because it was owned by one family (or one person, really), it was actually, for all practical purposes, the biggest and most powerful, and the owner, the most influential and most powerful person in the world.

The corporate ethos of Naismith Limited was to continue to produce the highest quality products and provide the best services in the market and, by all means keep itself and the companies it owned profitable, but if any of its companies become irrecoverably unprofitable despite everything they do, they will not resort to selling shares or some other similar gambit to financially resuscitate it. The Naismiths would prefer to shut down a company rather than be beholden to others, or to give up control in any way. To do so would mean they had traded the quality of their products or services for profit.

One would think that such an ethic would result in eventual bankruptcy, but that only happened to a few Naismith companies, and those few companies were indeed chopped up and spun off, their pieces were absorbed by the other companies. The few employees that couldn't be re-absorbed or not made redundant, were given some of the best severance packages in the corporate world.

And over the years, all the Naismith companies acquired a reputation for quality products and services, and for unassailable ethical practices and innovation, and they grew from strength to strength. Thank goodness they were doing so well and have never had to do that to any of their companies anymore.

Of course, they also did some glad-handing, and played corporate politics as well with the governments they dealt with and the companies that they competed with - John was idealistic but not naïve - and money would sometimes change hands or favors granted, but no one could prove it. Besides, why would peopla want to expose bribes that actually pushed ethical practices? That would be boring news indeed...

The Naismiths also lobbied for government policies and laws that promoted ethical, fair and environmentally friendly practices. They were also known to openly lobby governments, but only to the extent that laws were impartially applied and there's no preferrential legislation or treatment favoring one company over another.

Such a seemingly-naïve pie-in-the-sky ethic would surely have brought down any other organization, but John would not allow anything else and it survived largely because he surrounded himself with truly exemplary people who thought and behaved the same way, brooked no other behavior, and was not afraid of spending his capital freely in defense of his ideals. True, in the first few years after he gained his majority and took over direct control of Naismith, the organization skated a knife-edge between solvency and bankruptcy, but, always a quick study, John, with the help of his mother, rapidly learned the ropes and ruthlessly fired those he did not trust, and cleaned house. And, with like-minded people running his companies, he and Minnie piloted them to eventual corporate success.

- - - - -

John was a child prodigy, with wide-ranging fields of interest. At eight, he had mastered the piano, did advanced math in his head without any tools, and spoke five languages with college-level proficiency. His mother, the young heiress to the largest family fortune in England that wasn’t part of the Windsor family, indulged him shamelessly. She bought a special guitar from a company called RockrGrrl, made to fit his small stature, as well as had a customized set of drums made. John mastered both instruments in short order as well, and was soon composing his own tunes.

At age eleven, it was then that his musical talents truly blossomed. He found himself composing songs and making his own musical arrangements on the computer, often creating songs with twenty tracks/instruments or more. Indeed, he was so good he was able to get a couple of his songs included in an album of one of the more popular recording artists at the time (courtesy of his mom’s connections), and they became instant hits. Of course he remained unacknowledged in the album and in any of the credits, which was fine with him. That way, he could remain anonymous and get an accurate opinion from the people who listened to his music.

Upon entering his teen years, he remained insufferable. Spoiled and self-indulgent, he did not have patience for people who couldn’t keep up with him and paid no attention to those around him. Though a handsome boy, not to mention filthy rich, he found it extremely difficult to make friends. And his talents continued to expand.

In his thirteenth year, his birth-mother, then a very young-looking twenty-eight, was involved in a car accident, which left her an invalid. She lingered for several months, but eventually faded away. John was at her side when she passed away, and he cried and cried, and remained inconsolable for a long time. Weeks after his mom’s funeral, his other mom, Minnie, his mom’s beautiful red-headed personal assistant, wife and life partner (the unfortunate name had been coined by his Valerie, and much to Ms Lloyd's chagrin, had stuck), handed him an envelope - Valerie’s last words for him. It was in her will that the letter be given to him at least a montth after her death, in the hope that he would have gotten over her death by then.

He grabbed it from Minnie’s hand, ran to his room and ripped open the sealed envelope. He unfolded the four-page letter inside and recognized her nearly unintelligible writing that only he and Minnie could easily read. In the letter, his mom explained that she wrote it in case of her death. She also explained that he was the sole inheritor of the family fortune, deliberately not including Minnie in her will in any way so that their notorious love affair would not color her will and prevent anyone from contesting it or question her state of mind. Instead, she trusted him, she said, to do right by Minnie.

And she admonished him to be careful in dealing with people, because most of them will only be after his money. He read on, and went through his mom’s instructions. She explained that Minnie will take care of everything for the moment, but, as soon as he came into his majority, everything will be turned over to him, and that he should prepare for that time. He turned to the very last page and read his mom’s final words to him.

“Johnny, I don't know the circumstances of my death,” she wrote, “but I do know that my death must hurt you, but please believe me that if I could stay, I would. I love you so much. But when it really is our time, no one can stop it. I leave you in Minnie’s capable hands. Please be good to her. She has not just been my personal assistant, but also my best friend and the love of my life. I have asked her to act in my behalf, and to continue to be mother to you. She truly loves you, and she will always have your interest in mind.

“But please be good to her. In the years that I have had with you, I have seen you grow from a small helpless child to a young man with so much talent and promise. But with a curious lack of empathy for others. Please do not be that way with her. Perhaps you didn’t know, but most of the people around you do not like you. I guess Minnie and I are exceptions in that. It is perhaps my fault - I have spoiled you and indulged your whims much too much. And I failed in instilling in you those values that I held in such high regard - compassion, kindness and love. I ask your forgiveness in this, but it is not too late. Though I know you have these in your heart, you might not know how to bring them out. So you must make an effort to nurture them. Ask for Minnie’s help. She is the kindest, most compassionate and loving soul I know.

“This is the very last thing I will ask of you. Please consider what I said. And think of me once in a while. Goodbye, my beautiful Jonny. I will love you forever.”

He noted the small error in the spelling of his name in the last part of the letter - “Jonny.” No one knew that it was their own personal code (not even Minnie knew it) to let him know that the letter was genuine. He could not stop crying, and held the letter away so his falling tears would not wet the paper. He ran out of his room and cried for Minnie. Minnie came running and he cannoned into her arms. He cried and cried, drenching the front of her blouse. After what felt like forever, he finally fell into exhausted sleep. Minnie tenderly carried him to his room. It was very difficult because he wasn’t a little boy anymore but a strapping teenager. Nevertheless, she brushed off the butler’s attempt to help carry him. She staggered into his room, laid him on his bed and tucked him in.

She took the letter from his slack grip and read the letter. As she finished, she sniffed a little bit, and tried to stop from crying. She stooped to tuck the letter under his pillow, and caught Johnny’s profile. She couldn’t resist and touched the cheek of the sleeping youth. Johnny woke up and looked at her.

“I miss her,” he said simply. He sat up and hugged her.

“Oh, baby. I miss her, too.” She gently rocked him. “But we must get passed this. She would want us to.”

“OK. I’ll… try.” She gave him a little kiss on the forehead.

“I’ll take care of you,” she said.

“And I’ll take care of you,” he said. They both laughed a little.

And, in the coming years, they indeed remained as close as ever, as Valerie intended. Johnny was somehow able to do as his Valerie requested and grew up to be the sympathetic and empathic genius that everyone now knew, and Minnie, though she did not replace Valerie in Johnny’s heart, there was more than room enough for her, and she remained his mother.

In the infant Johnny, Minnie found an outlet for her blossoming maternal instincts. Though very young (she was about the same age as Valerie - just a few months older), she had already given up thoughts of having a family in the traditional sense, for she had fallen head over heels in love with Valerie on the day they had first made love in college. She was not a stranger to sex, and has had her share of boyfriends and lovers, but her first lesbian relationship gave her the thrill of an illicit and forbidden love that her other relationships could not compare to, not to mention the tenderness and caring that only another woman knew to give. In Valerie Naismith, she had found her soulmate, and swore to be hers forever.

Valerie’s unexpected pregnancy hurt Minnie deeply, and could not believe that Valerie would lie to her, though in later years, she could understand the courage that she showed - an unwed teenage mother not yet of legal age, to give birth, and to actually keep her baby. Johnny was the accidental product of Valerie's need to experiment, but nevertheless, Valerie loved the still-unborn baby as much as any mother could. In fact, she never told anyone who the father was, not even the father himself, and who John's birth-father remained a mystery.

Minnie demanded that Valerie give her baby up, but she tearfully refused - she couldn’t give up the baby, and if Minnie couldn’t accept that, then they’d have to break up.

Minnie packed her bags and stormed out of the apartment that they shared. But in the coming months, she found that she couldn’t stand being away from her. She had screwed up her courage and fear, threw away her pride, and decided to see if Valerie would be willing to take her back. But, when she stood in front of Valerie's doorway, she found Valerie there, mountainous and seven months pregnant, and crying.
“I love you, Minnie,” she said. “Please come back.”

And so she did, and they got married. And when Johnny was born, she had realized that it was not the little innocent infant’s fault that she and Valerie had split, and she loved him just as much as Valerie did.

Valerie was another wunderkind, just like Johnny (and Minnie, for that matter), but this fact was not acknowledged since she left college before graduating - Valerie had decided not to finish school since she had to get back to helping run the family’s businesses because of a death in the family (although not in an official capacity as she was still a little too young), not to mention she was also raising Johnny. And when Minnie finished business school as well as advanced business administration (not to mention a Bachelor of Science in Economics), all at the age of twenty, Valerie offered her a position as her personal assistant. At that time, though, Valerie's mother died from lung cancer, which meant that the last of the line and the sole ownership of the family's businesses and holdings fell to Valerie, Minnie and Johnny.

Together they had changed the Naismith’s handful of family-run companies into a conglomerate of embarrassingly successful businesses. They were into shipping, real estate, banking & finance, a car manufacturing plant in Korea, a couple of plastics manufacturing plants in Taiwan, a snack food company in New Zealand, a Ramen noodle company in Indonesia, a UK clothes line, an electronics company in Texas, a high-end kitchen appliance maker in Germany, a semiconductor manufacturer in California, and several others scattered over the globe.

The two women raised Johnny together, and though Johnny had two loving mothers, he did not have a father figure until his “uncle” Josh came by. Josh was Valerie’s financial advisor, and, over the years, became a close family friend. He was a true man’s man - someone that other men respected and idolized, and someone that both Valerie and Minnie respected for his moral strength, sense of fairness and his sincere desire to help others. It was no surprise that he became an occasional lover, and full-time friend and confidant to both of the women.

But he had instantly died in the same car crash that, in the end, also claimed Valerie.

to be continued...