Master of Time

Chapter 28: Sensational News

Halle is pleasantly surprised to learn that I am a single father. She asks about the mother, but I tell her that the woman died in childbirth – this is consistent with my fabricated background.

She joins me for dinner with Antigone at the restaurant down the road, owned by the mob.

That place is starting to become my favorite dinning place. There are a wide range of dishes to choose from, and if it isn't on the menu, I can always request it personally.

Having Antigone with us makes Halle a little less wary of me.

She is in the belief that I am the devil reincarnated, but she couldn't wrap her mind about the fact that a devil is caring for a baby. Seeing me feeding my baby daughter with genuine joys at dinner, she has a slightly better opinion of me.

Not that I care what she thinks of me.

If Halle does what she is told, I will not have a problem with her.

I will have a Hydra agent acts as her agent and mediator to the company. The agent is also a personal bodyguard, meaning it should be a girl.

Hydra has start training female agents back in the 1970 from a young age. This is necessary to form a sleeper family unit. A couple with a child is not as suspicious as an all too friendly unmarried man. The child to the couple is also a Hydra agent, just in training.

I chat about personal matters with Halle over dinner.

Halle is not very forthcoming with her personal life, but she did make some remarks about her father.

She doesn't really hate the man for killing her mother when she was little since keeping a grudge over so many years will do her no good. That said, she still wants to see him behind bars for the rest of his life.

Once Halle finishes her meal, she excuses herself.

"Bye, bye, Antigone. I guess I will be seeing you a lot from now on."

Halle says goodbye to my daughter.

Antigone responses with a gurgle and a hand jerk. It means that she wants to see Halle again – I guess.

"Please take this with you. It is a copy of the screenplay for the film Speed. Your co-star will likely be Keanu Reeves, so imagine talking to him when you are practicing the lines."

I pass Halle the screenplay from my briefcase. It becomes a habit to carry a briefcase everywhere I go now.

As for Speed, I have thought about casting Sandra Bullock. However, with Halle Berry, a homeless girl from the street as one of the passengers on the speeding bus of doom before becoming the heroine of the story is like a fairy tale comes true.

It is a lot more impactful than just having an American sweetheart like the original movie with Sandra Bullock. America really digs into this kind of thing.

I also left the restaurant with Antigone shortly after Halle did. I pay for our dinner and tip the waiters despite being the actual owner of the restaurant.

The whole corporate chain of command is getting a bit convoluted, but it is necessary.

I will make my appearance once everything is in place.

"Look. You are running a business, are you not? I am one of your customers. I eat so I must pay. It is only natural. Accept my bill or I will have a problem with you and your boss.

And believe me, you don't want that happening."

I tell the restaurant when they repeatedly refuse to accept my payments. Jimmy obviously has a hand in this. He didn't want to take money from me since it is like me paying myself.

However, I insist on it.

Luckily, the new manager of the restaurant is an intelligence man. He wouldn't want a scene to break out with so many people watching.

Once the matter is resolved, I head back to Terra Entertainment.

A helicopter is waiting for me on the rooftop, readying to take me to the international airport. There, a supersonic jet will take me home to New York City.

It will be like 4 hours flight in total – I'm not doing that.

Instead, I have the pilots fly to New York City while I just teleport there directly. The pilots would spend most of his day flying back and forth between the two cities on a regular basis to create an illusion of me heading to work each day.

I put Antigone to bed when I teleported to my home in the suburb.

It is very quiet here unlike the city, where nobody actually slept.

After securing the room where my daughter is sleeping, I spend the rest of the night working on other movies and televisions.

Selene did most of the work for me, organizing and analyzing each of the movie and television show before producing an accurate representation in screenplay form.

Although I do have a copy of the original screenplay, it contains a lot of discrepancy to the actual movie or television show. This is because the director does go off the script when the script just doesn't work during the filming.

This also mean that the show produced in this timeline will not be exactly like the one in my memory.

I suppose it is expected. If anything, it gives me watchable values.

Printing out multiple screenplay copies of the entire 10 seasons of Friends did take a bit of time, even if the printers is highly advance.

Each episode is like a book fills with endless dialogues and event summaries.

Over the course of next couple of weeks, I have created screenplays of almost every popular television in the 1990s along with Friends.

The screenplays include Frasier, The X-Files, The Sopranos, Buffy the Vampire Slayers, Everyone Loves Raymond, ER and so many others.

All these shows will be produced by my company, as soon as I found the right actors and directors.

During these weeks, Stephanie drops by to play with Antigone. I offer her to babysit the baby when I am busy working in my private office at home.

Her eyes shine when she gets paid $10 an hour.

However, Stephanie needed to ask her mother.

Her mother – my step-grandmother or was it adopted-grandmother – immediate go over to my house to have a chat with me.

Apparently, the woman didn't believe her adopted daughter.

"Yes. Mrs. Connors. I am willing to pay your daughter $10 an hour to watch my daughter. My daughter has taken a good liking to your daughter, and I see that your daughter is a good child from the time I have known her. If you believe your daughter is too young for this, I will drop the whole matter."

"Ah, I think that is fine. I thought I have misheard Stephanie when she tells me about it. Although, are you sure? $10 an hour is a lot of money."

The woman replies.

"Is that so? Shall I reduce the amount to say, $5 an hour?"

I question.

The minimum wage is around $3.5 dollar an hour. A lot of adult works for this much every day. I know for a fact that my adopted-grandmother doesn't earn as much as $10 an hour in her current job.

"Huh? No, no, no. I think $10 is appropriate for Stephanie. She is very responsible for her age. You will not find anyone like her to look after your daughter."

"Ah okay. I guess I will be seeing your daughter 6pm to 9pm every weeknight, huh. I might require her to babysit during the day or the weekend on some occasions."

I chuckle and have a chat to the money-grubbing woman about Stephanie for a bit before she leaves and returns to her home.

I resume watching the news broadcasting on a Cathode-ray Tube (CRT) Television. The damn thing will make people blind if they watch for too long.

The buyout of Heinz and Kraft by Chrono Holdings cause a lot of noise in the economy. Henry appears on television multiple times, citing that Chrono Holdings has decided to enter the food industry.

Henry makes his intention very clear on public media about merging the two companies together to form Kraft Heinz Incorporated like I wanted.

However, before Henry could do something like that, he needs permission from the government due to the rather annoying antitrust law.

The news about the massive merger would have been the most sensational on television if it wasn't for Intel revealing their latest technology publicly – a fully color LCD panel.

That Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) Television is a prototype, but the demonstration shows the display is far more advance than anything available on the market, domestically or internationally.

It is also lighter than all other displays. Due to its weight, it can be mounted onto walls.

However, since Intel is a microprocessors and semiconductors manufacturer and producer, it does not produce commercial LCD directly for the general public. Instead, they produce parts and components for other companies, such as Sony, Samsung, and LG.

These companies will be the ones market and produce the consumables for the public.

Just a few days after Intel reveals their latest innovation in visual electronic, Crisis System follows suits with Qualcomm not so far behind.

This spark the bidding wars between the three American companies, forcing down the prices for parts and components.

It is necessary to prevent monopoly.

As I have planned, Intel produces the best and long-lasting electronics while Crisis System produces the cheapest but at the expense of durability. This is to make PlayStation as cheaply as possible.

Qualcomm is in between, affordable and durable.

This allows markets for all three companies, racking in billions of dollars in contracts. Their stock prices skyrocketed after the reveal – except for Qualcomm, who is privately owned. It will be for a while.

Every electronic and computing companies in the world are calling Intel, Crisis System and Qualcomm, asking for a business meeting.

Even the United States Government is not an exception to this, especially the military.

They are demanding for a conference.

With the estimated price of $499.99 for a 32-inch LCD Screen, everyone will want one, considering the current CRT Television cost about as much if not more.

In fact, Sony 27-inch KV TV cost about $1,500 on the market. A 32-inch is well above $2,000.

I expect everyone in America will have a 24 to 32-inch LCD Television in their living room by Christmas, enjoying the high definition color.

This is when the PlayStation will be launched.

However, that is not the most sensational news to me.

Somehow, someone manage to take a picture of me and Henry together.

When I saw my face plasters on the television, I spray the coffee all over the table.

"Who is he? A love child of a Multi-Billion Dollar Tycoon? An Exclusive Story! Tonight at 7pm!"

The news headline states.

"What the fuck!?"