My greatest opponent at this time is an old foe – Hestor Williams. An ambitious Australian of immense intellect, he inherited a mining fortune on the death of his father. I first heard of him in the middle of the 22nd century when my space habitat business was top of the pile. The business largely revolved around finance, the actual work was carried out by robots with advanced AI. I never noticed that I was losing market share because the market was growing phenomenally at that time. Those were crazy days. We were chugging out new space habitats at a rapid pace.
It was the time of the great human migration to space. Well, for those that can afford it anyway. The effects of Global warming were by now rendering large sections of the Earth uninhabitable. People needed to believe that there was still a place of opportunity where they could dream of a better future. The poor had no opportunity to make such a journey. Not that I cared. I did think of running some sort of lottery but decided that I didn’t need any good publicity.
I still remember the day. I had grown too complacent and hadn’t bothered even checking how the competition was doing. That’s what months of sex and drugs will do to you. Guess what a shock I got when the AI said.
Tá do sciar den mhargadh síos go dtí seasca faoin gcéad.
Yeah, like what the fuck?
For those that don’t know the Irish language, it’s stating my market share was down to sixty percent. I made it the language of my business empire. It really stuped some spies that tried to break into my systems. And to think that people thought it was going to die. Now it’s practically the language of near-Earth orbit. Do you think my fellow Irishmen and women would be happy? No chance. They insist that the original dialects are still dying out. Oh, cry me a river.
Anyways, Hestor William turned into a right pain in the arse. Currently, he’s investing in military hardware for his space habitats. It will cut profits if I do likewise. And if there is anything I truly care about, it’s profits.
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