Something Corporate

Chapter 5:

Marik and Malik slept in late the next morning. Extremely late. Actually, when they woke up it wasn't even daytime anymore. They'd slept the entire day away without even realizing it and there little alarm happened to be Pips at their door.

"Marik? Malik? Open up, please, I have something to show you." Pips tried to knock as politely as possible but he'd been at the door for twenty minutes and was beginning to get annoyed.

In a minute, Malik opened the door and looked at him, "Pips, what are you doing here? It's early."

"It is exactly 7:20pm. The sun is no longer up and I've been working all day." Pips walked right passed Malik and inside the house. "Ooh, I love your place."

"… Thanks." Malik closed the door and thought, 'I don't remember telling him he could come inside…'

Pips had a big cardboard box in his arms and he set it down on the purple couch in front of him. He turned around and said, "Well, well, well… Can you guess what I have?"

"Chickenpox."

"What? Oh my, no." He laughed, "I can see you aren't that good of a guesser so I'll just come right out and say it… Hmm? Where's our dear friend, Marik?"

"Eh? Okay, I'll get him." Malik took a deep breath and shouted, "MARIK!"

Marik's footsteps could be heard on the second floor, clunking and shuffling around. He soon appeared at the foot of the stairs and looked at both Malik and Pips.

"Malik, did you let him in?"

"Don't look at me, he came in by himself."

Pips sat down next to his big box, "I'm so happy, I didn't think you sleepyheads would ever wake up. But now I get to tell you that the million dollars you got from Mr. Kaiba did the trick. We've gotten the Miniport patented and duplicated."

"Really!" They asked in amazement.

He nodded, "You both are lucky. You'd be in big trouble if it weren't for Mr. Kaiba. He's very reliable… when you need him, he's always right there."

"Uh… yeah. So, let us see the new Miniports, Pips, you brought them, didn't you?"

"Of course." Pips reached into the box next to him and pulled out a red Miniport. "They come in assorted colors."

"Wow!" They exclaimed in unison.

Pips continued, "I got three hundred to start with, then we can get more when we run out. We'll sell them on the internet to start with…"

Malik dug inside the box, "They're beautiful."

"I had special ones made for you, Marik and Malik. See?" Pips reached into his back pockets and pulled out a metallic-colored Miniport and a black one with bright red stars.

"Ooh!" Malik squealed and ran over to him, "The metallic one must be mine!"

He nodded, "That's right."

"How did you know that was my favorite color?"

"It's my job to know these things."

As Malik was putting his Miniport on his arm, Marik starred at the one that he was given. He shrugged and said, a bit disappointedly, "… Well, I suppose it's better than nothing. Okay, so-"

"But we can't sell them yet." Pips sat back down on the couch.

"Why not?" Marik asked.

"Well, we can't put an item on the market and we don't know about kinks or bugs. You have to prove to me that it's… not defective."

"…?" Marik and Malik tilted their heads.

"I need a demonstration."

"We told you what it does!"

"You told me what it's supposed to do. We've got to make sure. Just transport from here to the next room or something. That's not a lot to ask, right? You invented it, this should be fun for you."

"Eh heh…" Marik scratched his head and turned to Malik, "What are we gonna do? We don't know the first thing about how to work this!"

"We should've thought this through when we first took it. You didn't even ask that Elmer kid about it… you could have gotten a manual or something."

"Oh, yeah, Malik." Marik rolled his eyes, "Like I'm really going to ask for a manual for something that I'm about to steal!"

"Well, what do we do now, huh!"

"Ahem. Marik? Malik? Is everything okay?" Pips asked, still sitting down, "What's going on over there?"

"Uh, just a minute!" Marik turned around and grabbed his head, "Oh, what to do? What to do!"

"We'll just have to wing it, Marik. What choice do we have?"

"Heh. I don't wanna end up somewhere unknown. So, your gonna have to wing it, Malik." Marik pushed his hikari in front of him and said to Pips, "Malik's ready to give the demonstration."

Pips smiled, "Okay, have at it, Malik."

"Yeah, Malik." Marik sat down next to Pips and grinned, "Have at it."

"Uh… uh…!" He frowned, "Well, okay. Here goes nothing."

Malik lifted his right arm with the Miniport on it and looked at about five decorative buttons and a dial. He twisted the dial to the east and pressed two buttons, which he hoped wasn't the wrong number.

In an instant, Malik was gone. Marik and Pips looked around. "He did it. He really did it…"

"Malik!" Marik called out, "Where are you! Malik!"

"… Maybe he decided to go to McDonalds or something." Pips shrugged, "Is he playing a trick?"

"He can't play a trick… he doesn't know how…" Marik said to himself, "Malik!"

"Well, we certainly know that it works. That was absolutely beautiful, you must tell me how you both did such a magnificent thing, when Malik gets back."

Marik looked out the front door and called, "Malik! Are you out here?"

"Relax. I can't wait till he comes back, either, but we don't have to wait for him to start selling these babies. Where's your computer?"

"Upstairs… third door on your right." He sighed and followed Pips up the stairs.

-

Meanwhile, Malik had already reappeared again somewhere. At first he didn't realize that he'd gone anywhere until he opened his eyes and saw that Marik and Pips weren't sitting on the couch anymore.

'Okay… so, I guess it worked. Now where am I?' He looked around for a minute and saw a large desk, a few chairs and absolutely gorgeous wallpaper.

"Kaiba's office!" Malik said aloud. The shades were drawn and all the lights were off. He tiptoed to the door and peeked outside.

He could see Kaiba walking towards the room and Malik backed away, 'Oh no, he can't see me in here!' He hurried and ducked behind a big plant.

The door opened. Mokuba and Kaiba walked inside and turned on the lights. Kaiba sat at his desk as his brother turned on his laptop and said, "Hey, Seto, did you know there was an amount of money missing from our personal account?"

"Hmm? How much?"

"About a million dollars." He paused, "We didn't buy any shares of any other company this week… we shouldn't-"

"Oh! Don't worry, Mokuba, I know what the money was from."

"Seto…" Mokuba groaned, "Don't tell me you've tried to invest in antique coconut bras, again. I told you that's a scam. You shouldn't be into that kinda thing anyway, it's bad for your health."

"It isn't like that. I gave Marik and Malik a check for a million dollars to help them out."

"Marik and Malik! Those macadamia nuts? Why'd you help them again, they always cause trouble."

"I know, I know… but get this… they're starting a company of their own." He laughed, "It was so cute when they told me, I couldn't resist!"

"Cute. Yeah. Well…" Mokuba cleared his throat, "I don't think it's a good idea to give away money. Especially to those two. You know that they have a knack for turning perfectly normal things into awful disasters!"

"Well, this is my element. I mean, Marik can try to take over the world and play with his little millennium items as much as he wants, but I will always rule the business world."

Mokuba went into a drawer and pulled out a water bottle and began to spray the plants. He looked up, "We need everything to go smoothly for the next few months, Seto. Aren't you about to announce your latest product in December?"

"Sure am. Don't worry Mokuba. Marik and Malik won't get in the way of this. Nobody knows about it but you and me… and the guy I'm buying it from."

"Carter knew, didn't he? You gave him three prototypes and he lost them."

"He didn't know what it was though."

"Hmm." Mokuba finished watering most of the plants and turned around to water the last one. It just happened to be the one that Malik was hiding behind. Malik saw Mokuba coming at him and pushed a bunch of buttons on the Miniport.

'Hurry up!' He thought, "Please, hurry up-' Malik pressed the right button and was gone as Mokuba soaked the plant in cool water.

-

Back at Marik and Malik's house, Pips was having the time of his life on the computer. He was selling the Miniports on the internet and he didn't even have to put a price on them. He just waited for filthy rich people to bid and outbid each other till the money was so good that Pips passed out.

Marik took over, with his right hand on the keyboard and his left on Pips, trying to wake him up, he was having a heck of a time handling it all.

"Malik better be back soon." He grumbled.

Pips smiled and whispered in his sleep, "Money… money… money…"

Just then, there was a buzzing sound and Malik appeared in the middle of the room. He looked around then said, "H-Hi, Marik."

Marik stood up, "Finally! Where have you been? Do you know how long I had to stay here with Pips, while he was yelling and howling!"

"Huh?"

"Never mind. We sold one hundred Miniports while you were gone."

"Really? How much did you make?"

"According to the numbers on the screen, we're killing everything else and we're past thirty million. That's a pretty big jump."

"Thirty million? Wow." Malik thought a minute, "Hey, we could get those blue shoes that I've always wanted!"

"Shoes? Malik, we have to think strategically. Shoes are too much for right now."

"But! But! But!"

Marik sighed, "When Pips gains conciseness again, we'll decide what to do next. But we need to sell the rest of these first." He pointed to the box full of Miniports.

"Then we can get my shoes?"

"Baby steps, Malik, baby steps."