AN: Saiki talks out loud here. The reasons for this will become apparent later (a couple more chapters).

Chapter 21 - Inheritance Part 3 - Psi Industries.

At the words of unmistakable introduction of his new boss, Saul flinched. He looked at the pink-haired young man incredulously.

The said young man stared back, boring holes through Saul's head.

Saul shook a little when his mind quickly replayed their very first interaction.

Did he seriously just threatened bodily harm to his new boss? And treated him like a lowly boot-licker?

Where the heck did this kid come from anyway?

How could Saul, one of the closest people to their late Chairman, have missed the existence of a younger brother?

In all the time working with their late Chairman, in setting up the company, making hands over fist profits, Saul made painstaking efforts to learn about the mysterious genius who came to study at Cambridge University on a full-ride scholarship.

Saiki Kuusuke, in the manner that he was named, or as he was known in the business world as Keith Psi, seemed to know and can do everything. Alarmingly precocious by the very fact that he came to the United Kingdom on his own at age fourteen, Keith easily set up a company and begin to make money off his endless inventions and patents. Keith had specifically sought out Saul Bridgewater, understanding that there was a need for established business connection and calling out personal favors in bringing products into retail.

It was a mutually beneficial agreement, one where Saul was paid a handsome salary, provided with an expense account, and ran the business details.

Saul understood the importance of knowing the personal lives of business associates, made a point to investigate the uncanny polymath who started Psi Industries.

After so many years, he could only figure out their late Chairman had parents named Kurumi and Kuniharu and that their late Chairman regularly checked in on those said parents.

In all this time, how in the world did he miss that their late Chairman had a younger brother? And one with an appearance as eye-catching as this one?

Saul felt a shiver down his spine as he took ten seconds to study this unassuming young man with the usual magenta-pink hair.

The underlying resemblance and presence between the two brothers were eerie.

The set of the bones on the face was attractive with that feminine touch.

That unfocused look of the eyes, like they look straight through people.

This undercurrent of spontaneous destructiveness about them, like childish gods who enjoyed breaking people like they enjoyed the popping sounds of bubble wrap.

Saul swallowed hard when he held out a hand for a handshake. "Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Psi. My apologies for earlier."

This young man did not take the hand. He continued to stare through Saul, like one of those blind people who never seemed to focus their eyes.

"Oh wait. You're Japanese so you don't understand English," said Saul mostly to himself in relief. That meant that none of his more embarrassing selfish words were understood and that it could be passed off as a misunderstanding.

At that, Kenneth responded in a calm, deadpan voice, in the perfect accent of a British native, "'Cold-blooded bastard' is too kind of a description for him."

Saul felt cold sweat roll down his back when he heard those words.

So this child had overheard, and understood him.

"Oh, Mr. Bridgewater was only speaking to our late Chairman's business savvy," said Tyra with presumed innocence, trying to diffuse the situation. She opened her eyes wider, stood up straighter so her chest is more pronounced. She seemed to have completely forgotten shrieking at the pink-haired young man earlier.

The said young man's expression was unreadable. He did say to Tyra, "I'm sure you're glad to know that the person who 'hired' me had already been fired on the 15th."

The woman nodded along with a plastered smile and batted her eyes prettily, no even realizing the underlying double-meaning in that statement. "Of course, sir. You can count on me."

At least Saul had the presence of mind to have his face pale at the woman's response.

Their new chairman did not even change his flat expression as he noted to Saul, "You sure do pick the smart ones, don't you?"

Saul laughed nervously, partially in embarrassment and partially in unease. The words he said to the woman, though, were forceful. "Tyra, love. Shut up from now on."

The curvaceous woman's facade of a beautiful escort from some sexual fantasy fell immediately. She was used to having certain powers and privileges from providing bodily favors. She was about to complain, in a cute testy way, but was cut off.

"You know, I'm impressed," said Saul to the youngling, hoping to salvage the situation with a little flattery and jokes, "You have such a good poker face. Are you sure you're not one of your late brother's androids?"

"I am not," said this young man with an unnerving even tone.

The certainty annoyed Saul. He had to ask, "Did you even know that he made androids?"

"Of course I did. He tried to ruin my life with an android clone of me months ago."

Saul felt a bead of sweat rolling down his back. Was this child serious?

But then again, with Keith Psi's prodigious mind that traipsed on the edge of insanity, Saul wouldn't put it past him.

"So what happened?" Saul asked.

"I destroyed it."

"How?"

Without missing a beat, this pink-haired new boss said, "With my fist."

Saul was not sure why, but he felt more cold sweat appearing on his face. What an unnerving conversation! He had a feeling that this young man meant every word.

Saul ran ahead, opening the door to the meeting room for his brand new boss, as well as some more others who were running into the meeting. Saul felt even more sweat rolling down his back, staining his shirt as people congratulated him surreptitiously.

Oh yeah. Saul did recall that this was the meeting for the hostile take over. It was assumed that Kuniharu Saiki was going to be their CEO in name for about ten minutes before the Board of Directors votes Saul to lead the company. More importantly, to directly take over the inherited stock in a zero-dollar transfer to Saul's name. Once that happens, Saul can take the company public and make out with millions.

All his acting outside the meeting room was for show, to deflect the appearance of collusion.

He quickly looked at that pink-haired young man.

The look back to Saul almost caused him to have a heart attack.

It was the same as their late Chairman, that knowing look of a child watching an anthill that he was about to kick over, douse it with gasoline, and light it with a match.

-Get yourself together, Saul! This is just a child! There is no way that he knows what's coming- Saul told himself. There was still a way to salvage this. He still had the necessary Board of Directors in his pockets.

This brat was not going to make a fool of an experienced business professional such as him.

Self-assured, Saul spent some more time chatting with the member of the Board of Directors about the details, before starting the meeting.

In the meeting room, the members of the Board of Directors were sitting around a solid oak table, each in a heavily cushioned ergonomic chair. There were fold-out chairs lined the walls, where the assistants to the said directors were seated. A few more of the middle managers and titled employees were seated along the walls too. As expected of a high-tech company, large monitors lined the walls and nearly everyone had a laptop set up. The only person who didn't have one of the laptops set up seemed to be the hapless pink-haired intern who had somehow been allowed in the meeting room.

Everyone was in well-tailored suites, except for a couple of younger workers who ignored such archaic convictions. People chattered excitedly, since they knew that they would be meeting their brand new chief executive officer. One of the assistants, surprisingly, was William, one of the worker bees from cubicle land earlier.

"Oi mate! Kenny!" William waved the pink-haired young man over. He pointed to the empty fold-out chair next to him. In fact, there were a couple of empty seats. "Here's a seat!"

Kenny seemed to hesitate for a moment. This was the corporate lackey who had tried to educate him on the term MILF earlier. In the end, though, seeing that everyone else in the room was much older, and giving him condescending looks, Kenney paced over said empty chair and sat down.

"This is exciting, eh?" remarked William to Kenny. "The board will declare the new CEO and chairman at this meeting. I'm anxious to meet our late Chairman's dad again. I wonder if he remembers me." William craned his neck a bit, scanning the crowd of the board of directors and assistants. "Although, I don't I see him...Ha. It looks like Tyra got pwned. I've never seen her so flustered!"

Poor Kenny did not seem so bemused. In fact, he looked gloomier than he did earlier when he was getting yelled at by the top brass of the company.

They sat the good distance away from the long table of thirteen seats of which twelve seats were occupied. At the moment, the big wigs seemed to be chattering with each other and at Bridgewater, furiously discussing something. The formal meeting seemed to be delayed. Bridgewater appeared to have it out for William since the man regularly glanced toward William's direction with undisguised contempt.

"Great first day, eh, Kenny?" said William, noticing the determined, animalistic looks from Bridgewater's direction. Looks like Violet was right that Bridgewater was going to somehow give them all pink slips. The slaves in research and development never get any love. "So who invited you to this meeting?" asked William, "Only the big wigs and their assistants are supposed to be here."

Kenny seemed distracted by the chatter at the large table. The chatter was barely loud enough for the two to hear. Still, Kenny actually spoke, in a smooth voice, rich tone, and perfect accent. "My older brother."

"Hum, that's unusual," noted William. "Chairman Psi is usually against nepotism in hiring, unless they're stupidly talented. Who is this brother of yours? Is he one of the managers?" William took a peek around the room, looking for someone who might even look like Kenny. "Is he here?"

"Not anymore," muttered Kenny distractedly, his gaze was distant as he watched the leadership of Psi Industries seemed to reach a conclusion in whatever they were trying to resolve.

William looked puzzled for a moment. He noticed that the question was hitting a nerve, judging by the terse, cryptic response.

What a surly, morose newbie. This kid needs to loosen up.

"So what's your background?" asked William, chatting was a good way to pass the time while the Board of Directors gets their act together. "It must be something amazing for you to work here. I have a statistics degree from Oxford." He said smoothly, with undisguised pride in his voice. "I studied under the mathematician Doctor Andrew Wiles, who is on the Board of Directors here." he pointed to a skeletal looking gentleman who looked like he owned a closet full of tartan shirts, pants, jackets and mothballs. "I actually do research for him so that's why I'm here."

The response from the pink-haired intern was short, "High school."

William made a face of understanding. No wonder this kid had such a poor attitude. He's still a baby! "We have high school interns now?" Then, realizing truly how young this kid was, a wicked look overcame his face. "So you wanna know how you can get around the internet restrictions on the virtual private network? You know, so you can watch the racy stuff while you're here and not get the attention of those information technology pricks?"

"This is highly inappropriate," reminded Kenny, now verbalizing his earlier assessment.

Oddly enough, this only encouraged William. His voice dropped conspiratorially. "It's nothing bad, you know. Ol' Chairman Psi, god bless his soul, knew about it. I think he allowed it because it irritates the old farts on the Board of Directors. I swear, he enjoys needling people."

"That sounds like him," said Kenny.

"I know! He's gonna be missed," said William. "So once the meeting is over, Let's go for a drink at the pub. You, me, Violet, Hendrix, and the rest of us young chaps to celebrate your first day. I know it's a little early, but I'll buy you a round. You are old enough to drink, right?"

Kenny shook his head, but did not at the question. "Some other time." He took a moment to take off those crazy green-shades of his and rubbed his eyes. He seemed to be quite careful to make sure those shades were back on his face before opening his eyes. "I'm fairly tired."

"Noob, it's 10:30 in the morning!" reminded William.

"It's 6:30 at night right now where I'm from," said Kenny. He suddenly grimaced, as if his head was hurting. It went away quickly and he seemed right back to his dour self. "And it's been a couple of hellish weeks."

William made a face. Something was fishy here. "That's an eight-hour difference! That would put you in the Far East. Wait, you are a rep from our Asia office?"

Kenny didn't confirm or deny. Instead, his attention was back on the chatter of the twelve board members, now looking ready to start the meeting. "And it looks like I'm up."

"What do you mean?"

The attorney from earlier actually walked past the other assistants and managers sitting on the fold-out chairs along the walls. "Mr. Kenneth Psi."

William blinked.

Kenny looked up. "Arthur."

"The pleasure of the Board of Directors is yours, Mr. Psi," said Arthur.

"Time to get this over with," said Kenny with a sigh.

William watched, first in confusion, then, slowly, disbelief overcomes his face as this pink-haired intern, whom William had teased, helped with making copies, went and sat down at the head of the long table of the Board of Directors.

The pink-haired intern was expressionless as he spoke.

The look of disdain on the Board of Directors' faces was unmistakable. They gave manufactured smiles and nodded along, as if they were entertaining a five-year child.

Whatever speech the pink-haired intern said was lost on William. His mind quickly raced through the recollection of their interaction this morning.

William's freckled pale face turned almost gray as realized the critical clue Kenny said a little earlier, about the brother who hired him was no longer here.

-Holy bloody hell! He's the new boss man!-

The next thought was equally death-inducing.

-Oh bollocks! Did I really just said to the new boss man that I would F #! his mom?-

William reminded himself to ask Violet and Hendrix to beat him over the head with a Wiffle bat, if he was still employed at the end of the day. Him and his stupid mouth.

He didn't have a chance to ingratiate himself to the new boss as all the middle managers and the assistants were ordered out of the room, leaving their brand new pink-haired boss alone with the twelve members of the Board of Directors.

Seated at the fancy meeting table, Saul spoke with the undisguised grin of a robber baron. He said, presently, "We're pleased to meet you, Kenneth Psi. Why don't we go around the room and everyone introduce themselves."

"No need," said their brand-new pink-haired chief executive officer. He might not look the part, without the all-important necktie and collared jacket, he certainly had the grim look of a perpetually displeased boss down. "Business will proceed as per the strategic plan for the foreseeable future."

Saul allowed momentary dissatisfaction to appear on his face. "Well, I think that in this unusual time, we should call for a vote on the direction of Psi Industries," he said with a tone of a father patiently explaining a difficult concept to a child. "It's the way we do things in the business world." He smiled genteelly. "The Articles of Incorporation requires a two-thirds majority of the stockholders on matters such as this. I motion that we-"

"Finish that sentence and unemployment will be the least of your worries," said Kenneth Psi. He looked about the Board of Directors through those green-tinted glasses, serious. "And it's majority of stock ownership. Do not lie to me again."

Saul still kept that refined smile, though his teeth grind a little. He felt the uncertainty return -What a rascal!- he thought. "Mr. Psi, please be reasonable. I just thought that since we've lost your beloved late brother that we might reevaluate-"

"There is nothing to reevaluate," declared Kenneth. He looked about the Board of Directors and the room. "I've read the plan. It's superior to anything all of you combined can come up with. The executive leadership will remain and business will continue as planned." Kenneth seemed to focus on Saul. "You're keeping your position because he didn't care whether you worked here or not."

The look directed at their new chairman was patronizing, like their new owner was simply an arrogant know-it-all petulant teenager who they had to deal with. They began to talk, one over the other, about the demerits of the current plan, and how they must redirect Psi Industries to other brand new growth areas.

Their pink-haired child Chairman sat back in the chair. The look he gave was enough to burn holes into walls.

"You know, I was originally going to sell back my inherited shares and let you do whatever the hell you wanted with his company. He left me too much to deal with anyway. But you all irritate me," said Kenneth with a vindictive edge to his voice.

"Stop being an impudent brat," remarked a member of the Board of Directors.

In that instant, the power shut off. The room was immediately dark, without the glow of monitors.

"What, you're going to scare us into doing what you want with parlor tricks? Well tough," said another. "I wish to nominate-"

The laptops of the ten of the twelve members of the Board of Directors were flipped open, as if compelled by an unknown mechanism. The screens were white except for a word or an image. Those words and images flickered for three seconds, long enough for the member to recognize the word before the laptops were closed, the operating system shut down.

The lights turned back on, as if nothing had happened. The event lasted ten seconds, just short enough to assume that it was group hysteria.

Immediately, those ten faces, turned all sorts of colors. Gray, green, orange, red, purple. The only similar theme was that they were all suddenly quiet, with looks of shock and disbelief.

"How!? How did you know?" said a board member, he looked like he just saw a ghost.

"You're...you're...you're-" another board member uttered, but did not finish. She looked ready to bolt.

"You're blackmailing us," accused another board member.

"No. I'm extorting you," Kenneth Psi corrected.

For a moment, the room was silent. So silent that people could hear each other's breaths.

"So you are like your brother," said Andrew Wiles, one of the two whose laptop did not flip open. "A genius who knows people's deepest secrets at a glance. A master of wills and unpredictability."

"Andy!" reprimanded Saul, still trying to salvage the situation. "You're speaking about Mr. Psi's older brother! Show some respect!"

"Oh Please, Saul," said Andrew with a sigh. "You knew Keith Psi could crush anyone one of us with what he knows. Did you really think a relation of his wouldn't be as precocious and exacting as he was? Or that he has any esteem for respect from any one of us?"

There was silence around the room again and the twelve members of the board reminded themselves of the personality of their late Chairman. They recall their late Chairman's youth, back when the company was first established, and how this interaction was a repeat of that same time period.

Except their late Chairman bothered to emote on his face, to pretend to be human.

Their new Chairman did not grace them with such courtesy.

"A couple of years ago," Andrew continued, eyes distant as he reminisced, "when Doctor Kuusuke Saiki was a guest graduate lecturer at Oxford, awestriking us with his brilliance, he mentioned to me in passing that there was one person to ever surpassed him at anything, a person whom he could not motivate beyond the average. That person was younger than him, so he had books with plans of these nearly infantile games to goad that person into doing more." He looked to the pink-haired young man. "I'm going to guess that was you."

Kenneth did not respond. There was a minute twitch of the facial muscle, though.

"I am sincerely sorry for your loss," said Andrew, in that same distant look of a stereotypical professor, "Kuusuke was..."

"...Kuusuke," said Kenneth in a thought-terminating manner. He looked even more grim, if possible, like if he wanted to drop a bomb on this location.

Andy's look was philosophical and undeterred. "Young man, you were selected over his natural next-of-kin to inherited his possession for a reason. So you have my vote for whatever you wish to do with Psi Industries." In a steady, dry, professorial voice, he said, "I motion that we reaffirm the strategic plan and Kenneth Psi as our chief executive officer and chairman of the board. Do I have a second?"

"Second!" cried a board member a little too quickly.

"Now, wait a moment..." Saul interjected, his previous calm completely shattered by now, seeing his planned ambition falling through without as much as a whimper.

"All those who agree, say 'aye,'" said Andrew.

The agreement was weak, but there were no 'nays.'

"Motion passes," declared Andrew. He stood up, well-practiced like the subtle plan that Saul had worked up with other members of the board were nothing but a dream. "We, the Board of Directors of Psi Industries, reaffirm you, Kenneth Psi, as our chief executive officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors." There was a brief pause. "What will be your first action?"

"I motion to adjourn," said the young man, as if he was used to Robert's Rules of Order all his life.

The 'second' to the motion and the agreement could not have come faster to nearly all people in the room.