Winning Peace 1:
"-and now, for one of his rare public appearances, I'd like everyone to give a very warm welcome to the United North American States' favorite child genius: Ezekiel Horus Lopez!"
Receiving the nod from the assistant standing beside me, I walked out onto the stage with a confident spring in my step, a relaxed tone to my body language, and a casual grin on my face. During the practice runs, the various coaches they had on staff had proclaimed me a prodigy in presentation just as much as mathematics. Of course, it wasn't true. I was, at best, only half the prodigy in public relations that I was general math.
"Thank you for having me, Rachel, and I'm happy to be here." I smiled at the host, reaching out to take her hand and give it a gentle brush of my lips as a few of the audience hooted and whistled at the move.
"Ever the gentleman, I see." Rachel Kozaks smiled as we seated ourselves, waving away my attempt to pull her chair out for her. "I'd been warned, but it is somewhat startling to see a young man of your age with manners that most would consider outmoded at best."
I smiled as I crossed my legs, showing off the barest hint of the sock garters I was wearing. "Well, I've been told I'm an old soul in a young body." I paused to flash a smirk. "But I've also been told that I'm flat-out young, it's just a phase, and I'll grow out of it."
There was some polite laughter from the audience at that, as Rachel smoothed out the cyberpunk-chic pants she was wearing, large black cargo pants with high-heeled boots and a black top that was at least half velcro with a large boob window and completely sleeveless. On top of it was a transparent jacket with various glittering lights, logos, and other symbols.
I was a startling contrast, having chosen one of my iconic suits for the occasion, vertical white and black stripes along the body of my suit with the same stripes running horizontally on my arms. Along with a black tie, white undershirt, and black-and-white fedora now resting on the table between myself and the talk show host, we were diametrically opposing forces of fashion. Ironically though, we were united in that neither of us truly represented any time period that had actually existed.
She was merely wearing the most fashionable thing on the market today, while I was wearing something that stood out, making myself a brand, an image, an icon.
Young and virile, but tempered with traditional values and just a dash of eccentricity.
It probably helped that it was all smart-fabric and I could flip it to something less eye-watering than Beetlejuice's cast-offs when I had to attend a board meeting.
"Be that as it may, thank you for coming on the show again. I was honestly surprised you agreed when the network reached out to you given your widely-known preference for a truly private, private life." Rachel opened, a soft conversational lead-in as we'd discussed beforehand.
I nodded, resisting the urge to comb a hand through my messy blond hair. "I'd much prefer for my private life to be my only life, honestly. Being a public figure has never appealed to me all that much, especially in the heavily digitized world we live in today."
"Is that why you don't have a social media presence?" Rachel asked, leaning forward with a conspiratorial smile on her dark face. "I honestly don't know how you do it, I can't imagine life without access to UltraBook, RedBirdNet, HelloWorld, or LifeTube."
I sighed and shook my head, both at the thought of posting my every thought and action as well as the cringe names so many of the old companies I was familiar with had morphed into. Well, no, that wasn't true. Their names were cringe to begin with, but a full century of market reorganizations hadn't exactly done them any favors.
"My go-to excuse is that, if I ever actually let what goes on up here-" I tapped the side of my head, "-out in the wild, well... the world's just not ready for it."
Rachel laughed, emotion-sensing links in her clothing triggered small explosions of light and shapes projected onto the air around her. "And the real reason?"
I shrugged. "I'm actually a very boring person behind closed doors."
Her eyebrows shot up. "No, really?"
I snorted lightly. "Really. I prefer a quiet night at home with some synth-wine and a good ebook." I paused dramatically to build tension. "Or I could be lying, of course, and I just like being mysterious about my hobbies. Gentlemen never kiss and tell, after all."
Rachel laughed again with another burst of illuminated graphics. "A salacious hint indeed from someone usually painted as the vid-child of mundane recreation. But my viewers simply have to know; after breaking into the field of business last year and making such a splash, where do you plan on applying your talents next?"
I reached up to rub my chin idly as I affected a look of grave consideration. "Well... truthfully, I haven't made any big decisions yet. I've actually contemplated taking a bit of a vacation. I have been setting something of a blistering pace since my tenth birthday. Six years is a long time to go without a bit of rest and relaxation."
Rachel nodded appreciatively. "I can't even imagine that. If I recall correctly, you only take one day off a week? And work eight hours a day?"
I nod and lean back a bit. "I break it up, but yes. I did a walk-through of my daily routine last year, if that's what you're thinking of. The buy-ins for the stream went to a homeless charity I've personally vetted, but... well, I don't think I can allow myself any more leisure time than that most days. I look out at the world and I see so many problems and I know I can fix them if I have enough time..."
I trailed off, realizing I was staring into the middle-distance and shook myself with a small grin. "Sorry, that went a bit deeper than I thought it would."
"Not a problem." Rachel nodded, a softer smile on her face. "You've also said that you hold yourself to that standard because you saw other people working ten and twelve hours each day when you were living with your grandmother. Does that still play a part?"
I sighed. "It does. It's been... a long time since then, at least for me, but it's no secret that I came from one of the poorest areas of the Texan Megapolis and that I've tried to use the wealth I've accumulated to give back to the community that raised me."
...even if it was and still is a drug-infested hell-hole run mostly by the cartels.
"You do have a history of humanitarian efforts to your record, including open-sourcing much of the software code you use to repair vulnerabilities in privacy-protection programs, financial applications, and other weak points where criminals can take advantage of those without the time and money to protect themselves." Rachel paused, considering her next question. "Which does beg the question what you do with most of your wealth, actually. Care to drop any hints?"
"Ah... one of those things about being responsible is that anything I say here will probably cause massive market fluctuations." I laughed awkwardly, because if it wasn't going to before, it was going to now. "But... to hopefully be vague enough, I always consider my own company a great investment, especially with the rate at which we put out patents and the trade secrets we license. Outside of that, I like the look of space infrastructure companies like KotoYasu, Dietrich SkyFirm, and Luna-Subaru."
Let's see how high I can ride those stocks before dumping them.
They'd purchased plenty of licenses over the years and it wasn't anything weird for me to own some of each, though they were in a slump right now with the dearth of good government contracts. Hopefully that would change in a few years, but I wanted to reinvest in my own projects and current prices weren't appealing to sell at.
"So I think we've done our due diligence now." Rachel stated, nodding towards the silently-hovering drone cameras surrounding us. "Time to get to the exciting stuff! My viewers are just dying to know if anyone's caught your eye."
"I'll assume you mean romantically?" I asked with a chuckle and received eager confirmation. "The short answer is no, then."
"...and the long answer?" Rachel asked intently.
"No, there isn't anyone." I grinned jokingly as she wilted. "Like I said, I'm a pretty boring person behind closed doors. I don't enjoy wild parties, I don't have seasonal flings with the latest holo-star, you're not going to find me puking my guts over some animatronic sex doll." I shrugged. "If I find someone, I find someone and if I don't, then I don't."
"Then that rumor about you, Beatrice Lollard, and Rodrigo Uwumbe?" Rachel pressed.
I laughed deeply, throwing my head back as I did so. "Oh, gods, I've seen those vid-stills! Whoever modded them did good work, I have to admit. Especially where they threaded the needle dodging trafficking in nudes of a minor with that carefully-placed blanket. I might even have a job lined up for them if they shoot me the raw data to prove it was them, but... no. I'm sure plenty of people would love for the rumor to be true, but it's just gossip."
"But you have met both of them, haven't you?" Rachel asked.
I nodded. "That's a matter of public record. We all appeared on that 'Prodigy Power' holo-vid a while back. They seem like good people and I probably still have their contacts buried somewhere, but we don't speak all that often. Certainly not enough to carry on some three-way romantic tryst."
The interview dragged on, largely through matters without any real substance to them as I gave disappointingly mundane answers to all of the prying questions she could imagine. Still, that was the point. I didn't give many interviews over the course of a given year, so this one would give RomTom News a serious signal boost even if they didn't have anything ground-breaking to air. In exchange, I got soft-balled a bunch of easy questions, waved the flag for my various pet projects, and faded back into semi-obscurity as a known variable for everyone to be entertained by for a few minutes.
In the year 2136 no true child genius could go unremarked upon like I would have preferred, but I could damn well manage my image to be as boring as humanly possible. There was no way to keep anyone from getting curious, but I could damn well discourage the people who would have otherwise been interested.
Skill List:
Mathematics: 1-10
Computer Programming: 1-10
Physics: 1-10
Material Sciences: 1-10
Orbital Mechanics: 1-5
Quantum Mechanics: 1-5
Artificial Intelligence: 1-3
Blackboxing: 1-3
Public Speaking: 1
Speed-Reading: 1
Teaching: 1
Critical Thinking: 1
Logistics: 1
Public Relations: 1
Corporate Espionage: 1
Business Management: 1-3
Economics: 1-3
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