Jim's PoV

As Jim was looking down at the golden coins in his hand he wondered how he could spend them. He thought it was probably a little more complicated than just walking down to his bank and depositing the coins. Wouldn't anyone who saw all the gold just assumed he stole it? After all he had no way to prove that he had legitimately gotten the coins. After doing a quick bit of math with google he figured out that one billion gil worth of gold only came out to around 16 million dollars. He was a little disappointed. Why was one billion gil worth so little? Each coin was fairly heavy at two ounces in weight, so there was no change in size. Then Jim smacked himself in the forehead. There was no way gold was worth over a hundred times what silver was. Damned new age game coinage system!

After shuffling the numbers around again for silver he gulped at the price. This time it was a good bit over 200 million dollars. For kicks he checked the copper price as well and was surprised to find that it would sell for over 300 million. Jim figured he would stick with silver, it should weigh a lot less. Jim winced at the total weight. He totaled over a million pounds of metal if he went with silver. It would take 15 tractor trailers to move it all. On the other hand he could move all the gold in a U-haul in one go.

Before he did that he realized he was getting ahead of himself. What if the coins weren't pure gold or silver? With his trusty phone he searched for appraisal. To his annoyance the only thing that showed up was a long list of real estate people. Sighing Jim punched in pawn shop. Hopefully he could get a straight answer there. The one that was closest to him had already shut down for the day. Checking the time it was getting close to midnight. Shrugging he figured it could wait till the morning. But there was one thing he could do before sleeping.

Charlotte’s POV

It was almost midnight and she couldn't sleep. There were only four days left in the deadline. She was still at a complete loss for what to do. Even if they found something new the presentation would probably just get shot down. And then her phone rang. Who would call at this hour?

Reading the caller she had named “Oblivious“ she could not help but roll her eyes. Why was he calling? Was he just going to play that stupid song again and hang up?

Picking up the phone she asked tiredly “What do you want Jim? It's almost midnight and you haven't been at work for the past three days. And I swear to god if you play that song again I'll never answer your phone number again.”

Jim replied “How much do you think it would cost to buy the project away from 3D Tech?”

Excitedly she asked “Did you find another investor? It would only take a couple million to keep the project going. If we could keep it alive only a few months longer we should have better results.”

“No. I mean to buy all of the intellectual property as well as all the prototypes. And maybe the contracts for the staff. How much would that cost?”

She couldn't speak for a few seconds. Had he convinced some other corporation to buy them out using the helmet he stole as a sample? Charlotte felt sick. Had he already sold their research to some loser? What would happen if it became known that their research at been leaked?

Bitterly she said “Probably around 40 million. That's really only a fraction of what it is truly worth but the money dried up somewhere. They are desperate. Why do you have that much in your back pocket after you sold us out?”

Jim laughed and said “I haven't shared my research with anyone boss, but I might just have a chance to get together that kind of money.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line when the man asked “Sooo, boss. Did you uhh.. ever report that equipment missing by any chance?”

Her voice became icey when she asked “Oh, you know of some equipment that has been stolen from 3D Tech? Why how nice of you to tell us, just give me a second so I can start recording your confession.”

Jim cleared his throat on the other end of the line and said “Why no! No equipment missing at all.”

There was a short pause when he finally asked “Why?”

And then the ice was gone. Sighing she said “I had a deadline of a week Jim. I don't have the time. An extra helmet won't make the difference for our capabilities in the next week. It's a paperwork game. Who ever can convince the higher ups that their research is able to turn a profit now are going to be the winners, and the rest will get shut down. And after we get shut down the bean counters are going to come in Jim. They are going to find out rather quick that our asset column isn't adding up right. So whether I report it or not it's going to get found out, so there is no point burning time that I could use to try to dig the project out of the hole.”

After that there was a short silence. Then Jim hesitantly asked “Why did you fire me?”

Charlotte had a headache. Sighing she said “Jim, your people skills suck. If you would have talked to anyone in the past two weeks instead of locking yourself in your office you would have known I fired a third of the staff. Seventeen people Jim. Seriously you need to work on talking to people more to figure out what way the wind is blowing.”

Jim's POV

A third of his coworkers got fired when he did? How did he miss that? Actually he knew exactly how he missed it. The last two weeks of work he had made a whirlwind of breakthroughs and he became obsessed. He was still kind of happy that she called it a helmet instead of a NISARD though. Go team helmet! Then Jim asked “Why a third?”

The woman on the other end of the line sounded defeated when she said “Because I knew what way the wind was blowing. I was hoping if I could cut costs enough the project could continue. But then we still got ambushed even after the layoffs. I needed people that could help me slay the dragons that were coming up in the next weeks, not in the next year Jim.”

“Do you really think you can come up with that kind of money?”

Jim had no idea how to convert metals into money so he hesitantly said “It's possible. No guarantees but I'll give it a try.”

There was laughter on the other end of the line.

“Jim, I hope you can. This work is going to change the world, even if we are not the ones to do it. I have a long day tomorrow of sending optimistic reports that will just get thrown in the trash. Goodnight Jim.”

After saying goodnight he hung up the phone. Maybe he should have talked to her more? Now that she wasn't his boss she seemed to mellow out some. Still he had totally missed that she was under that kind of pressure. Should he have done things differently? Nah. If he hadn't spend those last two weeks the way he did who knows what would have happened. He would just be in the same bucket as everyone else. What was the point of working if it wasn't interesting? It's a philosophy that hasn't steered him wrong yet. Well, not too wrong anyway. Looking through his right eye he could see the billion gil that was waiting for him there. Why was it so hard to use his ill gotten gains? Money problems were boring. What would criminals do? Didn't they launder it or something? Can you do that with gold and silver? What is money laundering anyway?

Looking up the definition of money laundering on his phone the definition was "the concealment of the origins of illegally obtained money, typically by means of transfers involving foreign banks or legitimate businesses."

What the hell does that even mean? And why did he get flashes of a group of three office workers beating the crap out of a printer? Rubbing his temples Jim figured it could wait for tomorrow. He would head to the pawn shop and make sure that the coins that he had were really what they seemed to be so he wouldn't make a fool out of himself. Karma was always waiting to ambush him.

With his luck they would be gold and silver plated coins with chocolate in the middle. He could just imagine going to prison for fraud. Battle scarred prisoners would tell stories of how they ended up in jail. One man would say that he stole a car. The next would one up him and say he robbed a bank. Then “Big Bill” with serpent tattoos all over his face would say that he killed a man for looking at him wrong. And they would all turn to him with scowls on their faces and ask “Well what about you? What are you in for?”

“I sold silver plated chocolate coins.”

They would all blink in unison and one would ask “You sold those easter and christmas chocolate coins? How is that a crime?”

Jim would nervously pull at his collar and say “No, I tried to sell plated coins as real coins. They uh, just happened to be filled with chocolate.”

Pushing the vision away Jim laid down and went to sleep. Pawn shop tomorrow. As he was losing consciousness his mind showed him a crowd of people in orange jumpsuits that were pointing and laughing at him.