The Enigma Source

Dr. Halvorson was their resident mathematician who always seemed to be thinking while everyone was speaking. The pale yellow eyes, blank expression, and droopy mustache gave the impression he was a raging forest fire gone out due to heavy rains, but you couldn’t be more wrong about his abilities. It was his theories and Cody’s software coding that had brought them this far. Sometimes, Halvorson just listened and said nothing.

Fed up, Mathias flatly stated, “Cody, this is all swell thinking, but I’m not up for product enhancements at this stage of the project! What we have is perfectly suited for what I have in mind for this customer. Even if this is a 1.0 release, I don’t want to have you add a bunch of junk that won’t be online for six months! I’m heading there next week with our crypto-currency, and it must be solid.”

Cody bristled and, shooting an irritated glance at Halvorson, coolly responded, “Our CC product is solid, Mathias. What I am suggesting is that it can do more than simply displace a paper currency.

“Look, you forget what money’s designed for! It’s not just a medium to transact business between two entities. We’re talking about lending, writing contracts, loans for infrastructure building, and everything else that money enables while building an economy! If all you think about is using CC to buy groceries or petro then you’re leaving money on the table!”

Dutch lowered his head so that he could give Mathias that raised eyebrow stare to silently reinforce Cody’s position in the discussion. Mathias ground his teeth in irritation at the prospect of being too short-sighted in their product offering.

As a final point, Mathias demanded, “How much time are we talking about here? Hours? Days? Weeks? I have a meeting with these people next week so you better be able to work on this in background mode, Cody. Halvorson, make sure Cody doesn’t over-rotate on my deliverables!”

Cody, sensing a thawing in Mathias’s attitude, brightly promised, “Hey, no problemo! We need the Crypto-currency as the foundation. Everything else depends upon it. So you offer the CC with all its stellar attributes like we’ve always done, but then you launch into phase II where we layer the additional benefits they can gain from CC as a part of their economic expansion. That will give us some time to build and test the peer-to-peer lending attributes, along with the commercialization of the lending features that the banks and other financial institutions will need to embrace the new technology.”

Dutch cynically asked, “You will, of course, leave a little wedge in there for our cut of the action, right? I’m not going into this socialist cesspool wearing a good guy halo, hoping they build a statue for me somewhere that pigeons can poop on.”

Mathias glared at Dutch. Cody cheerfully responded, “Of course, my man! We make sure we get some of the initial issue. We control the digital coin supply so it appreciates in value. Then, we quietly sell our initial investment at a pace no one will get alarmed about. Lastly, we take our earnings and retire on a nice beach somewhere that has top heavy waitresses who love to serve Fruity Chick Drinks or FCDs.”

Mathias smirked and drolly replied, “That was our plan on the last go ‘round, but instead, we had to run for our lives. Maybe you two ought to join us when we go to Venezuela in case the project goes sideways again!”

Dutch chuckled and sarcastically inserted, “Oh wow, you mean have Codan the Economic Barbarian around to help with our extraction? Gosh, I feel safer already!”

Cody brightly responded, “Codan the Economic Barbarian, I like the sound of that!”

Mathias rolled his eyes and openly remarked, “Nothing like being trapped in a situation with a comic duo, who isn’t the least bit humorous.

“Alright, Cody, begin the programming on phase II and let me know if you need to alter the base CC to support the lending piece. I don’t want any surprises that will delay or derail the plan.”