The Sage of the Mind

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don’t mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP. 

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 66 [October 2010]

–Chris Lang–

His eyes snapped open as the alarm that his father had gotten him when he went to college rang, waking him but not his sweetheart because her brain was wired to a different frequency of alarm clocks.

It was actually quite a nifty thing because it meant that she would only wake up with her alarm clocks and he would only wake up with his. The kids were a whole other thing though. They needed to be woken up by their parents and if they woke up on their own, well, then god have mercy on him and Anna’s soul.

“Good Morning, Chris!” He made finger guns at himself while brushing his teeth. Nowadays, due to the electric toothbrushes, all the fun was taken out of the process. Also, since he was approaching middle age, he was not allowed to brush like he used to, in college. Gone are the days of brash brushing, uncaring if any sensitive gum was hit or not.

Now, he had to do skincare, in the morning and even before sleeping.

Ugh, that sucked.

In the words of a famous actor in an equally famous movie, “Good Morning, Good evening, and Good night. I am Chris Lang,”

Ugh, that sucked, he thought to himself in his mind as his intrusive thoughts began forming dialogues on their own, the first thing in the morning.

Once he got ready, he put on some casual clothes, and greeted his still very much sleepy wife, “Hey, honey!” “Ugh,”, and then went on to make breakfast for himself, because it was a Friday.

On Fridays, the kids wake themselves up and go out to play in the Central Park, since their school didn’t start till late in the afternoon, something about too many kids being enrolled in the nearby schools. The only reason he allowed them to do so was that they knew better than to leave Manhattan, to leave the safety umbrella that the Invisible Man provided.

He whistled to himself as he made himself some breadbutter jam, some cereal, and a freshly squeezed glass of Orange juice.

Now, one might ask, how is Chris able to afford all of this?

A house in Manhattan, Two kids in private schools, a totally unnecessary car, house help, and more.

Well, the answer to that was one name - Wu Enterprises.

See, he was in college, a very third tier college but still a college nonetheless. He was interested in money, no matter which field brought him the money, he just wanted to make a lot of money.

And wouldn’t you know, there was a field especially dedicated to the science of money making?

Finance.

He just dove into that then. He worked hard for a couple of years, spending his days filling spreadsheets, doing analyst stuff, and getting by on his salary when BAM! He met Mr.Wu, the ex-CEO of Wu Enterprises, a giant firm from China, dating back to the 50s.

While his salary as an analyst was above average according to the market, he also had to support his girlfriend through medical school, so he didn’t exactly live at par with his salary. All that changed when he met Mr.Wu at one of the many many conferences that he attended in the name of networking, and after talking with him for a couple of minutes, Mr.Wu offered him a job as a Junior Analyst.

Now the title was the same, but the pay was 2X of what he was making then. He could not have accepted the deal faster.

That was how he joined Wu Enterprises, a coalition of companies operating out of Asia. He also realised why the salary was so high because the entire bloody hedge fund was being managed by less than a dozen people, all working from China.

He had to build the entire team from the ground up, hiring people from the US, entering the US Markets, and making sure that everything was compliant on both ends of the company. Comply with US Laws, comply with Chinese laws, and more.

That was a very exhausting 3 years of his life, the period where he probably lost most of his hair but eh, it was worth it. He was promoted to Head of Department after that and he never looked back after.

He bought a house for himself in Manhattan. He had multiple commercial properties in Manhattan. He had a couple of apartments on rent in Manhattan, two office floors that he rented out.

For some reason, his real estate portfolio never really ventured out of Manhattan, and for good reason. He got really good rental yields as well as the ease with which he could manage all the properties by himself.

He purchased the space where his wife practiced as well, so they had, overall, very nice finances.

Life was going good, great even.

Then it became even better, when the Invisible Man began operating in Manhattan. Crimes went down, rentals went up. His wife’s business boomed because of the influx of rich people in the city.

His kids became safer in the neighbourhood. He could actually let them wander around, and explore Manhattan because it was actually safe to do so now. It was heartening to watch the change around the city.

It was equally disheartening to see the number of threats that the original property owners got to sell their properties at dirt cheap rates before the Invisible Man found out, and shut them down, hard.

The Invisible Man teamed up with the Mayor, he didn't know how, but he did that and enacted a law that helped protect the original owners from predators.

Still, he was working from the same office he did way back when he started. Only now it occupied the entire floor instead of a small section of the floor.

The work was nice, he knew where everything was, he was paid handsomely, and he was his own boss, all in all, a pretty cozy job.

Then came him.

Axle Riddle.

Even after years of asking the current CEO and even his father, the ex-CEO about the mystery that was Axle Riddle, he was nowhere near the truth of his identity. The man had somehow waltzed into the office and was granted a totally useless title, but with all the benefits that came with a C-suite title.

Chief of Strategic Bets.

What kind of nonsensical title was that?

The thing was, that he could have accepted it if Axle was some hot shot from the industry with decades of experience under his belt but Noooo…

Axle was just 20 20-something young adult who had somehow wormed his way into the executive structure of a 300 billion dollar fund.

The perks would have been one thing, he could have consoled himself by telling himself that this Axle fellow was simply some relative who got in due to nepotism but no, that was not the case.

He looked into this Axle and he had no prior history with Finance at all. The bastard was an English Major for god’s sake.

He had just about resolved himself to call a board of directors meeting when they just handed over control of the free flowing funds of the hedge fund straight to him, over 20 billion dollars of it.

And then, that bastard went and put that money, no, burned that money by dumping it all into Stark Industries Stock, a failing Stock, at the time.

He had just about strangled the fellow when his wife called him and reminded him about their anniversary.

That call from his wife was the only thing that saved his job, and created his confusion.

He went on a week-long vacation with his wife after that, to cool off a bit. When he came back...

Well, it was pandemonium.

Axle’s bets had actually paid off, netting the company with so much money but more importantly, they actually had a seat on the decision making Board of Stark Industries now.

Something that was much more valuable than mere money, according to Axle that is.

Ever since that day, he had been watching Axle. How he worked, what he did, and who he talked to.

But aside from spending an inordinately long time with his Secretary in his office, Axle did nothing that would indicate him doing his job.

The thing had haunted him for weeks when he had simply resolved to ask the man about it.

Until now, he had never really interacted with the man, not even once.

The day he tried to schedule a meeting, was the day Tony Stark appeared in the office, threatening Axle with something.

After that, Axle came out of his office, dolled out donuts as apology, and went back inside.

He expected some backlash from upper management but no.

Nothing came Axle’s way even after weeks of waiting.

So, he resigned.

Not the way he wanted his career to end but the stress of the uncertain situation at the office was taking a toll on his body, as well as his marriage.

Anna was the one who suggested that, especially since their rental portfolio was now making more money in a month than they needed in a year.

So, he quit and took on a consulting role in the industry. Well, he said consulting but mostly, it was just meetings with senior Analysts, telling them what they did wrong.

All in all, quite an unexpected career he had with Wu Enterprises.

“Oh, that looks delicious,” Anna said as she finally arrived in the kitchen.

“Oh, it is,” He said as they ate their breakfast in silence.

Ah, what a blissful life.

But Damn Axle Riddle.

If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

A/N - I–I..I have no idea why I just wrote this. Brain gave this to me and I delivered it to you. Hey! Don’t shoot the messenger.

Thank you for reading (and sorry, just in case)

Toodles!