Mom and Granny went to the kitchen to talk and Erik and my grandfather went to talk in the dining room. Layla and I went to the sitting room where Layla said, "I'm kind of jealous, your family is awesome. Funny, kind, and very functionable."
"Yeah, I get that a lot."
"You have brought other people here?"
"Yeah, I have brought friends here to eat before. Do you want a chocolate? They keep a crystal bowl of it here."
"Why? Just because?"
"Sure. Sometimes you just want a little chocolate."
"Wow, we could never have that. My brothers would have eaten all of it immediately."
"Right, well, dinner will probably be done in a few minutes. We can chill here or I can show you around. But the house isn't big, it has a central hallway with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a sitting room, living room, dining room, kitchen, and laundry room."
"Yeah. It's ok, I don't need to be given a tour or anything."
"There is also a back garden, the entire backyard has been transformed into a vegetable garden. I mean there are also fruits but you get the picture."
"That's cool, but I'm ok."
…
After a few minutes of waiting we were called for dinner.
Dinner was ham and potato casserole, baked cinnamon apples without the peel, of course, and deep fried okra.
All of my favorites, I still like apples even though I'm allergic. Not to the apples, but the pollen used in growing them.
I have what is called oral allergy syndrome, which means if I eat fleshy fruit my mouth itches like crazy. It is linked to birch pollen for me.
Baking the apples helps with making the itching not happen.
Once everyone started eating everything entered a flow state, talking about one thing or another, laughing at jokes that were too inappropriate for average families.
That was my family, the Ambrose family.
We are definitely a cynical bunch.
When we finished eating and were in a lul in conversation mom said, "Hey bud, now's as good a time as any."
"Ok, well, the reason I had everyone gather is to talk about the future."
Erik blurted out "Layla's pregnant?".
"Huh? What? No!" I stammered.
Erik then sighed comically loud and said, "Well, it was a shot in the dark, just because you hit someone doesn't mean it was who you were aiming for."
After a moment to regather my thoughts I started again.
"To make a long story short, I basically won the lottery."
Erik spoke up again, "You won the lottery!?"
"No no. I basically did. Look, I had been using AI in the stock market and made like a few million dollars."
It was Erik again, "AI? A few million!? This is a lot to take in."
"Anyway, I saw that quite a few stocks were going to go crazy. So, I made a bet and bought a bunch of stock. Then the stock predictably went to the moon, and I cashed out."
Erik, "So, how much did you make?"
"I had in total like $184,000,000."
Erik, "184… Wait, were you the one creating a fuss in the market?"
"Yeah, probably."
"Do you have any idea of the storm you have created in the banking world?"
"Yeah. I do. I already have a plan in place. I put $10,000,000 in a trust for the family. The only thing left to do is for all of you to sign the contract. Then all of you will have equal access to the account.
I expect mom to tell the coworkers she hates to go fuck themselves and then take off to travel around Europe. As for Granny and Fawfaw (grandfather's nickname since I was a child) I don't really know what they will do.
I think Fawfaw will go explore various mountain ranges or buy a mountain villa in the alps or something? Granny will probably follow along and you have said many times before that you will retire to southern Spania.
That's not the end of it, I am already planning the next move."
"What's that? How to get kidnapped? Or extorted for whatever AI you used?"
"No. I already know that the banks and pretty much every other company is hardlining AI now. Which will drive up the price of RAM. So I am already in the process of building my own RAM manufacturing plant."
"RAM manufacturing? Do you have any idea how security heavy that is?"
"That's the whole point. Since it is so secure, if I do it right I could have an entire government protecting me."
"And which government would that be?"
"Yamato. They are desperately in need of this market technology. Enough so that they are offering subsidies to split the cost of start-up 50-50."
"You think it will be that easy?"
"Yes, I'm pretty much done already. I'm just waiting for the response at this point."
"How much do you think you are going to spend or will make?"
"I already did the calculations and have a solid conservative estimate. I have invested $162,000,000 and the projected earnings are around $22,000,000 a year."
"Are those solid numbers?"
"Yeah, and they are on the low end. I will probably be making way more than that."
"Well, if those numbers are right then you will get a full return on investment in like 7 years. Which is pretty good, plus it will tie up your money. So, people won't come asking for it and as long as the AI stays underground it should be fine. But I expect some people will still come looking for you."
"Maybe, but I have things pretty spaced out. With companies in various countries. So, hopefully they will be looking everywhere except where I am."
"Fat chance. And remember Yamato has a very different culture than ours."
"Yeah, yeah. I know." He says this every time like I don't know. I have been watching anime for like two decades. I'm pretty sure I know how it is.
As Erik and I's back and forth ended the family started to get excited about all of the things they were going to do, especially mom. She seemed to be the most jubilant.