This apartment was in the basement with no windows. The bathroom had a vent only in order to get the moisture out.
Mindlord was not used to being in such dingy places, but he really had nowhere else to go. His technicians were able to re-create the dimensional travel teleporter. He left behind Reyna and many of the other people in that other dimension. He did have one way to get back, and that was secreted in a box under a piece of tile that had given way in the bathroom.
Mindlord removed his coat and glasses and sat down on the only chair. He had no television, no radio. He was able to coerce a woman to give him all her money, then getting more through an ATM machine. He had a telephone, a landline they called it. Unfortunately, though, it wasn’t connected.
He counted the money that the woman had given him. Three hundred dollars, the maximum amount she could get out of the ATM machine. He should’ve asked her to do it again to get more.
He was, however, able to pick up a newspaper. The language here was slightly different but the letters were the same. Some of the terms were different, such as “the tap” to get water instead of a spigot. He opened up the paper to the front page.
There were, of course, stories about heroes, and all their different escapades. The city was full of them. He was sure that he was in the wrong place, in the wrong dimension. His engineers had told him that Rhode Island had disappeared. Paragon City was just a memory. No one was left alive, especially his old nemesis, Jack the telepath.
He skipped through a lot of the hero stories. He skipped over the gossip pages. He turned the page to the business section, a place that he was familiar with. Although he could not control the stocks, he considered the whole stock market to be just like the biggest casino ever. And he loved casinos.
Mindlord saw on the first page of the business section, that someone had just chosen a new senior president, who was going to oversee new projects and research and development. He looked at the picture on the page. it was a young blonde man, tanned, well built, and looking comfortable in a suit. Standing behind him, slightly out of focus, was a dark-haired man – probably the owner of the company, Textron. The small article discussed the young man, named Dmitri, and said that he was the youngest man on the board of directors for the company. Stock prices plummeted.
Mindlord decided that Textron would be an excellent buy, especially now that the stocks were so cheap for such a technical company. Although Mindlord did not have the TV, he did get a computer from somebody in one of the big box stores who just gave it to him after he so kindly asked. Tonight’s hunt on the Internet would be about Textron.
Two hours later, he was even more excited about Textron. Textron’s CEO had been ill for a short time, terminally ill. Supposedly he was healed and now was back in full force. However, this new selection of a young man as a senior president of R&D, showed that Textron’s CEO probably didn’t have the brains or the cognitive ability to run the place. It would be perfect for a takeover.
He poured 60 shares of Textron on his credit card. Supposedly if he had over 300 shares, he could be considered for the Board of Directors. All he needed to do was do some persuading. He had a list of all the Board of Directors, would probably easily find their addresses, and then hunt them down one by one, talking them into parting with their shares of Textron. He would definitely get a seat on the board after that. It should take him, what, a week? Less? Considering he didn’t have a car and would have to taxi everywhere, at least until he was able to get money from people, it would take about two weeks before he could step forward onto the board.
And then all he needed to do was force out the CEO, Mr. Reynard Johansson.