Olympus: It's Not Just a Game

Chapter 3

Karl waited until Mr. Huber got home that night. Then he waited until he was in a good mood. That didn't happen until after dinner—Mr. Huber's business was important to him, and when things weren't going particularly well, everybody knew it. There was some big deal involving hydraulic activators that none of the family understood, except that they all wished it were over.

Supper was quiet. Mr. Huber spent his time chewing or muttering about Indonesian idiots and brainless bureaucrats. Karl and Jacob weren't speaking to each other. Their grandfather sat silently at the foot of the table in what was once their mother's place. But she had died of cancer years before, and Grandfather Huber had been unable to speak since Siberia.

But when his father went into the study to check out the computer equipment the Averys had installed, he was more than pleased—he was delighted with his new "Executive Battlestation." The fiber optic link and video camera enabled him to send "face mail" anywhere in the world while the combination scanner/printer made it just as easy to send and receive paperwork.

"What do you think, Karl boy?" he asked. Mr. Huber still had a trace of an accent. He and Grandmother Huber had escaped from behind the Iron Curtain back in the bad old days of the Cold War. "Now, this is a man's machine—not like that boy toy of yours in the basement."

Karl winced. This wasn't starting well.

"Now with this, you can be anywhere in the world. The real world," he emphasized. "You can use this to make money in Tokyo or make friends in London."

That looked like an opportunity. "I made a couple of new friends today," Karl said.

"Oh, really?" his father said. He swiveled his chair around to look at Karl. "That's good, Karl. You spend too much time locked up in that straitjacket of yours. You should get out more, see people."

"Yeah, right," gulped Karl. "Well, actually, I was going to ask you if it was all right to go out to the mall with these kids." He hurried on before Mr. Huber could ask for details. "You see, their father put in this computer. Their names are Noah and Nancy. They were here at the house while he was installing it. We got talking, and...well, Noah's a really cool guy."

His father raised his eyebrows. "And Nancy?"

Karl turned a little red. "Um. Well, she's pretty cool, too."

"Sure, Karl," his father answered, expansively. "It's about time you starting spending time with the young people." He smiled at his son—it seemed like the first smile in weeks.

Karl decided to go for the big gamble. "You know, Dad, I was thinking about a way to spend a lot more time with kids my age and maybe make some money, too."

His father looked interested. "Spend time with kids and make money? How's that?"

"Well," Karl continued, "I thought about, maybe, a small business for kids."

"Great!" applauded his father. "You've been spending all your money on that computer toy in the basement. It's about time you started making some again."

"Actually, I was planning to use the computer stuff in the basement as a way to make money."

Mr. Huber's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?" he snapped.

Karl hesitated. Maybe this wasn't a good time for this, after all.

"What is it?" his father demanded.