Chapter 9.21: Competitors

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From Gaia's diary

Petra: You rebuilt the community area in no time. But why did you fill it with matter recomposers this time?

Gaia: I thought it was time to push recycling more, this kind of thing.

Petra: Oh. Cool!

Alec: Can we try to recompose something too?

Gaia: I'm not sure you can reach all the commands yet, some are on the top of the screen… But with Petra's help, you can definitely do it! What do you want to recompose?

Nico: Um… That rock over there?

Gaia: Seems like a good starting point, all right.

Petra: I'm not sure, this machine doesn't look friendly at all...

That's right, we remade the community area in no time, I wanted a sample workshop to show Tommy when I'll explain to him my new project. I've been spending so much time here that the kids often come over after school, the twins always have a blast. Petra, on the other hand...

Petra: Wow, what's the problem now?

Petra: ... Ouch, that thing hates me...

I've had a few weird accidents with matter recomposers too, when I was still learning how to use them, but Petra seems to have unpreceded bad luck when it comes to those machines. She now refuses to use one ever again, and after the machine threw her on the ground like that I can't blame her. We had to run to the hospital to make sure nothing was broken, we all had a real scare.

But, after a few weeks of work, everything was assembled and operative. All that was left was to call a certain someone and show them my plan.

Thomas: Oh, you weren't kidding, this place is unrecognizable!

Gaia: You see? We could do a lot of stuff here, now we can recompose up to six objects in parallel!

Thomas: And how do you plan to use this absurd recomposition power?

Gaia: Well...

While talking and observing the new building, we moved to the panoramic terrace upstairs, there is a beautiful view of my house and the cooling water dam for the star core power plant from up there.

Gaia: We've already done some tests: with the right blueprints it's possible to use these matter recomposers to combine an old cell phone with a teleportation device, just like the new cell phones you're planning to build!

Thomas: ... Really?

At that moment I couldn't understand why, but he didn't seem impressed at all by what I was showing him. But I hadn't given up yet.

Gaia: Recycling electronics has been a mess for ages, but this way people could just bring in their old phones and teleportation devices, and in a couple of hours we could recompose them from scratch into something new! We could also advertise it as a circular economy project, recently I heard a lot of people talking about it.

Thomas: ...

Gaia: For now, we can't be as precise with electronics as a brand-new device would be, but if we keep working on it…

Thomas: Do you really think anyone would prefer a Frankenstein phone like the one you're describing to a new, cutting-edge model?

Was he at least trying to listen? I promised myself to remain calm, but he wasn't making it easy at all.

Gaia: What's the matter with you? Since when do you only care about improving the sales? 

Thomas: I'm interested in doing what it takes to keep the family business from going bankrupt, okay? Do you at least know how much your teleportation phones would cost to the customers, for example?

Gaia: Well, we haven't done the math yet, but…

Thomas: This place has a lot of maintenance costs to cover, recomposers are famous for breaking down all the time. Not to mention the amount of electricity they use… No, roughly recomposing a phone would end up costing a few hundred §§§, just like buying a brand new one. If you then add the fact that the final result will be uglier than its competitors, it's clear that a company like that is destined to fail quickly.

Gaia: So your solution is really this!? You know that most other companies aren't sustainable at all, and yet you want to start doing exactly what they do? Tons of material would be extracted from the mines, a lot of energy would be needed for production and transportation, and in the meantime a lot of old devices still full of recoverable materials would end up in landfill!

Thomas: Do you really think I don't realise it? But this is the least expensive option, and therefore also the only way to stay on the market. There’s not much we can do about it.

What he was saying seemed terrible to me. Reasonable in some ways, maybe, but terrible all the same. And he must have seen it in my face, because before he got up and left he said to me again:

Thomas: … If you care so much, then try! Take this place and keep work on whatever you're doing here, you could call it a “Startup Whatever.” But I don’t want to get involved, and I don’t want the company to finance this project further either, it seems too risky to me.

I didn't know what to say, so he ended up walking away without me being able to say anything else. This time we didn't yell at each other or anything like that, and yet I feel like this conversation has made the rift between us permanent. 

I had never cared about it before, but honestly I now regret staying out of the administrative stuff of ​​our parents' company and having left all the bureaucratic part in Tommy's hands. What will happen now?

That evening, Brindleton Bay port

Diego: Thanks for joining me, I'm just sorry it's so cold tonight.

Gaia: Don't worry, I don't mind the cold.

Diego: So, how did it go today with Thomas?

Gaia: Well...

And so I told Diego about the conversation I had that morning, word by word. He listened attentively, he seemed sorry. I had been talking for a while, when he took the floor and decided to tell me, in turn:

Diego: About ten years ago, I had a similar discussion with one of my associates. She wanted to give up the exotic ingredients and just make cakes with cream, chocolate and synthetic vanilla, can you believe it?

Gaia: (dejected) And what did you do?

A ten-minute explanation of every little detail followed, I don't remember everything he said. What I remember well was the way he concluded his story though, by saying:

Diego: … and, in the end, we decided to go our separate ways. I found a new colleague and opened the pastry shop where I work now, while she continued to work at the other pastry shop near the old train station. I admit that we didn't manage to maintain a good relationship, in the long run it's not easy when becoming competitors… But I think it was the best thing for everyone, you can't continue to work together with someone if you don't agree on what direction to take, right?

Gaia: Yes, I think so too. But it's still incredibly difficult…

Diego: I'm sorry, really… But maybe he'll change his mind when you throw the success of your recycling centre in his face, right?

Gaia: Do you really think we'll be able to stay afloat and not go bankrupt?

Diego: I remind you that I'm the one who managed to make it profitable to go get the ingredients for a cake from the other side of the world! You just have to believe and commit, the rest will follow.

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A few weeks later, New Year's Eve

Petra: C'mon, guys, we have to reach mom at the community areas and help her prepare everything for tonight!

Nico: We're almost ready to go, don't worry!

Petra: That TV is huge!

Gaia: We reassembled it by putting together five smaller old TVs. It's so cool, isn't it?

In those weeks I had rolled up my sleeves again, now more than ever I want to demonstrate that I can carry out a project of this magnitude even on my own. So I started handing out flyers about our project and sharing stories on Simstagram in which I show what we are able to reassemble. Even today's New Year's Eve party was an attempt to bring new people here with the excuse of a buffet, I'm sure everyone is going to have fun anyway.

Emma: This place is so cool! But does your mom really know how to reassemble cell phones?

Petra: Of course she does! Matter recomposers break down the molecules of any object into their atoms and then recompose them from scratch, just insert enough raw material and a good blueprint and you can build anything!

Emma: Cool!

Michael: Not to interrupt you two, but the count down is about to start. 

Everyone: Happy New Year!

While everyone was hugging each other wishing everyone a happy New Year, I couldn't help but think about how the coming year will inevitably be very different from the last one. I will have many more responsibilities, and I will also have to fight to defend my ideals.

It won't be easy, I have never managed an entire startup by myself before. But I also have no intention of giving up without even trying, there's no way I could.