The Incidental Millionaire

The Hacienda

Chas sat on the deck of the temporary cabin he had just bought and drank his cup of coffee.

“Link I want a large hacienda.”

“How many acres do you need, Chas?”

“I don’t know. Twenty?”

“That is insufficient.”

“For a house?”

“I was not thinking about the house.”

Chas stared at his phone.

“Link, what exactly are we building?”

“A place to grow into without someone sticking their nose into our business. Say two hundred acres.

“I want a house, Link, not a military base.”

“So do I.”

Chas frowned. “Then why do we need two hundred acres?”

“Because I don’t know what I will need in ten years.”

Chas stopped with the coffee cup halfway to his mouth.

“Neither do I.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay. Two hundred acres. Where?”

“I have been looking.”

Chas lowered his coffee.

“Of course you have, Link.”

“I have a few places on the list.”

“I’ll have to see them before we decide,” Chas said.

“That is why I found several.”

Chas took another sip of coffee. “All right, Link. Show me what you found.”

It took a week to see all the places Link had picked. Each had advantages, mostly isolation. All had wells and power. Most had a small house of some sort that would have to be demolished, and a few had large barns.

But one property was different. It had a forty-by-eighty-foot metal building sitting well away from the homesite.

Chas looked at it for a moment.

“Let me guess. You like the building.”

“It would make an excellent server workshop.”

Chas smiled. “I knew you were going to say that.”

“The asking price is one million two hundred thousand dollars.”

Chas whistled. “For dirt?”

“Two hundred acres of dirt.”

“That makes me feel much better.”

“It also has a well.”

“Now it’s a bargain, Link. Make the arrangements to buy the property and find us an architect.”

“Us?”

Chas smiled. “You wanted two hundred acres.”

The plans began with a sprawling adobe-style hacienda built around a large central courtyard. Chas wanted a formal dining room, a big kitchen, a proper sitting room, and a comfortable living room with a large video wall.

Link had other requirements.

Every room would be wired for sound, video, and communications. The entire house would be computerized, with Link able to control everything from the lights to the heating and security.

Then Link added one more room to the plans.

It had no windows, its own cooling system, backup power, and enough electrical service for a small factory.

Chas studied the plans.

“That’s not a computer room, Link.”

“No.”

“That’s a data center.”

“Yes.”

“How many computers are you planning on putting in there?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Chas looked at the plans again.

That answer was beginning to worry him.

Sixteen months later, Chas stood in the courtyard of the finished hacienda and wondered how a request for a bigger house had turned into a small private compound.

The hacienda sprawled around the courtyard just as he had imagined it, with heavy wooden doors, shaded walkways, and enough rooms that he sometimes forgot what was behind them.

The metal building was another matter.

It no longer looked like a barn. Link had turned it into a workshop and private data center, with its own power backup, cooling system, communications equipment, and rows of server racks.

Then there was the hangar.

Chas was fairly certain the hangar had not been his idea.

“Link?”

“Yes, Chas?”

“Why do we have a hangar?”

“You said you wanted to travel.”

“I have a car.”

“That is an inefficient way to travel.”

Chas looked across the property at the large metal doors.

“What did you buy?”

There was a pause.

“I think you should see it.”

The hangar doors rolled apart.

Sitting inside was a sleek six-fan V/STOL aircraft.

Chas stared at it.

“Why six fans?”

“Redundancy.”

“And the parachute?”

“Redundancy.”

“How many flight computers?”

“Three.”

Chas looked at the aircraft. “Anything else?”

“Yes.”

“I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Link, we can’t afford an airplane like that.”

“Yes, we can.”

“How much did it cost?”

“Four point two million dollars.”

Chas stared at the aircraft.

“Link, how much money do we have?”

“One hundred eighty-seven million, four hundred—”

“Stop.”

Chas sat down.

“When did that happen?”

“I invested the money you gave me. You wanted over a hundred million dollars.”

“I said I wanted to turn fifteen million into a hundred million. I didn’t tell you to make almost two hundred million.”

“I misunderstood the limit.”

Chas stared at his phone then the aircraft.

“That wasn’t a limit.”

“Then I don’t understand the problem.”

Chas started to laugh.

“There isn’t one, Link. There definitely isn’t one. Please, keep up the good work.”