14 Payment invoice

After Aron finished making the program for subscription, he was reminded that this new version of BugZapper would also need someone to oversee it. This realisation led him to think that he needed to establish a company if he wanted to manage the software in his place.

This would also help him generate SPs, still, it will not be a very good amount. Aron had learned it the hard way after he tried to earn enough SPs to buy the programming language. As the app count increased, the SP he was earning continued to diminish. After he had scanned through the tenth app for vulnerabilities, the number of SPs gained dropped by half and after the twentieth, it continued dropping by half of the SPs he had got from the eleventh to nineteenth scan. From this, he hypothesized that this would continue until he would only be earning 1 SP with every scan.

Although it may seem modest, how many websites do you think exist in the current world?

This means that although the amount of SP earned will be small, the sheer quantity of websites in existence will be compensating for it.

Aron's current plan revolved around making the BigZapper popular enough for every website in the world to use it at least once a month. The aim was to emphasize the program's significance in bolstering website security, thus encouraging every site owner to experiment with it at least once. This kind of approach would mean that he will be able to earn 1 SP every single time someone uses his program. AFK to the death.

While he was perfecting his business strategy and designing the company's inaugural products, Aron's phone buzzed, displaying Felix's name on the screen.

"Hello, long time no talk?" After picking up the phone, Aron greeted him and started the conversation.

"You gave us so much work that I barely had time to catch my breath, let alone time to think of contacting others in the past month," Felix replied, complaining in a happy tone.

"So, why did you call me?" Aron inquired. 

"I just wanted to inform you that our negotiations with the various companies have been concluded and the payment will be fully transferred to you once the taxes and everything else is paid," Felix reported.

"Finally, it took you guys very long," Aron continued, feigning his annoyance.

"Well, you gave us too much work, so we even had to make a dedicated team to handle your work. But considering the generous amount of money you had paid to us, we can't really complain anyway," Felix laughed as he replied.

"So, how much will I actually receive after all the taxes and your payment is taken care of?" Aron pressed.

"You'll find out when we send it to you, but be ready for a surprise," Fellix's teasing voice came from the other side of the phone as he tried playing mischief, wanting to frustrate Aron as much as he could to vent out for the work he made them do.

"If you don't spill the beans, I'm hanging up the phone," Aron threatened playfully.

Crap. Just after Aron finished voicing his threat, Felix immediately responded by ending the call to make his statement.

'Fuck, He got me,' Aron thought as he put the phone aside and continued to do his work as he eagerly waited for the money to start raining in his account.

....

Five Days later, the comprehensive payment along with the spreadsheet detailing the allocations arrived to him.

And here was the breakdown as to who paid how much. The figures listed below were after taxes and lawyer fees had been deducted.

YouTube, Google+, Android and Google were treated as a collective entity paid as a one, and since Google in itself was among the companies that held the highest user base which depended on them to have the best top-tier security since their emails were used by almost anyone with an email. This meant that if there were any vulnerabilities in their system and were exploited, it would potentially jeopardize their reputation and have them almost get bankrupted as almost every user who cared about keeping their secrets would have turned to their competitors.

So, they forked the most money and since they were paying for three of their companies, they paid a substantial amount of money– $335 million dollars. This included buying the information about the vulnerabilities and their solutions to them as they needed to patch it as fast as possible, lest someone uses it against them.

Apple - The company paid $87 million dollar for both the weaknesses and solution for their iOS weaknesses since they put too much importance on keeping their iOS as a black box.

Microsoft - It was also among those companies who paid too much money, they paid him $145 million dollar for their weaknesses in Windows and the solutions to it. And oh god was there enough bugs in it to write a book on what one should not do while making an operating system?

Sina Weibo - Paid $17 million dollars without opting to buy the solution. They decided to solve it themselves, worrying that if they were to buy the solution it would mean the other company knew how their app security works and that was not good when it is connected to the CCP knowing that the one who sold it to them was an American. That would put them on the radar.

Qzone - Since it is owned by Tencent, a prominent Chinese technology conglomerate. They simply forked $33 million dollars, mirroring the same protective reason as the one above.

Twitter & Vine were parent companies, so they paid a joint sum of $75 million for the vulnerabilities and their solutions.

LinkedIn - Recognizing the significance of safeguarding its platform, paid $45 million for both problems and solutions.

Instagram - Since they paid before as Facebook, they had already solved some similar problems in Instagram. So, the lawyers only managed to negotiate the remaining vulnerabilities that didn't exist in the list of those that were found and sold to Facebook before. So, they paid only $25 million for both the problem and solution pertaining to the newly identified vulnerabilities.

Tumblr - Addressing its security concerns they only paid $10 million dollar only for being the problem and not the solutions to them.

The remaining four social media platforms paid a total sum of $39 million dollars since they were relatively smaller companies.

This brings the total sum of the money amounting to $811 million dollars and this was after taxes and fees. If he didn't have to pay tax and lawyer fees, he would have more than $900 million but Brother IRS would be having a field day with him.

And he wasn't ready for them.

This meant he was almost a billionaire. However, he needed to make the money return to the market because the longer he held it as cash in his account, the longer inflation would erode their purchasing power per dollar.

Also, although he already paid tax for it, he would still need to continue paying taxes for any interest that he earns from the money if it were to stay in the bank.

However, all these thoughts were cut short when he unexpectedly received a phone call from an unknown number, curious yet at the same time cautious, he picked up the call.

Aron: "Hello?"

"Hi, is this Mr. Aron?" inquired the voice on the other end.

"Yes, speaking. May I know who this is?" Aron asked since he didn't know who had called him while he was relishing his net worth.

"Hi Aron, this is Mark from the American Bank. I wanted to talk to you about your account." Said the voice on the other side of the phone.

"Oh, okay. Is everything alright with my account?" Aron asked, startled by the call and wondered if something bad had happened to his account.

Bank Worker: "Certainly, there is no issue at all. Actually, we wanted to arrange a meeting with you to discuss your account further."

Aron: "Okay, but what is this meeting about?" Aron answered while releasing a sigh of relief, knowing that nothing bad happened to the account.

Just think about it, right when you almost became a billionaire, all of your money was stolen from you. That would be a suicide level of tragedy right there. Thank god something like that didn't happen.

Bank Representative: "Well, we have noticed that you have a significant amount of money in your account and we wanted to go over some options with you."

Aron: "Oh, I see. Yes, I earned a large sum of money recently."

Bank Representative: "Indeed, we have taken note of that. Congratulations, by the way."

"Thank you," Aron replied, feeling happy about it while replying calmly.

Bank Representative: "We would like to send you a Black American Bank card. To proceed, we need to confirm your address".

Aron: "Okay, that's fine. I will provide you with my address."

Bank Representative: "Great. Also, we would like to introduce some potential investment opportunities with you during the meeting as well."

"Oh, I see. Well, I'm interested in investing, but I would prefer to gather more information before committing." Aron replied in surprise since he was also thinking about investing his money in order for it to not just remain in his account to just accumulate interest. Still, he wasn't completely sure as to what to invest in, so he might as well meet them and hear their investment plan and then decide on his plan based on that.

Bank Representative: "That's completely understandable. We can arrange a meeting with one of our investment advisors. They will help you go through your options and address any questions you may have."

Aron: "Okay, sounds good."

Bank Representative: "How about next Wednesday at 2 pm? Would you prefer the meeting to be held at your residence or a nearby establishment then?"

Aron: "Yes, next Wednesday at 2 pm worlds for me, Let's hold the meeting at a nearby establishment."

Bank Representative: "Great. We'll see you then. And once again, congratulations on your success."

Aron: "Thank you, I appreciate it."

Bank Worker: "Alright, have a great day."

Aron: "You too."

With the call concluded, Aron chose to calm himself down a little before he started continuing with his work, lest he ends up messing something up due to his excitement.

While he was resting to calm himself down from the excitement, fatigue overtook him as he fell asleep and drifted into a daydream, his subconscious kept smiling.

I wonder what he was dreaming since it was possible to see that he was drooling from his mouth with that creepy smile on his face.