They obediently followed as Lucinda led them to a personal computer set into a light grey leather and gleaming stainless steel display unit. Lucinda pulled out and kneeled herself into a leather stool, similar to those used to alleviate back trouble. Here though, the position meant that it fully exposed her beautiful behind, the tiny thong of her panties leaving nothing to the imagination. She then proceeded to enter in their names and their respective companies, which she swiped from their credit-card style exhibition badges.

'Now we have to ask you some personal questions?' Lucinda half-turned and pointed to the screen. 'We want you to feel, that your first contact at Zyzzx, is always a friend. Hence, we want you to choose someone, with whom you have a lot in common and with whom you will get on well and will ultimately trust. You can talk to them at any time of day or night about most aspects of the product and if you want to praise, criticise or tell us off, you do it to and through them. Remember too, that they have a loyalty to you as a customer and everything you say can be considered totally confidential.'

Lucinda rose from the stool and motioned for Derek to take her place. Carefully he read each question and using the computer's mouse put marks in the various preferences. What sex did he want his main contact to be? How old? Did he prefer blondes? Was he gay? What was his business? What was its turnover? What spend did he envisage? What areas of competence did he need for his business? Did he like sport? How healthy was he? Did he keep fit? The questions continued. 'Some are a bit personal aren't they?'

'You have to understand that when you buy a Zyzzx, you become part of the family!' She put her arm around Derek's shoulder. 'The more we know about you, the better service we can provide. For instance, we have a lot of customers who are perhaps gay, disabled or from a minority and would prefer to contact a similar individual. Not everyone's a raving, white, heterosexual!' She indicated that Derek had finished answering and showed him where to click the mouse, so that his initial contact would be chosen.

Immediately, nine faces with brief histories underneath arranged themselves on the screen. By clicking on the pictures, you could expand the text, so that you knew nearly everything about their past and their current job. To their surprise, not all were glamorous young ladies of a Las Vegan or Hollywood persuasion. Three were men in their late forties to late fifties and another two looked to be very professional older almost matronly women, who are the sort that every Merchant Bank would employ as senior personal assistants or secretaries.

'As I've had enough trouble in the past straying with other ladies and Anna would kill me if I chose her!' He indicated a dusky maiden, who was probably about the same age as the second of his three daughters. 'I'll nominate Gaynor here, as my contact.' He clicked the choice. 'She looks sensible and I suspect she knows the answer to most questions. What happens now?'

'Just you wait!' Lucinda was giggling somewhat, in the way that only those with an English public-school education do. 'She's not all that sensible, but she does know everything about Zyzzx, our products and a lot more.'

***

Gaynor swept into view within thirty seconds.

She was the sort of lady, the two men would probably have expected had they been dealing with a company with a more normal marketing profile. But then one did not know what to expect with Zyzzx. A tall, well-preserved and fit-looking lady of about fifty, coiffeured and made-up impeccably, she was dressed in an expensively-tailored blue suit, that she wore over a pristine white silk shirt.

Quickly she took charge and handed Derek his personalised information pack. 'Would you like to see everything?' Gaynor started to lead him away. 'I'll deliver you to Russ at six-thirty.'

***

'Will she really show him everything?'

'Has been known!' Lucinda giggled again, mainly it seemed at the way Gaynor in her high heels, towered above Derek. 'Derek can be a bit of a little boy lost, can't he?'

'Yes, I suppose! But he's very good. Don't underestimate him!' He didn't want to give the impression, that he really had only known Derek for about five hours. He kneeled at the computer. 'I take it, it's my turn now! I won't be as conservative as Derek was! Do I start here?'

Within a minute, all of the personal and not-so-personal questions had been answered and he had asked the computer to made its choice. After a few seconds, Lucinda's beautiful face framed by her waves of red hair was the sole picture that looked at him from the computer. 'So, I've to put up with you!' Her smile was giving something away. 'Now come on. Come clean! There's more to this than meets the eye! I'll have the truth? Please?' He motioned her to come in closer.

Lucinda squatted beside him and gently took hold of his nail-bitten left hand with her manicured right. 'I suppose you realise or know how this initial contact system works?'

'I would say it's quite simple, in that it just matches people and then gives the customer a choice. Just like a dating agency.' He followed his logic through. 'The better the initial choice, the better the customer relationship and the more he or she will spend!'

'Absolutely!' She giggled and cheekily squeezed his thigh. 'We matched Derek and Gaynor properly, but you were a bit special. We had already entered you in the database, as we wanted to find and talk to you at a much higher and much more strategic level!'

'I'm beginning to like this!' Nobody had ever tried to interview or sell him anything in this way before.

'We have all of your past, hopefully your future, how you add élan and dash to products, your business deals, your products and our various assessments of them, all stored in the database. I'll show you!' She clicked a few commands and icons, and most of his life history was shown on the screen. 'Don't worry, it's all published information, except the comments on your software, which came from a client we both have in common.' He made a mental note to give Jeremy a severe wigging, when he met him next. 'Nothing that breaks any confidentialities, though.' She paused and gripped his thigh tighter, as though perhaps not wanting to continue. 'And I was sorry to read about your wife! She wasn't very old. A waste!'

'Thanks.' He almost shed a tear, but didn't. 'That's all past. Catherine physically died only three months ago, but everything else about her had gone years before.'

'Don't worry! I understand more than you think!' She released her grip and stroked him gently. 'Two years ago, I lost my husband in a car crash, too! He was a complete bastard, a confirmed drunk and an accomplished wife-beater. All he left were bad memories, deep scars and my lovely daughter, Cassie!'

'I know about some of those feelings! Scars, memories, yes! Children, no!' He put his hand on top of hers and squeezed. She reciprocated by following the crease of his trousers with a finger.

'You see here!' Lucinda continued and was pointing to the actions to be taken at the bottom of the screen, with the index finger of her left hand. 'You're what's known as a lion, who must be found, caged, talked to and interrogated, if at all possible.' She moved the long finger with its long blood-red nail again. 'See here! I've been fully briefed about you and if you were ever to turn up, then I am to be your main contact with Zyzzx. I actually recognised you, as you approached.'

'I am very impressed. But why am I a lion?' He opened his suit jacket to reveal his rather thin and puny body and they both saw the incongruity of the association. 'Surely, with your mane and your nails, you're one as well!' They laughed.

'You're a lion because you are a king and a leader!' She paused. 'And it's a bloody sight better than being labelled a jackal, a hippopotamus or a skunk.'

***

Lucinda spent the next twenty minutes or so, giving him a full briefing on Zyzzx and a demonstration of their products.

Together, they explored text, document and full multi-media databases, searched for facts, drew interesting graphics, displayed outstanding pictures, calculated complicated summaries and printed simple tables in every conceivable way possible. It was the first time, he had seen the full power of the product at close range and he was greatly impressed.

He always judged his own software and that of others against five criteria; features, speed, reliability, support and charisma. Other non-technical people would add financial and business aspects, but to him they were always secondary. He believed that if you had a superb and unrivalled product, then the premium prices you could charge, would ease any financial problems.

He had seen the features for himself, and knew that the Zyzzx implementation of SQL, the common language of all large computer databases was as good as, if not much more comprehensive than all the more established competitors. The graphics were of the usual industry quality, good but not exceptional. He mentally gave the product an eight for features.

In such a short demonstration at an exhibition, he could hardly make a proper assessment of the speed and reliability of the software, as these exercises are always structured away from any known problems on machines with so much power, that everything looks superb. But from the experience and reports of Jeremy, their common customer, who had been using the Zyzzx software for about two years in a real application, he gave another two eights to both factors.

If all support was as competent, knowledgeable and beautiful as Lucinda, support would scare the living daylight out of all competition and he assigned the full ten. On second thoughts he reduced it to nine, as Lucinda was Customer Support Director and no-one else so competent, could be as beautiful.

He came up with two answers for the score for the rather nebulous factor of charisma. On the one hand the overall feel and presence of the company was such, that nothing he had seen or heard could persuade him, that Zyzzx would not be number one in the database software sector within their stated time-scale. A nine or perhaps even a ten. But strip away the sex and the very personal and superb support and the product was like many in the sector; solid, reliable, safe and boring. Others with a comparable product could imitate. So barely a four or five.

He reasoned that if they viewed themselves as being a company of high charisma and success, then they would probably deduce that Medusa and certainly not his own software were irrelevant to achieving their goal. However, if they shared his second assessment, then acquisition of both would create an organisation that would be absolutely unbeatable.

Copyright 1999 by Ewart Higgins