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The next morning, he would visit the hospital and he honestly didn't know how he was supposed to feel. On the one hand, he was overwhelmed by regrets and, on the other, by fear. He had never felt this way before for anyone else. He may have been excited by her own unique character at first glance, as well as the fact that they had a lot in common with each other, however, the feelings he had felt the night before, were something completely different.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Title Page
Free Tomorrow
Brief Sensation
Jeremy McHarry
Free Tomorrow / 1st of series: Brief Sensation / By Jeremy McHarry
Published 2023 by Bentockiz
e-book Imprint: Calkden Norsh
e-book Registration: Stockholm, Sweden
e-book ISBN: 9789198826654
e-book editing: Athens, Greece
Cover Images created via AI art generators
Table of Contents
Title Page
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Introduction
Through books we come into contact with everything important that has happened in the past, analyzing also current events and putting our thoughts together to predict the future. The book is a window to the world, acquiring valuable knowledge and sparking our vivid imagination. It is a means of entertainment and is generally seen as a best friend, or as a slave that carries together all valuable information for us. The book is a friend who stays together without demands, a friend you call upon at every moment and abandon when you want.
It accompanies us in the hours of boredom and loneliness, while at the same time it entertains us. In general, a book does not ask anything from us, while it waits patiently on a dusty shelf to give us its information, to get us out of dead ends and to travel us to magical worlds.
This may be the travel mission of our books. Abstract narration, weird or unconscious thoughts difficult to be understood, but always genuine and full of life experiences, these are stories of life that can’t be overlooked easily.
This may be the start of something amazing!
Chapter One
“Think about how we dressed you as Doctor Doll. Although we showed very little of your skin or even your shape, the billowing clothing you wore gave the impression of otherworldly beauty which made everyone in the room, men and women alike, wonder if the rest of you matched the beauty of your face. Because you stood out, George stood out and was able to play his role to perfection. If George had walked in by himself, he would have been ignored. Know yourself, know your goal, and keep it in the front of your mind, then know your audience, and play them like a musical instrument.”
“More of the game?”
“Yes, but then life is a big game, the business world is sometimes just a more intense version.”
Sharlene sighs then says, “I suppose you’re right. I guess I was sheltered in the world of academia.”
“Be glad you didn’t go on to teach. Sometimes the publish or perish mentality and the fight for tenure in academia can make a gang war look like children playing ‘pat-a-cake’. They’re just not as obvious to the outsider.”
“I received hints of that, but had a hard time believing it.”
“Go chat with Phil for a little while. He’s always good for a cheering up.”
“As long as he doesn’t want to show that video.”
Chapter Two
Klara just grins and waves her out.
Sharlene finds his office, looks in the door, and asks, “Fuhleepay?”
“Ah, Little One, come in, come in.”
“I don’t want to bother you if you’re busy.”
“I’m never too busy for you. Do you have much time?”
“A little more than a quarter hour before the next meeting.”
“Then talk quickly and tell me all about what you’ve been doing.”
Sharlene starts to talk, he asks brief questions, and it seems like only moments before they’re interrupted by the phone which Phil answers, “Hello? . . . Yes. . . . I’ll send her right up.” Phil hangs up the phone as he chuckles then says, “That was Mother Hen asking me to send her stray chick back.”
Since she’s puzzled as to who he could be talking about, Sharlene asks, “Mother Hen?”
“Klara.”
Sharlene clamps a hand over her month to stop from laughing out loud, but her eyes are full of humor. Phil gives her a big smile, winks, then shoos her on her way.
* * * * *
Sharlene walks into Robert’s office right behind William and Winifred.
Robert looks up and requests, “Close the door, please.”
“Sure, Dad.”
He asks her, “What was Mariam’s response to the suggestions?”
Sharlene answers, “She said that if I didn’t have any problems with the suggestions, then neither did she. I told her about running the scenarios for different pay off schedules of the investment. She said that as long as there are no penalties for paying off the investment early, her advice was to go with the longest pay off scheme to keep the initial costs down. Then if we’re successful, we have the freedom to pay it off early.”
William nods his head as he says, “That’s a good approach. We ran the scenarios at five year intervals as a starting point and you would have to be very successful and very quickly for the five year pay off scheme to even be a consideration.” William hands Sharlene some papers and explains, “Here are the ten, fifteen, and twenty year scenarios. Your friend’s advice is good and that would be our inclination also. The investment loan can easily be set up with interest calculated month to month so you can make higher payments whenever you feel comfortable doing so.”
After she takes the papers, Sharlene thinks for a little while before she remembers and says, “One question which came up while we were discussing this whole situation was whether the ten percent risk payment from profit to the investor would be forever or for the life of the investment loan or somewhere in between. And if it was for the life of the investment loan would it decrease as the loan decreased and the risk to the investment decreased.”
William and Winifred look at each other then back to Sharlene as he responds, “That’s a good question. First of all, we can do whatever you want since it’s your money. Secondly, we’ve seen a lot of different scenarios so almost nothing is out of the realm of accepted possibility.”
“I know it’s my money, but I’m trying to treat it, even in my own mind, as someone else’s money which I have to be responsible for and provide a fair return for the risk of the investment. There’s the temptation to use my money and goof off for the rest of my life, but my conscious won’t let me comfortably do that. I also know I have a unique opportunity with this new company to help people, potentially many more people than I could as a medical doctor with my own practice and I don’t think I can live with the guilt if I threw the opportunity away. So I want to treat the investment as though it’s someone else’s money and try to keep everything, as much as possible, within the norm of a relationship between an investor and a new company.”
“Well said. Very well said.” William and Winifred look at each other again as though they can communicate telepathically. William nods and Winifred continues, “We do some investing of our own money and a lot of investing with other people’s money and we’re impressed with your attitude as well as how you’ve clearly stated what you hope to do with your company and what you know are the problems facing it.
“If we were to negotiate between ourselves as the investor and the company on this project, here is what we think the agreement would come to: a twenty year loan at an annual interest loan rate of four percent on nine and a half million credits which added to George’s initial investment of five hundred thousand credits makes an even ten million. That will cover your budget for three years, cover all your known start-up costs, plus provide a cushion for contingency or part of a fourth year of budget if needed. As far as the risk payment from profit, as the principal of the investment loan drops five percent, so the risk payment from profit would drop one half of a percent.”
* * * * *
2147-09-26 (a6)
The silence stretches for a little while before Sharlene responds, “Um, that’s certainly more than I expected to ask for and I have the feeling it’s a very good deal for the company. Is that a realistic deal which a new company could get from an investor?”
Winifred answers, “That would really depend on the investor since many would see the potential and want to keep the ten percent profit payment going as long as possible. But for an investor with at least some sense of interest in helping their fellow humans, it’s an appropriate offer. Someone in the future who looks at the agreement might conclude that you received a good deal, but they wouldn’t really be able to say you had an ‘in’ with the investor.”
Sharlene nods her head, “That’s what I was hoping to achieve. I’m hoping to keep my role as the investor as quiet as I can for as long as possible. I’m not sure I can articulate all of my reasons, but part of it is that I don’t want my friend and partner to think that I’m giving her charity to keep the Project going. I think the Project is important and can help people, but it’s something which Mariam is passionate about. I agree to your suggested loan agreement. What’s the next step?”
“We’ll work with Klara to get the paperwork put together.”
“Before we go there, I want to throw out another possibility.”
Sharlene asks, “Klara?”
“I know you’re concerned about the technical issues being a big road block, but even if it takes the full two years we guesstimated to solve them, what comes next? We’ve talked in general terms about the possible commercial success of people accessing and playing emotional recordings, and you’ve thought about how big the potential market might be just among college students. What if Digital Empathy is successful, what does the future hold?”
“What are you getting at?”
Klara hesitates just a little while before she answers, “Well, I don’t have a crystal ball, and I haven’t thought of all of the possible ramifications, but, for the moment, let’s assume that Digital Empathy is rather successful. A few years down the road, something happens to your boyfriend and you decide to quit working in order to take care of him. You hire someone to take your place.
“Once the company is working smoothly and making some good profits, Mariam decides to move on to something more challenging, so she quits and hires someone to take her place. The new company leaders find the profits too tempting and they start to make changes to the scope of the company, what it charges, and how the profits are distributed. After some time, there’s no more money being set aside to fund research and people are thinking twice about whether or not to pay for a recording.”
The silence stretches. Sharlene reluctantly asks, “Could that happen?”
There’s some hesitation before Winifred responds, “Yes, that sort of thing has happened before. One way to reduce the possibility would be to have a board of directors which the company executives report to, but that may only delay it rather than prevent it since the company executives are often members of the board and can start stacking it with their cronies.”
“Oh, my. . . . I would have never thought about that, until it was too late.” Sharlene pauses then turns to Klara and says, “Since you brought it up, I assume you have a possible solution.”
