Chapter Two: Don’t Wish it Were Easier, Wish You Were Better.
Trash took a deep breath. He had been rehearsing this part since the night before.
“It’s not a big deal. It’s just that Sakamoto… Ryo, Ryo wants to adjust the deal. Nothing big, he doesn’t want more money or anything like that.”
“Then what does he want?” Danny’s voice had grown cold and sharp.
Sweat was dripping down Trash’s neck. He had begged Sakamoto not to do this. The man simply would not budge. He hoped that somehow, giving Lancelet a look at the hardware would somehow prevent the entire deal from sinking.
“He wants… the payment…”
“Spit it out!” Danny growled, raising his voice enough that a few heads turned in their direction again.
“He wants the money in cash.”
“Fuck!”
More heads turned. Trash squeezed lower into his chair and stared into the cup holding sugar syrup for the coffee. He heard a slight creak from his chair, warning him not to push into it much harder, or its integrity might fail. Cafe furniture was usually not prepared for people his size and weight, and it wouldn’t be the first time he had broken a chair.
“I told you before that he wasn’t keen on the Singapore account. I explained to Ryo how difficult it would be to get payment in cash. I thought he understood. I told him, you are not a local and can’t transfer so much money easily-“
“Easily? Try fuckinpossible! There are laws against bringing in cash, not that I could even arrange it now that I am here. What the hell?! How is this supposed to work?”
“He said it’s too inconvenient to use the Singapore account. He’s worried someone might track the money transfers.”
“He could have fucking mentioned that before I got on the Goddamned, fucking plane Trash.”
Trash felt his adrenaline surge as the vulgar language spilled out of the man’s mouth. He had learned how to trash talk on the internet, of course, but this was the first time he had ever heard a real person talking like this. It wasn’t just a character in a western movie. Part of him found it exciting, but the rest of him was terrified by the impact of the harsh words directed at him.
“You’re gonna fix this Trash, Cash? That’s fucking impossible. There’s no way to get that much cash into Japan without getting the IRS, Interpol, and God knows who else riding up my ass. I brought you into this deal to make sure this kind of shit didn’t happen. Now this whole fucking trip is turning out to be a waste of my time.”
This was not going well at all. Trash could feel his commission slipping away, and he could not afford to let that happen.
“Wait… be calm, please. Just a minute. I can try to fix this. Just give me time. I will talk to Ryo again tonight. But is there anything you can do? He doesn’t like the Singapore thing. He wants the money here,” Trash spoke quickly, desperation in his voice.
“What the fuck do you expect me to do? I’m here now. It’s not like there’s a Chase Manhattan branch in downtown Tokyo I can walk into.”
Danny stopped for a second to reflect.
“Wait, is there?”
Then, after a second, he shook his head.
“Nevermind. Doesn’t matter. I can’t shift the money here without someone noticing. Money laundering checks and shit. I don’t have a company or partner in Japan, so there’s no way I can get that kind of money here. Not on my timeline.”
Trash sank even lower as he watched his commission evaporate before his eyes. At the rate things were going, he just hoped that Danny would still pick up the bill for lunch. He knew the offer of easy money was too good to be true.
Danny stared at the boxes in front of him, grinding his teeth. Then he let out a deep breath.
“Well, might as well take a look at the goods. If it’s not up to snuff, I can just write off the whole thing.”
Trash felt like he had swallowed a large rock. His fear from a moment ago had turned into despair. This was his only chance. He was out of money, out of time, and out of options.
Danny, on the other hand, had flipped back into the friendly foreigner persona. As quickly as his anger had engulfed him, it had disappeared, like a cloud that momentarily blocked out the sun. He reached into one of the boxes and pulled out a small black box.
Opening the box, he took out a small white object and a pair of earbud-style earphones. Danny examined the white device first. It was small and relatively light, about the size and shape of a Milano cookie, maybe a bit thicker. It had a headphone jack on one end and a USB mini plug on the other, probably for charging and updating the software. On the front was a small LCD screen and a few buttons, and on the back was a plastic belt-style clip.
There was also a security sticker applied across the clip, the kind that left an ugly residue when removed. A warning written in both English and Japanese.
[CONFIDENTIAL: Property of HANSA ELECTRONICS]
The sticker brought back a smile to Danny’s face. Without a word, he started to manipulate the objects, plugging in the headphones and trying to power on the device.
Trash resisted the urge to reach out and assist the other man. He was just a courier at this point, although he had tried out the device the day before with Ryo. He wasn’t here to give instructions on how to use it, nor was he there to protect it from misuse or damage. With the fleeting prospect of getting paid for this job, Trash was tempted to just leave, but a combination of fear, anxiety, coupled with the small hope of salvaging the deal kept him in his chair.
Danny quickly had the device turned on and working. The headphones had appeared normal at first, but upon a closer look, they were a bit strange.
Typical earbuds had a long cable for connecting to a phone or music player via a 3.5mm plug on one side. The other end was split into two shorter wires ending with the small in-ear speakers. Usually, one was longer than the other so that one of the cables could wrap around behind your neck while wearing them.
These earbuds split right at the plug. Instead of a long cable that split halfway, there were just two, nearly two meter-long, wires with an earbud at the end of each wire. Danny placed one into each ear and then started to push the buttons on the device while squinting at the tiny display.
After a minute of fiddling with the device, Danny looked at Trash with a big grin. He placed the white object on the table between them, then spoke again, slowly and clearly, like an English conversation teacher.
“Good afternoon, Trash.”
Then he paused. He furrowed his brow and, with a slightly glazed expression, spoke again.
“Koh-knee-chee-wah, goh-mee.”
It’s a good thing that Trash was not drinking at that moment, or there would have been iced coffee all over the table. Trash half-laughed, half-coughed, as the tension he had been feeling broke.
“What’s so funny?”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
There was another short pause, and then Danny spoke again.
“Nah-knee-gah-oh-mow-she-roy-dehs-kah?”
「Nothing. It’s working pretty well, except for my name, of course. I can understand what you said, at least.」Trash replied in Japanese.
“Wait. Try this,” Trash couldn’t hold back anymore.
Reaching across the table, he pulled lightly on one of the earpod wires, and Danny took that one out of his ear and handed it to Trash, who gave it a quick look, rubbed it on his shirt sleeve, and then shoved it into his own ear. Then he picked up the connected device, pressed the buttons on the top a few times, then placed it back in the center of the table.
「How is this? Can you understand what I am saying?」
Danny paused for a moment.
“Yeah. It works!”
A moment later, a male voice repeated what Danny had just said, but in Japanese, through the earbud in Trash’s ear.
「It works well enough, but it may have problems with a few things. Like it translated my name Trash into trash.」
Trash frowned. This was a strange but annoying quirk. He tried to figure out how to make it work properly.
“Trash… garbage…”
「Trash. trash. Shit.」
Danny was starting to giggle, causing Trash to momentarily panic.
“It translates my name into the Japanese word for garbage.”
“That’s what you get for using an English word for your handle. You could just tell me your real name, and it won’t be a problem.”
Trash gritted his teeth, then took the earbud out, wiped it on the clean napkin on the table, then handed it back to Danny.
“Anyway, You see how it works, right?”
Danny looked down at the device. Then he nodded.
“Yeah. It’s pretty impressive.”
“You should see the phone. In the other box,” Trash blurted out. Worrying that this strange foreigner was already losing interest.
Danny opened up the second box. Inside, packed in grey foam, was a top-of-the-line Hansa cellphone.
Hansa had been late to the mobile handset party. Unlike the other Japanese electronics companies, Hansa did not have strong ties to the Japanese telecommunications ministry, and had not take advantage of the years long protected market that had isolated the country’s mobile phone market from the rest of the world.
That had changed with the iPhone. The old Japanese-style flip phones were no longer the hottest product, and the complacent, slow-moving Japanese electronics companies had been too slow and shortsighted to prevent the market from transforming overnight.
That was when Hansa made a surprising move. As a pioneer in flat-screen display technology, the company was perfectly positioned to take advantage of the demand for larger, higher-quality screens in mobile phones. The company could have established a formidable position by becoming a primary supplier to companies like Apple, Samsung, and others fighting for dominance over this new market. Instead, it made a shockingly aggresive move by purchasing a well-known Taiwanese OEM manufacturer of mobile communications technology.
Just two years after the iPhone was released, the Hansa KT-01 was released to huge fanfare in the Japanese market. Two weeks later, it had been crucified by the media for being a “rushed,” “unoriginal,” and “unusable” junk product.
Priced at a ridiculous premium over the iPhone, the new entry in the market had been a cringe-inducing failure, akin to a rocket blowing up on the launchpad. Rumors were that less than ten thousand units had been sold, and that returns were in the four-digit range.
Still, Hansa’s management persevered. The device in front of Danny was the newly released Hansa KT-01-A, an upgraded model with a faster processor, a better camera, and a larger battery. Unfortunately, those improvements came at a cost. Not only was the upgraded model larger and heavier than its predecessor, but they had also raised its already eye-watering price, making it the most expensive phone on the market by a fair margin.
As for himself, Trash treasured his iPhone 3GS. He had even lined up overnight to get his hands on the upgraded phone when it had been released the previous year. He had also lined up a few weeks ago to get a pre-order coupon for the launch of the new model. The iPhone 4, which was going on sale the next day. Unfortunately, there was no way he could upgrade his phone now. He didn’t even have enough funds in his account currently to pay off his current mobile bill.
Danny picked up the sleek black smartphone, feeling the weight in his hands.
“Wow! This is quite the thick little cutie. Right?”
He hefted the phone in his hands a few times to emphasize the weight.
“Never thought I would be able to hold one of these things. They are probably shipping them straight to a museum.”
Trash was ready this time for the ear-splitting bleating. He managed to maintain a straight face and keep his eyes from scanning the horrified looks likely coming from the other tables.
Activating the phone, Danny watched as the operating system loaded and the Hansa company logo was replaced by a familiar-looking desktop.
While Google had introduced a competitor to the Apple phone’s operating system, and offered it to other manufacturers for licensing, Hansa had pushed ahead with their own in-house system. One of the most common complaints about the Hansa device was, in fact, that very software. It was heavily criticized for being slow and unresponsive, unintuitive and unattractive. It was closer to a replication of Microsoft’s failed mobile operating system, WindowsCE, than a response to Apple’s new, user-friendly touch interface.
That was what Danny was expecting when the device started up. What greeted him in reality was quite a bit different. It was a wholly unexpected and pleasant surprise.
Holding the phone in his hand, the moment he placed his thumb on the screen, a circular menu grew out from that spot, allowing him to see different actions he could take. He pulled back his thumb and placed his index finger on the screen. The same thing happened, but this time, the location and shape of the interface changed. It could recognize what fingers he was using and adjusted the feedback to give a more comfortable position and ergonomic control.
Danny repeatedly touched the screen to bring up the option buttons. He switched fingers and even swapped the phone into his left hand. Each time, the menu morphed to give him an optimized arrangement. It was fast, intuitive, and, he had to admit, fun.
“Damn. When did they do this? This is light years ahead of the first version. This might be even better than the iPhone,” Danny muttered to himself.
“Hold it next to the egg,” instructed Trash.
Danny gave him a confused look. Trash pointed at the translation device on the table.
“Oh, Egg. I get it.”
Danny brought the phone until it was pointed directly at the unit. After a moment, the screen on the phone flashed, and the screen blacked out. Immediately, a large egg filled the screen. It looked like an easter egg, covered in swirls of rainbow colors.
A short animation played out. The egg cracked, the shattered. Out of the shell popped not a bird, but a small turtle. The turtle crawled around the screen in a circle, but quickly morphed into a traditional Japanese princess. Danny thought she was a strange mascot character, with weird eyebrows and a plump white face, but he had to admit that the animation was well done.
Finally, the screen changed into a more traditional menu screen. The princess shrunk into the top left corner of the screen, and across the rest of the top was the title, “SOUND PRINCESS”.
Despite the somewhat lackluster title, the interface was impressive. It was clean and attractive. Danny checked the various options and found the phone’s touch interface was seamlessly integrated with the program. Touching the screen rearranged the design so that nothing was hidden or blocked; the most intuitive options were always the most convenient.
The scope of the application was staggering. Danny found options to change the voice so that two speakers could communicate and the voices could be changed from male to female independently. There was even a toggle to do this dynamically.
The device was preset to work with English and Japanese and apparently would automatically detect the language spoken and adjust the setting appropriately. There was a dropdown that included dozens of other languages, although Danny noted that most of them were greyed out. Only English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, French, German, and Spanish were currently selectable.
He saw options for PTT mode but was unsure what that meant. There was also a “Voice Copy” option.
“What’s this?” Danny pointed the option out to Trash.
Trash was a little annoyed by the question. He was just the middleman, not tech support. But with no better option, he just went with the flow.
“I’m not sure. Ryo said something like it can copy your voice and use that to replace the system voice when it translates. But I think it’s not working yet.”
“Holy shit. This is amazing. This is all top-level. Why has Hansa been sitting on this?”
Trash just shrugged. He knew, of course. Corporate politics. That’s what happened to all the best things. Sakamoto was one of Hansa’s top engineers. He had been working there for his entire career. But then they threw the phone project on him, then blamed him for the failure, despite most of the blunders being made by the top management. It was an old story.
But Sakamoto had been working on his own secret project. The Sound Princess. He had been developing it for years, and the phone project finally gave him the resources to make it into reality.
Trash had known Sakamoto for a while. At first, he had just been one of Trash’s customers. They would usually meet to exchange goods at a local cafe or bar. Trash had introduced Sakamoto to Danny when the American had asked if he knew any Japanese engineers. It was Sakamoto who suggested that Trash act as the middleman for this deal. After he had been informed that he was slated for early retirement, he had become a vengeful and angry man, but he was also a cautious and calculating one.
“Well, damn it. Yeah, I still want it. Fuck! How am I supposed to get that much cash here? I’m heading to Singapore for the next month to set up the venture that is supposed to be working on this. If I fly out without it, the whole thing gets set back… I don’t know. It could tank the whole deal. I need something to show the investors.”
Trash nodded to the device on the table.
“No, that’s not nearly enough. First of all, it has Hansa’s fingerprints all over it. No. I need the source code, and I need enough time for my guys in Singapore to rebuild it.”
That had been the deal. Once Danny released the funds, Sakamoto would send Trash the files. Once Trash handed them over to Danny, He would wire an 8% commission to Trash. Eight thousand US dollars. It was enough to clear his debt and then some. It was enough to give Trash the space he needed to get organized and figure out what to do going forward.
He just needed to figure out how to somehow make the deal go through.