October 4, 2011 Tuesday – 4AM. Shelby Hotel, Kangpan Capital City, East Tengueb.
Tayaw woke up feeling re-energized. Because of his enhancements, his sleeping time has reduced to around 4 hours for a whole night's full sleep. He opened his laptop and checked Topaz's e-mail and Chala's e-mail of the finalized contract of Topaz Publishing for The Halfling. For September, Tayaw's fairy tales sold 3.8M copies giving Tayaw 6.2M BGC after deducting Chala's share and what he set aside for the taxes. Chala expects that the fairy tales would sell below a million copies a month starting January of 2012.
Unlike his fairy tales books, Topaz's deal with Tayaw for The Halfling has a starting royalty of 20% for the soft cover books, for the initial 7,000 copies sold and peaks at 30% starting after 21,000 copies are sold. The hard cover books start at 25% for the initial 7,000 books sold and peaks at 35% after the 21,000th copy sold. A much more generous offer.
Tayaw reached for his business phone and texted Chala "How's the translation by the way?" Unlike the Fairy tales which can be translated by multiple translators in each language because of the different independent stories in it, The Halfling is one continuous novel that requires a much more careful and much closer interpretation to the original English version so a single good translator per language is a much better choice.
Tayaw then closed his laptop and opened the window curtains in his hotel suite to look at the flat terrain of Kangpan City and compared it to Ouigab and Okuba's hilly and mountainous terrain. Tayaw came to Kangpan Capital City last Sunday to visit the U.S. Embassy for his E2 Visa interview. Tayaw, in addition to investing in PinkApron, contacted Cognito as well. Cognito is a 360 degree video capture tech company that will become a huge success in the future as the world enters into an era of virtual reality and panoramic photography and videography.
From what Tayaw can remember, Pink Apron would go public on 2015 with a valuation of $2 billion but its stock price and valuation would plummet soon after going public.Cognito, on the other hand, Tayaw knew that they will be a huge success in the future. Cognito would be a private company until the year 2025. He could clearly remember Cognito becoming a news sensation when they became public and was valued at $250 billion dollars by the North American stock market and that market cap hardly rose since then because of the rise of many if its competitors.
Just like his proposal to the head of PinkApron, he gave a similar offer to Cognito and offered $15M for 51% share of the company and offered yearly salaries to the company's head developers. Tayaw, however cannot invest in the companies without having a US visa so he talked with the folks at Pink Apron and Cognito to write up investment proposals for him as it is a requirement for the visa. The E2 visa is a non-immigrant visa used by non-us citizens to enter the United States to conduct business activities like what he's intending. So with the investment proposals at hand, and an international lawyer by his side, he was able to have an impressive interview with a U.S. consul.
Tayaw closed the curtains and went to the bathroom for a shower. After the shower, he packed all his things to his luggage and checked out of the Hotel. "Thank you for your stay, you're always welcome in Sheraton." The manager himself came down to bid Tayaw goodbye and thanked Tayaw for staying in a presidential suite for two nights. "I will." Tayaw replied amicably and exited the hotel's front doors. A valet also brought Tayaw's pick-up truck to the front, ready for Tayaw. Driving away from the hotel, Tayaw smiled bitterly. He knew that being rich affords him many material luxuries, but to receive a much different treatment from other people too, is a bizarre feeling.
After a few minutes of driving, Tayaw finally arrived at Kangpan City's fishing docks. Teungeb is an island nation the size of Kazakhstan smacked in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, positioned just north of the equator, with the east coast touching the International Date Line. With Teungeb's location, the fishing industry is one of the biggest contributors to Teungeb's economy. Kangpan City's fishing docks is the largest fishing hub in Teungeb's East Coast and millions of kilograms of fish are traded in it every day.
Stepping out of the vehicle, Tayaw can smell the warm early morning sea breeze mixed in with the typical smell of a fish market. Tayaw actually does not know anything about fish, but still wants to bring home a fresh fish to Okuba. Okuba, even Ouigab City, belonging to a province like Nabla which is in the middle of the country, only has limited types of fresh seafood to sell.
Reaching the market, Tayaw noticed a gathering of a few men in a store. To satisfy his curiosity, he entered the store and he found it was an auction for a fish. The men surrounded a crate containing a huge tuna labeled as 'Blue Fin Tuna – 220 KG' with what looks to be the boss of the store conducting the auction. "28,000 from 28. 30,000 from 13. 31,000 from 36. 32,000 from 28. 35,000 from 13. Anyone else for 36,000? 36,000 from 28. 38,000 from 13! Anyone for 39,000? No one? Sold!" The boss said and his employees, in a practiced manner, dragged away the auctioned tuna and one employee talked to the man holding a number 13 sign.
After satisfying his interest, he walked out of the store and took a deep breath. He did not expect that a blue fin tuna would cost 38,000 BGC for 220kg. That's more than a half of his pick-up truck's worth. Thinking about it though, it made sense if that fish was going to be used by sushi restaurants.
Tayaw walked around for a few more minutes before entering another store that just finished their auction. He entered the store because he noticed its boss speaking Japanese earlier. The Japanese when it comes to handling tuna are a lot more careful fish butchers than any other people in the world and the fish they process smell less fishy, at least from what he read in his previous life. Ikejime, if he remembers it right, is what they call their process.
He noticed that there are still a few crates of fish left in the store. Tayaw walked towards one that caught his eyes; Yellow Fin tuna 164 kg is written in the label. An employee then walked to him. "How may I help you?" The employee asked. "It's not being auctioned?" Tayaw asked back as he pointed at the tuna. "Maybe it will when smaller sushi restaurants and fish dealers come. If no one buys it, we'll just sell it at a fixed price of 19BGC per kilogram." The employee explained. Tayaw knew he appeared like a newbie with his questions, but he's not a sucker; he already looked around for prices.
"19BGC? Come on. I saw a Yellow Fin tuna selling in another store for 11 per kilo." Tayaw replied. He's lying. He did not look around that much but the cheapest price he saw for a yellow fin of the similar weight is 14 BGC per kilo. He also knows that this fish will not be auctioned off because the other stores didn't auction their Yellow Fin that weighed less than 170 kg. "True but those are of inferior quality." The employee replied smugly. "Right. It looks like I'll go to that store that sells that inferior yellow fin then." Tayaw replied as he started walking out.
"Okay! Fine. I'll sell it to you for 16 BGC per kilogram. That's my bottom limit. Even though it's more expensive than the one you saw by a lot, I wasn't lying when I said my fish is of better quality." The employee said. Tayaw was confused at how easy it was. He knew however that the employee isn't lying. The 14 BGC per kilo yellow fin he saw looked horrendous compared to the beautiful plump yellow fin in front of him. That's the reason why he wants to buy this particular fish in the first place.
"Alright. I'll take it. Please pack it for me; it'll travel for a day or two to Nabla. Can you also debone and cut it up? I'll pay you extra. I��ll take the receipt too. Thanks." Tayaw said and he handed six 500BGC bills to the employee. The employee, excited with Tayaw's 380BGC change he's giving away, went to work.
While waiting for his tuna to be packed, Tayaw went out of the store to look for a place selling octopus and lobsters. Tayaw always loved lobster dishes in his previous life, but could only eat it twice or thrice a year. While he liked the taste of lobsters, he doesn't like spending his money on something that was treated like an ocean pest only a hundred years ago. Octopus, on the other hand, is something Tayaw never had before so he was curious on how it would taste.
A few minutes later in another store, he received two Styrofoam ice boxes containing two big lobsters in one, and two octopi in another. "Here. It's best if you cook them as soon as you arrive." "Thank you." Tayaw said as he went back to the store where he bought his Tuna. The tuna was just finished flash freezing and Tayaw watched as the employee packed his tuna in a styrofoam along with a lot of dry ice. Tayaw has no problem unloading his stuff when he reaches Okuba because of his enhanced body.
He decided to have a hefty breakfast first before driving back to Okuba. Even though it's still early in the morning, Kangpan Fishing Dock and market is busy 24 hours a day including the restaurants. He ordered two big grilled squids, a whole lobster, a whole deboned salmon grilled well, three cups of white rice and a vegetable salad. The server of the restaurant who took his order was dumbfounded at Tayaw's order. To the server, he estimated that the amount of food Tayaw ordered can be shared by two burly customers with great appetite. Looking at the tall and lean Tayaw, the server was skeptical if Tayaw can finish them all so he also prepared some packaging, sure that Tayaw will have his leftovers packed up.
To Tayaw, it would have been a large amount of food. After his body's enhancements however, this is barely enough to fill his stomach. Despite that, he didn't want to order more because feeling his stomach may make him feel sleepy while on a drive.
His food finally arrived and he started eating. While enjoying food that he would rarely have, his thoughts also wandered to the route he will take home. There are basically two routes he can take. The first route, preferred by most, is a straight highway through two cities but will take him a day and a half drive. It would pass through Gonto Province's Clambu City and Nukab Province's Kubing City before reaching Nabla Province's Ouigab City. If he did not buy seafood, he would visit Clambu City and look around because it's known as Teungeb's Hollywood. He would also visit Kubing, Ouigab's closest and more elevated neighbor city, which has a great rock-climbing scene and is also a place frequented by famous athletes for high-altitude training.
The second route, which he will take is a shorter one that will only take him a day, but more dangerous. From Kangpan Capital City, it will pass through Gonto Province's flat and straight rural roads, then to Nukab Province's foggy winding terrain, and to Nabla's even more dangerous zigzagging roads. If it was before, he would not be confident driving the route. But with his body and brain's enhancement that granted him better senses and a fighter jet pilot's reflexes, he drove this route on his way to Kangpan City and will drive this route again home to Okuba.
After finishing breakfast, he paid his bill on the counter and got on his truck. Unknowingly to him, the server was dumbfounded while folding back the packaging he already prepared.