The Otio in Negotio

By E W Farnsworth

In ‘The Otio in Negotio’, E. W. Farnsworth has brought together another lively, intelligent collection of stories, focusing on the humor, romance and oddities of exceptionally active and intelligent people in the contemporary world of business. As the title of the entire collection implies, these stories are highly allusive and full of hidden puzzles and games meant to pique the reader's attention. Names are significant. Allusions enrich the narratives. The scope of business is global, and many business plans resemble those of top startup companies in today's financial headlines. The fun in these stories is tempered by the constraints and challenges of business. Farnsworth's CEOs are human and infallible. Sometimes love finds a way, and sometimes it is cruelly eliminated from the personal equation. Where business triumphs, so does the human spirit. When satire chastens, the biters are bitten. A seasoned editor described lead story 'TwinLions' as "Breathtakingly new ... I've read nothing remotely like it."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9780244966799

E W Farnsworth

E. W. Farnsworth lives and writes in Arizona. Over two hundred fifty of his short stories were published at a variety of venues from London to Hong Kong in the period 2014 through 2018. Published in 2015 were his collected Arizona westerns Desert Sun, Red Blood, his thriller about cryptocurrency crimes Bitcoin Fandango, his John Fulghum Mysteries, Volume I, and Engaging Rachel, an Anderson romance/thriller, the latter two by Zimbell House Publishing. Published by Zimbell House in 2016 and 2017 were Farnsworth’s Pirate Tales, John Fulghum Mysteries, Volumes II, III, IV and V, Baro Xaimos: A Novel of the Gypsy Holocaust, The Black Marble Griffon and Other Disturbing Tales, Among Waterfowl and Other Entertainments and Fantasy, Myth and Fairy Tales. Published by Audio Arcadia in 2016 were DarkFire at the Edge of Time, Farnsworth’s collection of visionary science fiction stories, Nightworld, A Novel of Virtual Reality, and two collections of stories, The Black Arts and Black Secrets. Also published by Audio Arcadia in 2017 were Odd Angles on the 1950s, The Otio in Negotio: The Comical Accidence of Business and DarkFire Continuum: Science Fiction Stories of the Apocalypse. In 2018 Audio Arcadia released A Selection of Stories by E. W. Farnsworth. Farnsworth’s Dead Cat Bounce, an Inspector Allhoff novel, appeared in 2016 from Pro Se Productions, which will also publish his Desert Sun, Red Blood, Volume II, The Secret Adventures of Agents Salamander and Crow and a series of three Al Katana superhero novels in 2017 and 2018. E. W. Farnsworth is now working on an epic poem, The Voyage of the Spaceship Arcturus, about the future of humankind when humans, avatars and artificial intelligence must work together to instantiate a second Eden after the Chaos Wars bring an end to life on Earth. For updates, please see www.ewfarnsworth.com.

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The Otio in Negotio

THE OTIO IN NEGOTIO:

THE COMICAL ACCIDENCE OF BUSINESS

Tales about the Dark Side of Making Business Work

E. W. Farnsworth

Copyright © E.W. Farnsworth 2018

All rights reserved

THE OTIO IN NEGOTIO:

THE COMICAL ACCIDENCE OF BUSINESS

Tales about the Dark Side of Making Business Work

E. W. Farnsworth

ISBN 978-0-244-96679-9

Published by AudioArcadia.com 2018

Disclaimer:  The stories in this collection are works of fiction.

Publisher’s Note: This book contains adult themes.

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction

in whole or in part in any form. No part of this publication

may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form

or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other

electronic or mechanical methods, without the written permission

of the publisher. Publisher can be contacted via email at [e-mail]

Dedication

Lindsay

Acknowledgements

The stories, ‘Promised Land’, ‘Selling Smiles’, ‘Simon Plenty’, ‘The Appraisal’, ‘The Purist’, ‘The Carpet Bagger’, ‘The Man Who Loved Codfish Balls’, ‘The Water Man on the Mountain’, ‘The Cyber Troll Queen’ and ‘Placebo’ were published in numbers of The Tightfisted Scot Advisory Newsletter during 2015 and 2016. They are republished here by permission of Wilson F. Engel, III, Ph.D., editor and general manager of TFS.

The stories, ‘Lindsay Holloway’ and ‘Her Long Lonely Search’ [the latter story under the title, ‘Gaming Her Way to Love’] were published in the anthology, It’s an Urban Style of Love, released by Zimbell House Publishing LLC in 2016. They are republished here by the kind permission of Evelyn Zimmer, editor of Zimbell House Publishing LLC.

Foreword

Business and pleasure have been distinguished since Classical times, yet contemporary business yields numerous opportunities for taking pleasure in laughing at the drudgery, chicanery, greed, folly, over-reaching or aspirations of working people. Satirists like Mel Brooks have orchestrated entire films, such as The Producers (1968), on comedy inherent in the theater.

The statement, A sucker is born every minute, is attributed to the mid-nineteenth century showman P. T. Barnum, though he may never had said it. (R. J. Brown wrote that the clause originated with banker David Hannum in regard to one of Barnum’s more egregious hoaxes.)

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break was a Universal Pictures film (1941), for which W. C. Fields wrote the script and played the starring role. Suckers are plenteous among global citizens as well as Americans, and taking advantage of fools is the self-proclaimed role of hucksters everywhere.

Many of E. W. Farnsworth’s stories take their departure from the author’s variegated personal experiences in the world of work, particularly with software development start-ups like that posited for the cosmology of ‘TwinLions’. In that case, the relationship between government-sponsored developments and independent developments by young eccentrics and geniuses is a large part of the comic design.

Many stories in this volume intentionally ridicule entirely fictional characters who have a knack for deceit that sometimes, as in the story, ‘The Purist’, bites the biter in hysterical fashion. Yet characters such as impresario Ratchet in ‘Promised Land’ actually exist in the business community though they seldom meet with his fate. Likewise the stories, ‘Selling Smiles’, ‘Simon Plenty’, ‘The Appraisal’ and ‘The Cyber Troll Queen’, take their models from life, altered by exaggeration past the point of credulity so as not to embarrass or libel anyone in particular.

Some stories in this collection romanticize real business people and situations, as in ‘The Man Who Loved Codfish Balls’ and ‘The Water Man on the Mountain’. Yet comical situations do not always play out as comedy. ‘Lindsay Holloway’ and ‘Her Long Lonely Search’ contain romantic as well as business themes in equal measure, and both have a serious edge. This also pertains to the serio-comic elements of the long romance, ‘Water and Steam - A Novella’.

Standing at the extremes, like purposely misplaced bookends, ‘Placebo’ takes an ageing contemporary generation past the end of all expectations and belief. ‘Breaking Water’ ends this collection with a reminder of the alternative to an entirely comic view of business or of life. The final lines ask a question about whether to break water, wind or China.

If this volume raises a wry smile or touches a raw nerve to make the reader think, the author’s labors shall have been worthwhile.

E. W. FARNSWORTH

Gilbert, Arizona, USA

TwinLions

Kickoff of TwinLions LLC

Leo Leonelli kicked the can to Freddy Stair, and Freddy kicked the can to Charlie Bank, who crushed the can under his heel, smiled and said, Let’s get something cold. I am melting in this heat.

The three boys dropped their boards and flew down the mall to the game arcade where they drank from the fountain and then sat on an open bench.

So, Freddy, Charlie asked, what are you gonna be?

A guru, that’s what. A gamers’ gamer. I will make the best games in the world. Everyone will play my games, even you two!

Not a bad idea, Freddy, Leo said, but what will you do for money in the meantime? Leo was always practical, always figuring the angles. You could count on him.

Well, that is the question. I can’t make money simply by making and playing games.

You have that right. Are you going to marry some rich heiress and game off her money?

Maybe.

Okay. Let me introduce you to Rita, Charlie suggested. Rita is just your type. You know, Rita with the red head, skinny as a bone.

She’s rich? She likes gamers?

No and yes, you geek, and ugly as she is - and as desperate - I do not think she would ever go for a skinny, pimply teen-age rake like you. But I can introduce you. See where that goes. What do you say?

Guys, listen up. I have an idea. Leo was always having ideas, but they were big ideas. Sometimes they were colossal. It was worth it to hear him out. It passed the time on a hot summer’s day almost as well as playing a video game in the arcade.

Okay, Leo, Charlie said, what is it this time? A Prince of Darkness game that looks a lot like Packman? A scam game that has the look and feel of Space Invaders, with the same software only different colors? Some magical Crystal Ball with real data?

Give him a break, Charlie. Go for it Leo. What do you have in mind?

You may laugh, but do you know those weighing machines they used to have in all the stores? The scales where you stand on a platform and feed coins into the slot, and you get your weight and a horoscope?

Charlie and Freddy laughed. They knew.

Leo, are you thinking about making those scales and putting them in arcades? No one weighs himself anymore - at least in public.

Did they ever? Who cares? Leo asked. He had walked them unawares into one of his mystical diversions. They had grabbed right on to the vision of watching fat old ladies weighing themselves. They had visions of transferring the same scales somehow into arcades.

What about these devices, Leo? What makes them anything like cool?

Well, Charlie, what got me thinking was the horoscope idea. Someone thought that just getting your weight was not enough to pay a nickel or a quarter for. So the genius threw in a horoscope. So you might not even care about your weight. I know this guy named Judd. He loves to play the horses. He places bets. He goes to the scale not to get his weight, but to get his horoscope. He does it every day. I asked him why, and he told me. By having his horoscope, he knows whether to bet or not. Sometimes the horoscope gives him hints about the horses. What I figured is that many people need to get horoscopes.

My Mom used to read her horoscope every day in the newspaper. We don’t get a newspaper anymore because, you know, we all have these. Charlie held up his cell phone.

Okay, Charlie, I can see you’re actually capable of thinking today even though it is hot. So here it is: people for thousands of years have liked consulting oracles and having their horoscopes read. Kings, queens, philosophers, businessmen, girls looking for guys, guys looking for girls, betters like Judd, great generals. They sometimes pay big money for having their horoscopes prepared by big-time soothsayers and astrologers.

My Dad goes to see a reader adviser, but my Mom doesn’t like it, Freddy said.

The three boys laughed until their sides almost split at the idea. Then Freddy and Charlie began to ponder what Leo was saying, and they nodded reflectively there on that bench in the arcade. All around them were games with their alluring lights and sounds. Ordinarily the boys would be pumping the game machines with coins. Today they were fixated on Leo’s big idea.

Okay, said Charlie, we follow you. Everyone wants to know whether to dare to take a chance where it counts. They can guess, but they cannot know. So the horoscope helps them. They may not believe in the horoscope, but having the words matters somehow. They would not make a move without their horoscope.

You are more than hot, Charlie. You’re getting the point. But think it through. Look it up on the web. No, not now, you numbskull! I have already surfed the web. You can check my facts later. Just be patient and listen. Freddy, are you with me so far?

Leo, you must think horoscopes are worth money. I say, so what? A penny here, a penny there. Look, you get horoscopes from somewhere and you put them out on the Net. How are you going to get people to buy what you are selling? You need millions of customers even to begin. And folks will make nothing but trouble for you if the horoscopes do not work.

The three boys thought Freddy’s suggestions through for about five minutes. Then Leo started up again.

This isn’t rocket science. Let’s follow my logic. We know horoscopes are a hot commodity since a lot of people want them. We know people laugh at other people who believe in horoscopes, but even some of the scoffers secretly consult horoscopes. So, and now Leo drew out his own cell phone, if I could put a horoscope application service on everyone’s cell phone, I would have established a platform. Wait, wait - I’m not finished. What if I could go one step further? What if my service was not to give good and bad news? What if my service gave only bad news …

You mean, Charlie interjected, Leo’s horoscopes would only tell you if something terrible would happen? Why, that’s not a horoscope. That would be a horrorscope!

The three boys laughed.

Your ship will wreck.

Your girl will shaft you.

You will lose all your money.

You will die young.

Leo nodded, and he smiled. He looked from one pair of understanding eyes to the other. You’re getting the picture. Leo’s great idea with his ‘horrorscopes’ - and thank you, Charlie for confirming the name! - is that they can help you avert a disaster.

Let me see if I am following this, said Freddy to Charlie. If I buy one of Leo’s horrorscopes, I may not know that things will go well, but I sure will know when things go horribly wrong. Am I right?

You’re getting close, pal. Let’s go one step farther. What are you likely to do when you have an indication in your horrorscope that things won’t go well with - whatever?

I get you, Charlie interjected. You’d become extremely cautious; you might wait until a better time; you might want to get a better horrorscope.

And where does that lead you, Charlie?

Addiction, said Freddy.

Just think, guys, when people get the idea that Leo’s horrorscopes are even correct one half of the time, they will be buying them right and left. Hear me out. In ancient Rome, magicians used to go out on the street. For the lowest denomination coin, you could reach into a pot the magician had beside him. You could pull out only one stone. That stone was either white or black. If you got a white stone, you would have good fortune.

So Leo’s horrorscope would be the black stone for bad fortune? Charlie asked, more engaged than skeptical.

The binary aspect is obvious. And it is like flipping a coin, with the difference that your horrorscope will be generated not from some sort of mindless random number generator but from a computer program that digested what it knew of you personally. Your horrorscope, Charlie, is not the same as Freddy’s horrorscope, even though you were both born under the same astronomical sign - which, as you know, you were.

Scorpio.

Yes, Scorpio.

And my sign is in my name. Well, it is in both of my names. I am a Leo.

Leo the lion, said Freddy.

And so you are the two lions, said Charlie.

Well, you have nearly guessed the name for my new enterprise. It’s TwinLions. And I have already formed an LLC to introduce the world to my horrorscopes. What do you think?

I think you are fishing for small change. I am not sure this will work. Charlie was always the skeptic.

Geeks, let’s give this baby a try. I happen to have built the first TwinLions mobile application. You two can download it right now. I’ll help you if you give me your cell phones. The boys reluctantly handed over their phones to Leo who downloaded his app to each phone. After that, he returned each of them to their rightful owners.

Now click on the app, and see what you get.

Charlie and Freddy did as they were instructed. On each of their viewing planes they saw the TwinLions logo and their own astrological signs. Below was an area for becoming a horrorscope subscriber that entitled the buyer to anytime access of a horrorscope for one penny each.

I have given you two gift subscriptions, so enter your names where indicated. Enter your passwords also. Now you can press the red button which appears for your horrorscope.

Well, today is my lucky day, said Freddy.

It’s my lucky day also, Charlie chimed in.

Yes, neither of you has a horror waiting for you today. You can check as many times as you like during a twenty-four-hour period. The program knows where you are. It is constantly calculating the alignment of the stars. Each time you pull down a horrorscope, you’ll be charged a penny. Give it a try. And compare results.

Okay, Leo, Charlie said, Freddy and I have different displays. Conceivably, though, in a twenty-four hour interval we might have differences simply because we were born on different days within our sign.

Yes and the program accounts for those differences. You’ll notice that I had already named the horoscopes as horrorscopes before you suggested the name. I therefore have copyright, but I won’t sue you for infringement. Just kidding.

How are you going to make any money with this app? asked Freddy.

If I tell you my secret, Freddy, will you come and work for me? That goes for you too, Charlie. Will you join me in this enterprise? When I tell you the whole story, I’ll have to kill you if you don’t join me.

Now I’m not laughing, said Charlie.

Me neither, Freddy agreed.

We’ll shake hands right now and agree that my secret goes to the grave with you. I ought to get a lawyer and make everyone sign, but we can do that later. By shaking hands, we are partners as long as this crazy idea lasts.

The boys shook hands in agreement.

Now, let’s get out of this arcade. We can go to my den at home. Mom and Dad are both at work today, so we’ll have privacy for our discussions.

The boys put down their boards and speeded to the Leonellis’ home, which was their real gaming and programming center. Here they had shared fun and production in equal measure since they were ten years old.

Leo’s Dad was a major guru and gamer, and his Mom was no slouch gamer. They were middle class people, so they had no big money for start-ups. But Leo’s Dad had taught Leo from his earliest years to make something out of nothing. He had trained Leo to be a master programmer in arcane arts whom few knew existed. Leo could out-program most of the graduate program instructors at the university. The way his fingers flew over the keyboard, you were convinced that his strokes were not far behind his prodigious thought processes.

Charlie and Freddy were also extremely talented programmers. Their families were in the gaming industry as well, but the three boys learned a lot from each other. They knew the joys of being ‘in the Zone’ together. They shared everything they learned on the outside. They had respect among the hackers and crackers, not just in their neighborhood and state, but in the world programming communities.

The three boys grabbed cold canned diet Cokes from the fridge in the den and assumed attitudes of royal ease on the futons, as if they were Greek gods.

So, guys, Leo continued, I have a simple question. Who in the world today has the greatest tradition and interest in horoscopes? You do not have to look it up, Charlie. I can tell you right now it is the Chinese. And how many Chinese are there? Well, my Mom says there are somewhere around one-and-a-half billion. And she is Chinese. Why am I interested in that number? Because if you consider one penny for one horrorscope for one person all by itself, that is not much revenue.

I’m having an Aha Moment, said Charlie.

You are a frigging genius, Leo, for such a dork, kidded Freddy.

And for the penny equivalents extended to the whole world, we are looking at a fortune, daily. We are looking at the perpetual earning machine. We are looking at never having to look anywhere else for the money to build our games.

Leo sat back and watched his friends absorb what they had just heard. They were silent for a long while. They sipped and nodded. Charlie burped. Freddy reached out to punch Leo’s arm.

Goddam, Freddy said, this is serious. I mean, how can we own this, really?

"Good question, Freddy, but before I fill you in about ownership, I want to let you know my main concerns. First, the capability behind the horrorscopes is a package of algorithms I have been working on for over for a year in almost total secrecy. My Mom’s people back in China are from a long line of astrologers and experts at the I-Ching, or Book of Changes, and they have been helping me. Second, I have tested the algorithms thoroughly, using my family and us three as guinea pigs. I made a complete record of the results of the prototype, and I will share the record with you. Third, I have been doing market research which may astound you. It astounded me. What I learned is that the biggest software breakthrough of our age will be something called predictive analytics. That is precisely the kind of software we three built and it’s called the Crystal Ball."

We have been through all this before, Charlie interjected. We did call it our Crystal Ball. Your Dad got involved, and it was taken by him and our Dads into the gaming world. Are you telling me that the engine generating your horrorscopes is the result of our Crystal Ball programming?

Charlie, let me only say that when you begin playing with the software I have built, odd things happen. Your life changes when you have the horrorscopes to guide you. And the horrorscopes are merely one half of the equation. The full horoscopes - the positive and the negative, the yin and the yang - are another business line entirely. They are for special customers only, and I intend to sell them for a range of prices. What do you think a government like ours would pay to know whether to sign a treaty? or to go to war? or to invest in a particular strategic technology?

My Dad says we need a Holy Grail to make decisions about the defense and intelligence budgets. He liked the idea of using the Crystal Ball software to help with that, said Charlie.

"Wait a minute, Leo. Just a minute ago you were talking about the I-Ching. Are you putting out the horrorscopes in Chinese characters in China?" Charlie was again asking a core question, and Leo was pleased.

Nothing else could possibly work in China, Charlie, he replied. And we would be using the five major dialects. I have two of those, and my Mom and her relatives have the other three. Outside of China we will also be putting out the product in the most frequently used languages around the world. The user interface will be culturally accommodative. So when anyone downloads the TwinLions software, the AI serving it up will make the call as to how the UI will look. I have models of seventy different UIs. We can review them together sometime, but not now.

Just a minute ago, Leo, you mentioned our Crystal Ball software, said Freddy. We all made that software, and no one knows who owns what percentage of it.

Exactly so. We three made the Crystal Ball with pickup programmers, all of whom agreed explicitly to make the end-product open source and free to anyone who wanted to use it. That software is now part of dozens of major programs inside and outside of government. My Dad says seven separate institutions within government each has its own development and support organization to assure the software’s continued operation.

Can we do with it whatever we want?

It is FOSS - Free and Open Source Software, so YES we can. That is, as long as we do not touch the pieces of the software which have been built upon the core by the agencies of government.

How do we organize ourselves to do the work, Leo? Charlie inquired.

"I thought you’d never ask! We three are the officers of the company TwinLions LLC. I am CEO. You, Charlie, are CTO. Freddy, you are COO. Because we are underage, my Dad will be the COB, and my Mom and each of your Dads and Moms will be on the executive board. We will be capitalized with a loan of sixty thousand dollars, twenty thousand dollars from each of our three families. My Dad has arranged all of this with your parents already. His company’s lawyer has drawn up the paperwork gratis. His accountant has - for free - set up our books. Nine months ago, my LLC was approved by the state. Of course, we have no earnings, so no one gets paid until we generate enough free cash flow to make our salaries. Any further questions today?"

Leo, you have gone over the moon on this. And you have taken us with you. I’m very excited. Freddy demonstrated his exhilaration by doing a kind of victory dance around the room.

Me too, Charlie agreed. When Freddy has finished his cavorting around, let’s celebrate by calling in a pizza and playing some online games.

That evening after Leo’s Dad came home, the entire board and officers of TwinLions assembled for the first time in the boys’ computer room, which became known as the TwinLions Command Center. Leo’s Dad opened the meeting and said a few words about the necessity for secrecy except, of course, the people in the room. Then he turned the meeting over to Leo, the CEO.

From that evening forth, TwinLions was a secret enclave in what looked an ordinary middle-class neighborhood. No one in any of the three families - the Stairs, the Banks or the Leonellis - changed their daily routine. The boys continued to appear in the mall and on the streets with their skateboards, their cell phones and their stylishly unstylish teenage clothing. Because their parents had very early on decided that the boys would be home-taught, this meant they had no formal schooling. Instead, the boys gave whatever hours seemed necessary to produce and maintain the software. Their development observed agile and scrum protocols. After all, they had a growing, potentially billion-dollar enterprise to run, and, pizza by pizza, they intended to make every penny of that count.

First Indications of Success

Phase I

Sixty-five percent of all start-up companies fail every year in America. Leo Leonelli was determined that TwinLions LLC would not conform to the statistic. His friends, Charlie Bank and Freddy Stair, were totally committed to supporting Leo. They worked 24/7, and they multitasked to cover for each other when one of them had to crash.

If the boys’ parents had not been entirely behind the project, they might have failed outright. In addition to their initial sixty-thousand dollars of seed money, their parents had provided room and board, laundry service, computers, displays and networking services, and all utilities.

The Leonellis had surpassed the others by providing top level management, a back office through Leo’s Dad’s connections and essential expertise through Leo’s Mom and her family in China. Still, Leo was on the lookout for a sure sign of success.

Beta and Launch

The boys had done their testing; the Beta software that Leo had built was deemed net-worthy within two weeks of their first organizational meeting.

On schedule, the horrorscope capability went live for a limited audience preview on the fourteenth day after their work began. For seven days after the release, the three boys received only a few downloads in the USA and Europe. The majority of downloads were detected in China, and they only numbered in the hundreds during