Negotiations

From his black SUV Ricky could see Mateo walking into the car park. A man in a hood had been lingering around for the past fifteen minutes, tapping his foot restlessly against the asphalt. Mateo took notice of the man and hurried toward him. They seemed to quarrel briefly, and Mateo suddenly pushed the man's chest hard. His hood fell back, and Ricky could make out Asian facial features embedded in a jaundice wasteland of a face. Ricky was quite familiar with that harrowing face of the addict, and the man in the hood reeked of sinister substances. He rolled down his window just an inch and perked up his ears.

'My help is expensive,' hissed the addict.

Nothing more was said, as Mateo spotted someone walking toward the car park. He motioned for the addict to get in the car, and they sped off into the fog. Ricky wondered what his friend had got himself into, but decided against poking around. Stop trying to play detective, he scolded himself. Go on. Move along.

Fortunately, the bizarre car park drama was out of Ricky's mind by the time he stepped into Chuck Jones's office. The Chairman nameplate on the door belied a refreshingly humble interior that was almost laid bare were it not for the trinity of black L-desk, black leather-faced chair, and black sofa. Chuck typed in the tail end of an email and rose to greet him with a smile.

'Come on in Mr. Vega.'

'Please, Ricky.'

'All right Ricky. It's Chuck.'

'Thank you Chuck. And thanks so much for being generous with your time.'

'Not at all, I was very fascinated by your idea. Would you like something to drink?'

He pointed at a mini-fridge next to the sofa. Ricky opened it and chose a bottle of orange juice.

'You were talking about a headphone of sorts that lets the fans listen to players on the pitch?'

'Yes. I call the project 37th Degree, and essentially the idea is an AI-powered spatial audio amplifier for human voices. The core is an AI model trained on billions of speech samples. It isolates human voices by frequency, pattern, volume, and context, and filters out ambient noise — car horns, rainfall, crowd chatter, you name it. The prototype only supports English but the framework can of course be applied to other languages as well, provided there is sufficient funding. There are infinite applications for the technology. It could be used by the military or firefighters, and as I told you last night, it could bring a whole new level of match-going experiences.'

'I'm still here. This is better than I thought – please keep going.'

'Wouldn't people want to know what Haaland or Mbappe is saying to their teammates? The idea of not just watching sports but hearing sports is revolutionary. We're not talking about hearing the sounds of players striking balls or the swoosh of balls slicing the net. We already get enough of that. We're talking about being right next to these players as they celebrate a goal or give each other pep talks. We can also listen to what they're arguing about - imagine how things could have changed had the world known what Materazzi actually said to Zidane. That's something every sports fan is going to pay for.'

'I agree. So how do we go from the technology to the product?'

'The headphone - or airpods, we want smaller earbud type hardware but the prototype is a slightly bigger headphone model - is easy. With the software installed, the headphones will receive signals from the recorders placed near the pitch. The recording devices can be right next to the cameras, a few on every side. It's just like listening to the radio. It's the recording software and protocol that's the tough part.'

'And you have a solution to this tough problem?'

'It's not a problem.'

'I'm sorry?'

'It's done. Let me show you.' Ricky pulled out his laptop from his backpack and started loading a program. The laptop was covered all over with stickers of esoteric music bands. 'We - some engineer friends and I - have completed the software and we're confident it can run. Here.' He turned the screen toward Chuck and hit the record button. 'Say something.'

'Like what?'

'Anything,' Ricky reached into his backpack and dug up a tambourine and a metronome. Chuck watched curiously as the sound artist turned on the metronome at max volume. As the mechanic hum and distracting click sounds filled the room, Ricky got up and started stomping furiously while shaking the tambourine.

'Come on! Start talking to me. Say anything!'

Chuck scratched his head and obliged to this impromptu performance art staged by the investment-seeking Goldsmiths alumnus. 'All right, well my name is Chuck Jones and today is Monday, May 5th. Quite frankly I'm a little confused. Not sure what I'm supposed to be saying but I'll try to keep talking. Ricky do you need more?'

Ricky smiled and hit the stop button. 'Now watch,' he said as he pressed a button UI that featured the logo of a cypherpunk-style neon sheep. Within a second the MacBook started regurgitating what was a purely distilled, completely filtered replica of Chuck's voice sans background noise. Gone were the metronome's annoying clicks, the stomping, and the tambourine noises; all those sounds had been reduced to a minimal layer of droning barely audible in the background. By contrast, Chuck's voice was immaculately clean and loud.

'Fascinating,' Chuck expressed his growing enthusiasm. 'But this level of performance is not - apologies - mindboggling in today's world. In order to achieve the service level you described, it would need to operate at the same quality across a much lengthier distance.'

'Yes, you're absolutely right.'

Ricky smiled and turned to the large window in Chuck's office. He walked over, opened the window, ran the same execution again, and this time delivered a crisp, decibel-perfect rendering of the conversation between Jimmy the Janitor and Nate the Nutritionist happening in the car park. Ricky's now triumphant, gloating face met the genuinely amazed face of Chuck Jones.

'The sounds of the pitch, the sound of sport, brought to the fans.'

'I'm in. What do you need me for?'

'We're nearing completion and almost have the prototype end-to-end ready for exhibition. But we need more funds for further development, to miniaturise and commercialise the product successfully.'

'How much do you need?'

'Two million dollars.'

'And what are you offering in return?'

'Exclusive rights for commercial use in the sports industry and a two percent stake in the entire business.'

'I think we can do better than that. Surely my contacts could be useful to you.'

'We see huge potential for this technology and value it at much, much higher. Surely you understand the application scope across defense, mobility, literally anything. I'd say my offer is a handsome one.'

Chuck let out an amused laughter at the young man's boldness. 'Understood. But if you didn't need my help, why are you here? You're the one that asked for this meeting.'

'And you're clearly impressed at what I have to offer.'

'But not at its price. I'll tell you what though, ten percent and the money's yours. Pending due diligence from my team, of course.'

'Three percent.'

Chuck laughed again. 'Five. Five's the number. I give you credit for the cultural value you could add yourself as an artist. As well as the engineering that's already completed. But this has a long way to go.'

'Fine. Five without exclusive rights.'

'I keep exclusive rights for sports, but I want first options on non-sports related applications also. I'll throw in an additional five hundred thousand.'

'Done.'

'Great. This will be an investment and collaboration from London Football Club. You can talk to our commercial director about the details. She'll probably want to check on some things, but we'll certainly shock the sports world with this.' Chuck stood up to shake Ricky's hand.

'One more thing,' Ricky added before Chuck could sit back down. 'My engineer Veda is working on miniaturising the recorder into a wearable. Something you could strap to your wrist — looks like a normal watch but it's always listening, always filtering. We're calling it the 37th Degree watch. Early prototype's almost there. If it works, you wouldn't even need pitch-side equipment. One device, worn by anyone, recording everything within a fifty-metre radius.'

'A watch that records everything,' Chuck mused. 'That's either brilliant or terrifying.'

'Depends which side of the conversation you're on.'

Chuck studied Ricky for a long moment, then broke into a grin.

'I like you, Ricky. This isn't a dealbreaker but bit of a privacy risk here with all that eavesdropping no?'

'Potentially yes. But that's why this is a multi-billion dollar business at the least, and why it's a steal for you. You know that already.'

'I suppose we'll need to navigate a few business challenges then.' Chuck winked and escorted Ricky to the door. 'Janice, please have Marissa meet with Ricky here.'