The New Year

While the whole of America was marveling at the success of Red Bull and Atari the event finished on 21 December 1970. A young boy called Steven Huntley, only 19 years old and living in Los Angeles, achieved the highest score recorded in any of the special Red Bull arcade machines.

Representatives of the company flew towards Los Angeles and presented him with a large cash check which he instantly used in one of Los Angeles' Citibank branches. Of course, the whole celebration was filmed by the media and reported across the United States the next day.

They even followed Steven to his home where they interviewed his parents and immediate family. Dennis and Tanja wanted to use this event to show the world that games could create great story's and even change the life of a very good gamer in a positive way. This would later become one of the very important events that led to the emergence of professional gamers.

Meanwhile Simon spent the rest of the year in the presence of his family in New York. He spent the most time with his grandparents, because he didn't really care a lot for them during the year. In the end he had to spent more than initially planned to make sure Atari and Red Bull would have a great start.

He needed to take a longer break during Christmas and his upcoming 19th birthday. His parents were incredibly proud of what he and his sister had achieved this year. The upcoming financing of Red Bull was important enough for all the family elders to get back into business and fight for the interests of the Smith family with the large Wall Street investment firms. And all of that was created by two teenagers alone.

Alexander was getting increasingly better at dealing with the success of his siblings and he truthfully helped Caroline a lot with the management of Red Bull. The event and the following success would have never been that smoothly without him. Of course, both Simon and Caroline wanted to reward him with a certain number of shares in Red Bull, but he refused. Not because he didn't want to have a business relationship with his siblings, but because he accepted Simon's invitation to lead the next company he would create.

After talking it through with his grandparents and his parents, while looking back at the incredible success of last year and how much benefits the whole family received because of it, everybody agreed it would be a great opportunity for Alexander to become the CEO of a new company. Neither of his parents really needed him in the law firm, which they led with many of their senior partners, and after seeing the positive effect on Caroline, they even encouraged him to give it a try.

But everything needed to wait for next year, because the Smith family turned to calmness while Atari and Red Bull were on the finishing line for this year.

On January 15th Simon celebrated his birthday at the Long Island villa of his family. It was the exact same location than last year, but the party was visited by many more people, with a lot more importance than last year. Many well-connected businessmen and politicians of New York were invited and gladly celebrated the birthday of New York's newest business genius.

Caroline was surrounded by all the golden ladies of New York, but she was still not happy, even though her recent success catapulted her at the throne of New York's young ladies. The reason was quite simple, as Simon was dancing intimately with Sarah Harrison on the dance floor, while everybody was watching the golden couple.

After thinking it through for a while Simon decided to ask Sarah out on New Year's Eve and asked her to be his formal girlfriend. Even though he didn't know whether their relationship would last for eternity, but he felt very peaceful whenever the two of them spent time together. He needed a quiet harbor during all the interesting and exciting things he did. His life would become more and more irregular in the future, because with the growth of his business more and more challenges would await him. This idea was making him excited but at the same time a little fearful and the thought of having a companion walking the path with him assured him a lot.

Sarah was extremely surprised by Simon's confession, because she honestly never thought they would really have a future together. Not because she didn't want to, she was beyond himself with all the joy this confession brought to her, but Simon never really acted like he had a serious interest in her. Whenever they went on vacation together, he was a true sweetheart and a gentleman, while he was rather cold and distant while they were in New York.

Both were very happy together and their parents blessed genuinely. Of course, they knew that two 19-year-olds still needed a lot of time before they could talk about a really serious relationship, let alone something like an engagement, but neither family was unhappy with the partner of their child.

The Harrison family was not some kind of incredibly powerful and wealthy family like Morgan or Rockefeller, but they lived in New York for over a century and their family is connected to many politicians of New York and they have the most influence on the police system of New York. Whether it is the NYPD (New York Police Department) or even the New York FBI branch, the Harrison family has family members and connections in important positions.

The Harrison and Smith family were pretty much on the same level before, one well connected in the police system, one in the law system. But after the rise of Red Bull and Atari the Smith family was leading ahead, which made Sarah's elders were happy with their connection. Else they wouldn't have let the young girl travel around the world with a well-known playboy like Simon.

Overall, Simon's birthday party was very smooth, and everybody was happy with how things went. The senior partners of the Wall Street investment banks learned that Red Bull would start financing in the second half of 1971 and were already gearing up to eat as much as possible of the 30% that would be used for the A-Round financing.