Legacy

Back then... (20 years ago) (Chapter six)

When life had you by the balls, it reminded you of all those moments in which you could've prevented the clusterfuck you created, and then it laughed. Kathar felt like this in the gloom of his office, which overlooked a fabulous Caribbean beach. In the deep sea of bourbon he was immersed in, he couldn't think, only reminisce about that one day when he could've stopped this from happening; that day when he could've just walked away. He was fooling himself, of course. He knew once he'd started down this path, he'd walk until he couldn't anymore. Those olive-green eyes were the start of this nightmare, but he wouldn't change a second of it. Not if it got him to this same place. His mind traveled to the past, torturing him with the very first encounter with those green eyes. Back when everything was much simpler.

Back then (as much as 3 years can be called back then) he felt it was the end of his life as he knew it. He had been laughed out his last pitch. He prepared to burn his theories when he got an unbelievable call. Now, as Michael Kathar walked slowly towards Oliver Payne's office, he marveled on the way the Greek arts and the more modern style had influenced this pharmaceutical mogul. Payne, a "genius" like himself, had emerged from his doctorate in chemistry shortly after completing a business undergraduate and a biological engineering masters at the same time. Being old money did help him achieve this in record time, he reminded himself, but it was still astounding to him that a man who had everything, would choose to spend the rest of his life working, as opposed to enjoying his already endless bank account.

He recalled that magazine article he'd read a month ago; the moment he'd fallen in love with him. The article stated that being in the public eye and overcoming the expectations of his family and the rest of society had merely hardened his resolve to succeed in his own field, rather than follow in his father's footsteps. Out of that determination and hard work HansPharma was born, in honor of the late Hansel Payne. It had steadily dominated the pharmaceutical market, and although its profit margins weren't as wide as his competition, the diversification of pharmaceutical projects and the patents the company held allowed advancements in medicine that immediately gave him the competitive advantage and made up for his modest profits. He also chose to keep the company at that level of earnings because his focus was to make these medicines available to anyone.

"Might I drive other pharmacies out of business? Sure. But they were the ones who created a predatory market, and a very well-crafted niche for my business. I've always said, if you can make money and feel good about it, why not?" Payne had once said during an interview for Time.

Michael had admired Oliver Payne since he'd read those words and since he'd seen countless interviews. Payne was not afraid to speak the truth, and without the flowery bullshit all these companies were built around. Payne didn't exist within the market. Payne was the market.

He had first heard of Payne in a chemistry class back in his master's studies in genetics. His professor boasted of his "star pupil" Payne and urged all his students to strive for what Payne had achieved. In his professor's eyes, the sky was not the limit, Payne was. Afterward, he'd focused on his own studies, and on beating this ghost that seemed to haunt him during his entire degree, daring him to be a better scientist; to create or discover something no one ever had.

And he did.

Since he was a child, he'd been obsessed with the world's great civilizations. He'd devoured their history and their myths, and when the time came to begin his doctoral thesis, he looked to those myths to conduct further research into human enhancement. Payne was leading the charge in enhancing human life; he could not compete with that. But, to enhance human beings themselves? Now that would put him well above Payne.

Except, of course, the people around him did not believe he could. He'd gone everywhere. The doctoral thesis had been laughed out of the room, and until he gave up pushing the idea of enhanced human beings and settled for a more mediocre topic, his doctorate had not been awarded. The idiots in the board had mentioned that, perhaps, 25 was too young an age to be a doctor in molecular biology. Michael listened for as long as he needed to obtain his doctorate, and then he began pitching his original thesis to everyone from pharmaceutical companies to the military. He had just been laughed out of that meeting days ago, and now, here he was. The last place he'd wanted to go; seeing the last man he wanted to see. Except that jealous disdain had been replaced with feelings of inadequacy and giddiness.