Pearl

Chapter Three: How to Make a Sale

Warning: Gore, Self-harm

"Our research specializes in producing immediate medical care that not only heals the patient, but allows that patient to return to full functionality, no matter the injury. Our vision is to create a new era of mankind, in which neither disease nor injury can outpace our modified natural defenses."

The head researcher paused, letting the anticipation build.

"What we will show you today puts us one step closer to that goal."

From behind a tinted window, the businessman leaned forward in his plush leather seat.

Twenty similarly darkened windows surrounded the raised concrete stage, each hiding a private box seat – an inverted panopticon designed to showcase high stakes investment opportunities for products that could not, or should not, make a path through traditional avenues of funding.

For today's presentation, with the particular application of the product on the market, behind the windows sat a wide array of representatives from warlords, druglords, international industries, and medical conglomerates alike.

They were the type of people to see...creative potential in what was about to be offered to them, and the businessman had spent years curating the list of invitees to this singular event.

This room, and the subterranean market trading it contained, was his creation, something he had designed long before his stepsister had come to him with a single USB, a few loyal team members, a small crate full of vials, and the ashes of what had remained from her previous research position still coating her jacket.

The businessman remembered that day fondly. It was the first time she had looked at him, measured him for what he was capable of, and hadn't found him wanting.

Center stage, the head researcher continued her pitch. Although each box seat was completely soundproofed, her voice projected clearly from the small microphone headset that piped her words directly into each booth.

"A few of you here today are familiar with our T1 living bandage, the symbiotic life form we have created that instantly seals superficial injuries with no scaring. We are thankful for the support of certain parties that has allowed us to continue our work."

The head researcher and her two assistants dipped their heads slightly in the direction of the northwest window.

Behind that window sat two men and a woman in leather chairs shaped like thrones. They held bubbling glasses of champagne that did nothing to hide their smug smiles.

The three were representatives from what was shaping into the largest plastic surgery association on the planet. Just three years prior, their firm hadn't even been a major power in their region, just a small dermatology branch from a rundown hospital with commercials on the local radio station. With the success of the T1, a thin brown liquid that guaranteed foolproof perfection on every procedure, they had broken off into private practice. Within two years, they had infiltrated and devoured most of the small, local practices in the country. This past year, they had begun to extend their reach overseas.

Although they had little more to gain from the research team, the representatives had come to keep an eye on the direction that the project was taking. They needed to be aware of any potential developments that could give their game away.

After all, none of them wanted to imagine the backlash if the public ever figured out that behind the taught, youthful skin they restored to their patients now nestled a living parasite where the fine line and wrinkles used to be.