Mr Ma had been fixing each and every person at the table with a withering gaze while Mr Wang had been speaking, and now he grunted and performed some rapid-fire sign language gestures, which Mr Wang interpreted.
‘Mr Ma says he is extremely weary of this company’s underperformance. He adds that if this presentation does not suitably impress him, half of you will be without jobs by the end of today.’
Mr Ma clasped his claw-like, liver-spotted hands together, surveying the tense room with a reptilian gaze. At the other end of a table, a young, painfully thin Chinese man in an ill-fitting suit stood up, almost tripping over the legs of his heavy chair as he did so. He picked up a remote control with trembling, sweat-damp fingers and pushed his thick-rimmed spectacles up his nose. With an awkward cough he pressed a button and dimmed the lights of the meeting room, while the floor-to-ceiling glass walls, which revealed an expansive view of the smog-shrouded megacity from up here on the sixty-sixth floor, became opaque.
Over the centre of the table, a holographic projector conjured up a flickering three-dimensional hologram of a transparent human head, inside of which the brain was clearly visible. Before he began to speak, the young man set the remote control down on the table and dabbed with a handkerchief at his pimply face, which was glistening with perspiration despite the air-conditioned chill.
‘As Mr Ma may know,’ he began haltingly, ‘we, er, have for the last decade been, uh, involved in DNI studies, that is, erm, “Direct Neural Interaction” research and experimentation, and thanks to the, the, the, er, extremely generous funding provided by Huntsmen Inc, we have been able to, um, uh, make a number of, well yes, er, important breakthroughs. By piggybacking on current medical and military research and development on neurally-controlled mechanical devices, we were able to access many, er, technological advances in fields related to areas of the brain and their um, their specific role in establishing, mapping, regulating and forging neural pathways, as well as—’
Mr Ma held up a hand to silence the man and then made a few curt sign language gestures.
‘Stop babbling, you imbecile,’ Mr Wang snarled. ‘Mr Ma is neither a scientist nor a physician, he is a businessman. We are not interested in how you went about your research – we are only interested in what results you achieved.’
The man nodded and dabbed frenetically at his sweat-glistening face.
‘I a-, a-, apologise most s-, s-, sincerely for, um, er, babbling, sir,’ he stammered, clearly flustered as his nerves began to get the better of what little resolve he had initially possessed. ‘To be blunt, what my t-, team has been focusing on, unlike, um, er, the majority of the other R and D t-, teams, is, er, is something else entirely. We, um, we have been using existing DNI advances c-, combined with our own intensive research, to find out exactly er, um, how, well … how the brain dreams.’
Mr Ma scowled and drummed his semi-translucent fingers on the heavily polished table. The young man, meanwhile, tried his hardest to ignore this.
‘You m-, may well be wondering just why it is that we have been, er, researching this. Well, to cut a l-, long story short, we want to revolutionise both the social networking and computer gaming industries, which, um, er, as you know are m-, market l-, l-, leaders in terms of profit margins and demand. You see, with regard to what the, uh, the rival, no, um the other R and D teams have been working on – our company’s flagship products, which are the, um, the Kestrel RS smartphone and the Peregrine TZ-787 tablet, well sir, to be blunt, um, er, those products are t-, t-, trying to compete in a market that is already saturated with, er, extremely comprehensive offerings from our competitors. We are like, um, vultures, competing with hundreds of other vultures to, er, to take a bite of an elephant carcass. Yes, it’s b-, big enough to get a massive chunk of meat, but it’s a problem when there are, er, bigger and more powerful vultures going for the same meat you are. My team thought, what if there’s an, er, as yet undiscovered elephant carcass that we could have all to ourselves?’
The man paused here to imbibe another heavy swig of coffee, and this time he did not dab at his face with his damp handkerchief – it appeared, in fact, that the conviction he had in what he was about to present was finally beginning to overcome his anxiety and bolster his confidence.
‘That, sir, that would be the ultimate in profit and power,’ he said with an unexpected smile, ‘cornering the major stakes in an entirely new market, before any-, anyone else can get in. Let me hand the remote to, to Ms Fang. She can explain it, er, in more simple terms than myself. I, er, do not have a gift with words, as you may—’
‘Hand it over to her then and sit down,’ Mr Wang growled.
The thin man thrust the remote control into the hands of his colleague. Chinese, like everyone else in the room, she was a rotund woman who looked to be in her late thirties or early forties. Atop a broad and rather plain face, her hair was tightly bound in a conservative bun. Her eyes, however, were aglow with confidence and excitement, and burned with an energy that gave her
