“No, I will not sell a single stock-”, a man dressed in all black talked, “Yes I know our researchers are spread far beyond thin-”, he answered looking aimlessly the elevator doors, “Yes I got a backup plan, the Star Gazer results will come back soon”.

The man had a black beard, hair and eyes, his gaze never focused, or at least you could never tell what it was he looked at.

“Now, announce a board meeting for next week-yes Monday”, the man wanted to tell him to fuck off, instead he hung the call, the elevator doors opened.

His anger flowed out of him, it was almost visible, his grip on the black case is strong. The elevator’s doors began to close, the sound woke up the man up from his thoughts, reflex took over, and he quickly and aggressively stepped in between the closing doors with his left leg, opening them again.

The man walked out, long white hallways on his left and right, they seemed empty from one end to the other. The man with urgency walked down the hallway to his right, but every step he took seemed to calm him, until he reached a door labeled 257B. He stood in front of it, his previous anger not visible anymore, the figure he held a minute ago diminished, as if he had gotten smaller.

In front of the door, he heard weak sounds from the other side, the man put his hand on the handle to open it, and as he was about to push it in, the door opened itself, and out walked a doctor, their gazes met.

“Oh-”, barely surprised, the doctor in a white coat reacted, “It hasn’t been long since your last visit, I didn’t think you’d show up again this soon”, the doctor said as he quickly glanced at the case the man carried and his reaction changed, some genuine surprise and a small amount of anger.

“How is she?”, the man asked looking down on the doctor.

“No new changes, the implants you brought in your last visit don’t seem to be able to reach the important sectors again, it's almost there, but it seems your researchers rushed some parts like the -”.

“Enough, I don’t want to hear it again.”, the man cut him off.

“Lorence, why don’t you take her to one of your facilities, I know of your deep reaching connections.”

“Tensions are rising in every state at the moment, and it will only get worse, here is the safest and you are the only competent neurosurgeon in this sector”, only the man himself knew that what he said was half a lie, even if tensions were rising, it was not the reason of his caution. The stability of the country or its people mattered little the man.

“I am here with a new set of implants; they will suffice to stabilize her condition further.”

“Are you serious about all of this?”, the doctor kept his gaze on the box, “it's been years and each implant you’ve given her is only forcing her to stay alive, not helping her better”, his hands turned into a fist, “each of those is worth millions to research and develop, throwing your money at this problem won't solve it”, the doctor could not keep his head cool, and barely managed to not scream at the man.

This made the man laugh a bit at the doctor.

As a kid the man often watched movies with his mother, in them the hero would fight against the world to save the princess, they would challenge all odds and give up all the riches just to save that one person that mattered the most to them. He often thought those stories were stupid, why risk your life for something that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things?, why risk it all when you could have all the wealth in the world?, he often thought of this when he was younger, and watching those heroes save the life of their dear ones instead of keeping the riches often kept him up at night.

It took one day, no, not even, it took a single call, and he quickly realized that none of it mattered. At that time, he threw away all of his own wealth in an attempt to save her, but to his dismay, it wasn’t enough, all he had accumulated just wasn’t enough, at least not yet.

He figured out that betting on the horrible nature of humankind often made money easy to get, he moved in between the shadows to overhear of any small opportunities, he played dirty, not afraid to get his hands in the mud if it meant getting the job done, he had no strings attached, not loyal to a flag, idea or cause, and no one yet knew, that this man was plotting against all.

The man walked past the doctor making his way inside the room and reminded him of the kind of person he was, “Dr.Park, I recommend you do not question where I choose to invest my money”, without turning he closed the door.

The room had a large TV playing the news and it was decorated by flowers and plants that were rich in color. In front of the man was a curtain that cut the view, and through said curtain the silhouette of a figure could be seen, tubes, cables and machines come off of it all from different parts and weak repeating sounds that each came off of a different machine. It was all constant reminder of the limited time to him, his hands trembled but he still moved the curtains aside.

“Hey, it's been a while…”, no shock or disgust on the man, just a smile that could only be brought out by her.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

In the bed laid a frail thin woman, connected to many tubes and needles, her head bald, and her body as frail as a feather. Seeing her made him remember of the past, why did this have to happen to her of all people? after a few seconds he woke up from his daydream, and all of the sudden his eyes seemed to focus.

“I hope you haven’t missed me much Ma’”, the man looked at where she was looking, “Isn’t she nice? that girl in the news, I know her, we’ve talked in a few events, she might not look it, but she is much more of a drinker that people think, don’t ask about her husband”, the man laughed to himself a bit.

His body felt weak, seeing her like this always made his soul shutter.

“You know Ma’, soon I will be in the news too, so I hope you won't get bored of seeing me there every day”, the man tried to sound funny, or maybe he hoped to get a reaction, yet her body stood still.

The man sat next to her, he reached out and held her frail hand like he often did.

“How about we watch a movie?”, the man asked, and a gentle squeeze on his hand was the only response he needed to change the channel.

“Something scary?, maybe not, how about some comedy?, or how about something old school?, Jurassic Park maybe?”, he switched through lists of movies until he felt another squeeze.

“Oh yeah I heard this one was good, I remember about the producers being blacklisted if it didn’t take off, you should’ve looked at their faces.”

With a simple hand movement in the air the man started the movie and time passed by quickly to the man.

“If you ever want me to stop Ma’, I can”, the man asked out of nowhere.

The man knew, he knew what he was doing to his mother, he knew that for years now she was forced to keep living, and what was worse was that the man could not stay and accompany her for every second she had left.

The question the man asked was fallowed by 2 gentle squeezes from the thin hand, and the movie kept playing.

The small thin figure had been tired of fighting long ago, and from a first glance, anyone would wonder why she would want to keep, and her answer was both the most selfish and selfless.

She knew her own son more than anyone, she knew how far he could go, far more horrifyingly, she knew of all the things her own son was willing to do once he focused on something. She wanted to see her son reach his full potential even if it meant other people’s downfall.

Few minutes passed again.

“It won’t be much longer Ma’”, the man said, not moving his gaze from the movie, “I’ve managed to keep our trump card hidden, and its about time that it all crumbles” he said so almost smiling.

“Next week there will be a meeting, a lot of our backers will decide to cut their losses and run with what they’ve got”, the man began to giggle, almost laughing, while watching the movie.

“But they don’t know that yet-“, his giggle now turned into laughter, “that what they have is nothing but components that they can’t use-“,the man covered his smile with his hand, “all those researchers spread thin did a good job, and now those shareholders look at the researchers as reason to jump ship”, the man kept his smile, “They think I will be the captain that will go down with the ship”, the man used his thumb and index finger to clear out his wet eyes.

“They don’t know its me burning down the ship”, the man’s tried to not laugh too hard, he did not want to make his mother uncomfortable, so he could only clear out his tears of held in laughter.

The movie kept playing, and the room was filled with giggles from the man as he went over his with his mother. She did not exactly understand what her son talked about every time he visited, but she could make out some small details, and she remembered, that this was her selfish request, even at the downfall of others, she wished for her son to reach the top, that is also why she kept grasping onto life, because as of now, she was the only one keeping her son moving forward, she did not want to let go of that.

“No worries Ma’, they won’t know it was me-”, as the man was about to keep talking about his plan, he got a sudden call, annoyed, the man answered.

“What do you want?”, a few seconds passed, “what do you mean the board-, I wasn’t there-, they cannot make that decision-”, the man somehow managed to not tighten the grip in which he held his mother’s hand.

“Even if I am no longer the majority shareholder, this decision will not-”, the man seemed seriously annoyed, but he kept his calm, “Move up the meeting date to tomorrow first thing in the morning”.

The man ended the call and apologized to his mother.

“I am sorry Ma-”, the man said, genuinely saddened looking at her mother’s hand, “a few pigs peeked their heads out of the slaughterhouse”, the man stood up and gently let go of his mother, “But I only left the door half open.”

The man picked up the black case he left on the floor and placed it on the table to open it. Inside were 4 small finger sized ships, almost as thin as paper, yet shining with elegance.

“Ma’, these are the prototypes, our next generation modular implants, I am making them over at Chronos™”, the man got closer to his mother while holding one of the ships with his right hand, as he did, he used his left hand to press on a button that stood out of his mother’s neck, out of her neck 5 holes appeared, and out came 5 different ships, they each shinned with different colors.

“These are still working pretty well so far…”, the man removed the first ship in his mother’s neck and replaced it with one from the case matching the same color.

“I am sorry about having to leave early Ma’, I have a few big things planned for the next couple of weeks, but remember the house you wanted to have in Switzerland?”, as he talked, he replaced the second ship.

“Yeah, well I talked to a friend, he can arrange to not just get me a house but build one in the Alpes, we will talk about the details when things finalize in my end”, while the man narrated about his plans, he replaced another.

“So, I expect to get started on that around next month-”, the man replaced the fourth.

“In my next visit we’ll discuss the details about how you want the house to look, I’ll be back in around…3 weeks?", the man caressed his mother, “so make sure to keep yourself well”, he did not want to let go.

It took all of the man’s strength, but he still let a single tear drop through his mask. The man closed the case with the 4 removed ships.

“Ma’, by my next visit things will be a lot better, I promise”.

The man stood up and leaned forward to give his mother a kiss on the cheek, he stood up straight and picked up the case.

“I’ll see you soon Ma.’”

The man pressed on the call nurse button and walked out the door, his pain could be almost physically seen, he dozed off for a second while staring at the wall in front of the door before being woken up by a lady next to him, it was the nurse.

“Um, excuse me sir, but I have to head in immediately”, the lady said in urgency, almost wanting to push him to the side.

“My mother is alright, I want to get in touch with Dr.Park now, please call him here immediately”, the nurse that was in a sudden rush calmed down.

The nurse uncomfortably nodded and quickly walked off, for some reason the man in front of her made her uneasy.

Soon enough Dr.Park stood in front of the man, standing between him and the elevator, he showed no urgency.

“Already heading out?”, Dr.Park asked with no expression.

“Where is Karlin?”, The man asked Dr.Park quickly, still looking at the wall.

“I assigned her somewhere else, I put Laura in charge of y-”, Dr.Park responded.

“Fire her”, The man blurred out with a non-nonchalant voice catching Dr.park by surprise and walked towards the elevator.

“Why?, she didn’t do anything wrong-”, the man interrupted Dr.Park’s plead, and stood still beside him.

“32 minutes, I was in here for 32 minutes and not once did she walk in, per the contract you signed, the designated nurse should check on the patient every 30 minutes”, the man handed Dr.Park the black case he held.

“I want Karlin back”, The man said.

“……”, Dr.Park stayed silent, meanwhile the man resumed walking towards the elevator.

“Your payment”, the man pressed on the elevator’s button, “and its barely worn condition is your bonus”, the door opened, and he walked in.

“I plan to visit him, give him a heads up if you want”, the man said calmly as he pressed the lowest floor’s button.

“Wait why are you visiti….”, the elevator’s door closed midway through his sentence.

“Man, it's been years and still not a single likable trait about that man but his money”,Dr.Park thought out loud.