"Nanotechnology," he announced, "the next frontier."
The screen pixelated before it became a man, skin light brown, a thin black beard and short, well-trimmed dark hair. The camera panned back until it showed him seated, his right arm missing from mid-bicep. CGI showed tendrils grow from his stump, in a time lapse manner it grew into a replacement arm and hand and ended as he lifted it flexed the fingers as he looked at it.
The screen changed to the entwined "MU" logo that represented the umbrella of Melon Bezerg's varied companies.
"I'd like to introduce my colleague and friend, Professor Abdul Al-aziz."
The man from the video strode from stage right as Bezerg approached from the other side, they met in the middle of the stage, backlit by the screen before it faded and a spotlight shone on the pair. Al-aziz wore casual black slacks and a blue short sleeved shirt and as the light made clear his right arm from mid-bicep was a matte grey, as it had been in the video. He was a few inches shorter than Bezerg and was thinner. He and Bezerg extended their right arms and shook hands vigorously. Then they separated.
The crowd couldn't seem to quite figure out what to say, gasps, muttered 'wows' and the like but most seemed to hold their breath.
"We have a ways to go," Bezerg announced, "we, well, we don't have skin tones right yet."
Al-aziz made the universal shrug gesture, his smile broad.
"Now, Melon...," Al-aziz said as his left hand rose with a deck of playing cards, his English slightly inflected but clear. Bezerg turned to him as he did a two-handed magician's shuffle of the deck as the taller man smiled. The light glinted off of subtle movements off the right arm's material as Al-aziz used his right hand to perform an intricate card cutting movement with it. The murmurs of the crowd had grown as they realized what was happening.
Suddenly the bearded man took the deck in both hands and fanned them, showed the audience and Bezerg what was a standard fifty-two card playing deck. Then he shuffled and cut them three more times and fanned them out to Bezerg, faces down.
"Draw one, my friend," he said to Bezerg, "show it to yourself and the audience but not me."
Bezerg pulled out a card with his right hand, made a show of shielding it from the other man's view with his left as he looked at the face, turned it to the audience. He motioned to the attendees in the middle of the front row and a few shuffled to the edge of the stage and nodded before they returned to their seats.
"Slip it back in," Bezerg did as directed. The deck was shuffled so rapidly the audience lost count, cheers had broken out from the closer seats and spread as they saw the agility clearly displayed. He took the deck in the grey material of his right hand and repeated the rapid series of one-handed cuts as Bezerg moved his head up and down and emphasised an amazed stare as he watched.
Cheers had rippled further back but much of the audience remained rooted, too rapt to move or speak.
Suddenly the hand stopped and it held the deck with those grey fingers. He showed the audience the card on the bottom of the deck.
"Is this his card?"
The nearest audience members again shuffled forward.
"Holy shit," a man's voice at the edge of the spotlight, "It is..."
Al-aziz held the deck to Bezerg, who took the bottom card.
"This, my friends," his voice effortlessly filled the hall, "this is why we do what we do. And this will be the way forward."
The crowd's reserve finally broke as they rose to their feet, thunderous applause and raucous cheers filled the hall.
Arrival
The red ride share SUV pulled along the curb on North Grand Avenue, one of a steady stream of such vehicles whose electric engines whined and whirred quietly as they jockeyed for positions. The rear passenger door opened and two feet in very high, red heels emerged, legs that were bare to above mid-thigh before a matching red skirt appeared as Sarah Sheedy slid out of the vehicle. Her blonde hair fell loosely across her shoulder blades across and over her thin, red blazer and blouse. She'd wanted the color to be a dramatic signal and she caught plenty of eyes as she took a few steps onto the sidewalk.
"Thank you," a voice from the back seat, dark, charcoal grey heels that challenged the first set for height emerge as legs equally as impressive as Sarah's followed her lead to exit from the SUV. Except for her dark, nearly black hair and dark charcoal skirt and light blazer, Rachel Ahearn could've been Sarah's twin. At least if you discounted their hair and faces, had always been Rachel's joke. Like Sarah's, Rachel's hair fell loosely around her shoulder blades, but where Sarah's face was thin, her nose narrow, Rachel's had a soft roundness that belied the matching sets of long, toned legs and rounded but narrow hips and butts. Both had well-fitted blouses under their blazers.
The two women looked at the building, a colonnade that fronted a multi-story wall of glass a block long and the rounded roof edge that was the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion just north of downtown Los Angeles. The bright morning mid-July summer sun glinted off of the glass and steel of the building and covered the sidewalk with a mass of moving shadows. The morning was warm but few would call it hot, yet. There was the slightest haze that could be seen if you looked for it but no one could compare it to the Los Angeles of the mid and late twentieth century.
Sarah and Rachel would've felt like a pair of hicks on their first trip to the big city if it hadn't of been for the crowd of rubberneckers that stretched for fifty yards either direction of them and saved them from embarrassment. At the northern end of the building a row of electric buses pulled to the curb and disgorged their passengers.
"Oh, sorry," Sarah said, as yet another car delivered more attendees who nudged them forward. The crowds slowly moved north and south, at either end of the building were large signs with the stylised "MU" logo for Bezerg Industries and "Entrance" beneath. In a couple of more central locations was the same logo with a wheelchair to indicate accessible entrances.
"Let's go," Sarah pointed, she slid her left arm around Rachel's right and the two women clasped hands, "I can't believe we're HERE! Holy shit!"
"This is it," Rachel said, squeezed the hand, "we're going to change the world with Melon Bezerg."
Their heels clicked in unison as they picked the slightly closer south entrance and joined the stream of like-minded attendees.
"Oh my god," Rachel said softly as she looked alongside them at a woman with a crew cut and wearing a suit that would make James Bond quiver with jealousy, "I finally understand the dress code."
Near that woman was a young man in a Meat Puppets t-shirt and beige cargo shorts that were essentially nothing but a bunch of pockets sewn together.
They'd been confused by the information given on the Bezerg Industries website around dress code matters. 'Look great but look like YOU. You are beautiful. Look like YOU and others will see that you are beautiful too.' Nothing available expounded upon that, and online videos with Bezerg executives and even the man himself refused to expound.
"It's a test," Rachel continued, "people will look good when they feel good. Just like we like to, well... show off our best assets."
"No one will say out best assets are 'bodacious tatas,'" Sarah responded in the same soft tone, "but, 'legs for days,' now, there we might make it."
They both laughed softly at that.
They joined a queue of people dressed in a wide variety of clothes, most clearly 'western' in style but a number wore clothing clearly traditional to more exotic backgrounds but it was all clearly meaningful to the wearers as it wound its way up the stairs of the south entrance. In keeping with the variety of clothing they were a bit surprised that many of the attendees were, if not elderly, they sported a broader variety of grey, white or balding heads then they'd expected.
At the top they saw a set of signs that directed attendees based on coded numbers that they'd been given as part of their job confirmations. The two women veered left as the signs directed. Just inside the outer doors they saw a long row of machines, in front of each one an attendee faced into it and the machine spit out a plastic colored badge about six inches long and about half as wide with a long string attached in a loop. Large colored banners above various entrances to the auditorium itself directed attendees based on their assigned badges.
"What the...," Rachel squinted at her badge, it was glossy black with her name in white letters, the machine clicked as Sarah smiled at the mirrored plate and it recognised her, "I'm in the front row if this is right!"
"Hold on," Sarah retrieved her badge and stepped aside to let the next attendee use the new machine, her eyes scanned to the bottom, "me too! Seats 16..."
"17," Rachel said, "is that in the middle?"
"Don't know," Sarah said, a quaver in her voice, she looked up as a woman who carried a clipboard approached them, she was a bit shorter than the pair, her light brown hair cut short and her dark blue skirt only a few finger widths longer.
"I'm Jessica," she introduced herself, "you're black badges! You're right down front, if you'll come with me I'll take you."
"Thank you, I'm Rachel and this is Sarah," Jessica smiled before she half turned an they followed as she led them, "are we really in the center? Seats 16 and 17!"
Jessica's gait faltered for a moment and her mouth froze momentarily in an 'O'.
"Oh my," she stuttered a bit before her voice trailed off, "you two must be really special..."
"We just graduated from law school," Sarah said, "we haven't even passed the bar exam yet! We'll be here at HQ but they told us we'll probably get farmed out in 18 months or so like most people."
"Oh, well," Jessica bit her lower lip for an instant, "someone has something in mind for you two..."
She turned and slightly increased her pace, Sarah and Rachel looked at each other and shrugged.
Orientation
The horn section of the live band at the far right side of the stage meshed with the steady buzz of hundreds of audible but incomprehensible conversations and footfalls as the four tiers of the large auditorium slowly filled with attendees. The two friends had introduced themselves to other black-badged attendees seated around them. They stood with their backs to the empty stage and goggled as the hall appeared almost full. If they looked closely they could see the swathes of various colored badges in groups.
"What, three thousand or so," Sarah said softly, "I think."
"Yeah, must be more than just the HQ new hires here," Rachel said, "I'd wondered why we were coming to this hall. I've seen it on TV."
The house lights dimmed as the familiar notes of "The Universe is Mine" kicked in, Melon Bezerg's self-proclaimed favorite song. The crowd's applause and cheers made clear that everyone present recognised it as the unofficial but accepted anthem of not only the man but of Bezerg Industries itself. The curtains opened on the stage to exposed a large screen. The crowd's noise dwindled as the screen lit up with the "MU" and the last notes of the song faded.
A swelling, recorded orchestral score kicked in as the large screen showed the well-remembered webpage of Fundwell, the first of Melon Bezerg's successes, the online bank that finally nudged crypto currencies into the mainstream and broke governmental control of money. Bezerg's commitment to global micro lending and his absolute rejection that his primary responsibility was to his shareholders imbued him and his employees with a sheen of just and fair capitalism.
The video followed that with his efforts in electric storage and propulsion and then his surprising turn to champion thorium reactors to fight climate change and reduce carbon usage with the development of an easily-built modular design that eliminated the threat of a meltdown. Where not even Bezerg could master the technical details, he had the unparalleled ability in those cases to find the combination of minds who could, minds no one else had ever thought to put together. He'd found a pair of self-trained 'crackpots' in India whose ideas had been dismissed. But Bezerg had seen something and put them with a team of specifically chosen Nobel laureates. Their latest demonstration showed controlled fusion was this time truly only one more always-claimed decade away.
His unannounced, unmanned probe that surprised everyone when it set up a temporary spotlight on the moon reignited faded dreams of colonising outer space. The reduction of malaria from a disease with hundreds of millions of cases and a half million annual deaths to something less severe than a common cold heralded the mastery of Bezerg Biomedical.
The recent demonstration of the ability to construct nerve-driven artificial limbs promised benefits for millions. The video then repeated the recent imagination of enhanced humans able to walk unsuited on Mars. By this point the crowd was in a steady applause that simply peaked with the introduction of each of these well known achievements, the cheering a bit more intense from the initiates for the highlighted division. This time the video added humanity adapted to even more biomes, low-gravity space habitats and deep space missions mining the asteroid belt and exploring the moons of the gas giants.
As an explorer planted the "MU" flag on Pluto the view suddenly sped its way into the inner solar system with a quick glance at every past target until it was clear its target was Earth. The view did a quick orbit before it sped across the United States from east to west where it dove into the Pacific Ocean a few hundred miles off the California coast to stop in a mass of air bubbles. As the turbulence settled shapes could be seen moving sleekly through the water.
