He began pacing slowly, making sure that at any given moment he was making eye contact with one of the potential buyers. He made sure to make such contact with every face on those screens. He would let his eyes linger, forcing contact until he saw a tell—a nod, a tilt of the head, a smile, or even a wince. Everyone had a tell, and what mattered was how they reacted relative to what he was saying, down to key words he used and subtle inflections intended to evoke those reactions.

His pace was slow, but his hands moved at varying speed, each gesticulation giving emphasis to some point, much as a conductor’s baton will.

“A corresponding challenge,” he said, “is that public pressure growing out of trending social media outrage often results in either stock drops, knee-jerk legislation, the implementation of regulations imposed by whoever is up for election and wants to appeal to key demographics, and also the courts. What was it Shakespeare said? ‘First, kill all the lawyers’? I’m for that. Except our lawyers, of course.”

His laugh was warm and inclusive. A “we all get this” thing.

“The days when we could just send in a quality control team seem to be passing.” He leaned on those words, casting them as catch-all euphemisms that his customers could apply as needed. “And the resulting lawsuits are obscene. The amounts that juries are awarding these days is beyond absurd. All that class-action attorneys have to do is show ten seconds of footage from a smartphone and the jurors start adding zeros to the amount awarded to the plaintiffs.”

He paused and turned toward the full bank of screens and gave three measured seconds of his full presence.

“What if we could control each of those kinds of moments?” he asked calmly. “What if we could control what is—and more to the point, what is not recorded, what is not allowed to be shared on Twitter or Instagram or any other social media platform?” He paused. “And what if in those moments of actual privacy, we could completely resolve the situation? Whether that is an arrest in one of the more problematic parts of one of our cities? Or a field operation to resolve a political inconvenience? Or a money-shredding strike at a factory?”

Another pause.

“What if each of us possessed the technology to completely own that moment and to later control any messaging? What if here in the third decade of the twenty-first century we could move and act with the cost-efficient impunity of the 1950s? Yes, I can see that you see the potential. But, my friends, let me actually show you how this played out for one of our clients. I share this with the full permission of that client, who is a very happy returning customer. Settle back and watch…”

CHAPTER 22

REALSPORT FACTORY

MUTIARA VILLAGE

CENTRAL JAVA, INDONESIA