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He quite liked dressing her, and demanding she wear the most revealing, degrading, slave-like ensembles he could think up. He would search porn sites and fetish sites and anime sites for hours sometimes, looking for just the perfect thing, just the detail or extravagance that would have every asshole he knew positively raging with envy when they saw her.

He’d always enjoyed instructing his women on how to perform for him in front of an audience. Most weren’t as pliant as this creature, of course; even after all this time, he was still testing the limits of just how far she would conform to his most outrageous fantasies when it came to public exhibitionism.

He quite liked the idea of showing her off with this crowd, especially.

They had never seen her before; he’d been waiting for the right time to present her, the right collection of his peers. He knew she would evoke insane jealousy, even fury in some of his rivals. But would any of them even know what she was? Would they guess that her eyes were real, not contact lenses or cosmetic surgery?

Would they know what it meant? How rare and precious she was?

Just how much she had likely cost?

He was intrigued to find out.

He loved the risk it entailed, parading her around openly, brazenly.

He loved the thought that some of themmightknow, and hate him even more.

What occurred in the lab below was far more important in the broader scheme of things. It was significant to more than just himself; it was important to the entire world. But the thought of bringing out his little trinket for show was a lot more fun.

He grunted as he refocused on the lab.

It would help if he had a team with half the brains he needed.

As it was, he could not afford to take his eyes off his fucking employees for even one second. He’d learned long ago, he could rely on no one but himself. Even the best scientists he could find were too risk-adverse, too chained to their primitive belief systems. They were too constrained by outdated ideologies and narrow views of what is possible.

Men of vision always shouldered the burden of the cowards who surrounded them.

Lucian didn’t exactly have the government or the industry regulators or even much of Wall Street on his side. He wasa rogue in his field, which suited him, but it meant high risk with the high reward. Thus the secret lab. Thus the extensive bribing of customs officials. Thus the siloing of scientists to keep them away from one another, to keep them from knowing too much about the overall project. Thus his shadow investors, not to mention his people in government, inside regulatory bodies, artificially pumping his assets on Wall Street, and on the world markets, pre-selling them to competing governments… and so on.

The whole point of being rich was to not have to give a fuck about any of that.

It also meant not being burdened by outdated views of morality or ethics.

Small minds always wanted to restrain genius.

It was why they remained small.

On the plus side, everyone had a price. Lucian had few real impediments these days, and would have none at all once his project was successful.

A tone vibrated softly in his ear.

Lucian used his mind to trigger the augmented reality interface.

The view morphed and changed around him––oddly subtle, but with noticeable quirks. He glanced at a deep-black, spiky-tailed dragon where it clung to the window to his right, then scanned the words on the virtual text bubble that appeared in front of him.

Check news,the message read.Stock spiked ten points from latest social media campaign. Investors pleased.

An emoji of a smiling devil leered at the end.

A second emoji followed it, of a knife.

Lucian Ward Rucker, “Luc” to the media… and sometimes to his friends… and especially to anyone who wanted to ingratiatethemselves, which was everyone… smiled. He chuckled a little when he re-read the message.

Some days, it was difficult not to feel like a god.

Still, it rankled him that his investors were always surprised.

He was tired of people underestimating him, even if he knew he should be glad of it. It meant he could roll out his plans unhindered, even as lesser minds thought they were manipulating and constraining him. Underestimating him was inevitably their downfall.