The Western Gate

Vincent Apula looked over the skyline and down towards the buildings below the penthouse boardroom he now paced. It walls bedecked with fine art and shelves of antiquities whose origin and ownership were debatable, save that Cain and Sin Industries purchased them, therefore they were regarded as legitimate ‘treasure’, company assets.
At the table sat three of his fellows in the firm, the chief operating officer, Andrew Eus, the president Mark Abus and the Vice President, the newly elected Daniel Talion.
Apula was weary of this new recruit, there was some worrying concerns raised by Mr.Talion.
He, Talion, had, so it was said, remarked how strange it was that the people who earn least in the company have to use their wages to pay for transport and the food in the canteen, whereas middle management on higher wages actually can claim for travel expenses and indeed, use of the subsidised canteen, with a much better quality of food. Of course he went on to add those even higher, from departmental managers upwards actually get chauffeur driven to work, for free, and get free silver service for lunch, by an accredited chef.
It was a worrying observation for Apula to register, the last thing he needed in his company whilst the stocks were hitting all time highs was an upstart with ‘communist’ tendencies. Talion, gained the position of course, by the fact he was prior to this position in charge of the newly created and patented Anti-cancer drug Marefellin. He worked for a cancer charity, using funds gifted and donated by philanthropists and the general public. The results were astounding for Marefellin. In order to market the product certain pharmaceutical companies were notified and tendered of which, CAin and Sin offered the best, not least the promise of a lucrative career change for Mr.Talion.
The patent on Marefellin now rested with Cain and Sin Industries. They could charge what they liked for the drug, despite initial concerns of this practice by Tallion who, wanted it to be available to all receivers at near cost price lest the expense of research… which was already paid for by the contributions of charitable status, as President Abus had already reminded him, and cautioned him on the reality of business, charity was for charity sake and business was for the creation of wealth to everyone’s benefit. More so for the benefit of the four who now sat at the table drinking Blue Mountain coffee, it wasn’t the best coffee in the world, perhaps second, but as Apula mentioned he’d rather not drink the product of spent coffee beans from a ‘ferrets’ arsehole.
The potential cost of Marefellin to all the health concerns globally was enormous, this drug was not specific to one type of cancer, but to all, more immunity enhancing and as one of the researchers for the cancer drug charity explained, in laymen’s terms to the chief, a defrag for the structure of DNA, highlighting that which was good and negating the bad… so to speak. When Apula heard this he thought it a good basis for marketing, and he didn’t need the reams of scientific and chemical analysis. A good defrag.
Politics came into play soon after. If the world were cured of cancer, though the death rate from cancer paled into insignificance to starvation, as cancer affected across the board, from rich to poor it was a concern to ‘many’, as the spending and consumer power of all those whose life would be enhanced/saved would increase, this meant more resources used by the purchasing power of the fairly well off ( The very poor didn’t matter of course as famine still reigned in their purchasing power, can you imagine the horror if every third world citizen had the means to purchase a car and a snippet of technology). A certain minister from the shadowey department of the civil service had all the facts and figures, the cost of the extra resources and services as a result would be x-amount, and x-amount wasn’t good as it meant the very rich would now have to suffer their z amount minus x.
The hushed tones of the behind boardroom doors whispered its illuminating nightside wisdom, for all but themselves to hear and question. Daniel Antallion, was not present at the high levels of discussion, suffice to say, he was fobbed off with stories of delays and problems, and the odd disinformation that Russia or China were in fact close to challenging Marefellin, and would do so at a much lower cost.
In reality China and Russia both had their patents for the panacea, safely sealed and locked away together with the diseases they created and the subsequent antidotes should their biological ‘trimming’ begin to get out of hand.
The first thing CAin and Sin did in receipt of the patent for Marefellin was to learn how to engineer its properties such that it worked in reverse, or its reflective and shadow side, rather than maintaining and enhancing, repairing and restructuring, would in fact diminish, destroy, interrupt and inhibit. For what reason. If Z-X were so great that X =Z then this , reset would be….. well, it was locked away so that needn’t concern us.
Daniel Talion still works at CAin and Sin, though his role became more inhibited and silent.
In the safeguard of the basements locked away, still, are the patents for Marefellin and its opposite. Apula has them relabelled, simply, and he likes things simple. Marefellin is known as ‘Z-X’. And its opposite, the, we’ll let us use the tern the Russians and Chinese use, trimming, is labelled ‘-X’.
Its business.

Artwork above : bodies by Damien Hirst. Cost £1.5 million