"We, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, alongside the American Society of Medical Oncology, are here gathered to present the Davie Award to St. Mercy Hospital —the hospital where Swindle, I mean, G. Reed is an investor—for its effort in the eradication of cancer, not only nationally, but globally, since, as you know, this hospital, with its new policies, has the highest overall and early-stage cancer detection rate and the highest rate of patients cured—which is true since obviously the more cancer tests they do, the more cancer patients they would find and, by increasing the number of cancer patients being treated so exponentially, it was obvious that the number of patients cured would increase, especially if many of them are at an early stage (although the number of deceased patients increased much more, but, as cancer is a deadly disease, no one's judging them for that.) So, I would like to ask the mastermind behind these new policies to come here to receive this trophies. Mr. Gregorious Reed, please.
G. Reed moved the slim, plastic chair he was sitting in—as did everyone else—slightly back, got up and, surrounded by applause, walked to the podium, where he took both the trophy for the highest detection rate of cancer in the country as the trophies for the highest early stage cancer detection rate and the highest number of patients cured in the country.
He could barely hold them with both hands, since each of them consisted of a huge, abstract and silver sculpture.
Although it was obvious that they were made of plastic.
It must have cost them practically nothing to make them, as did the ceremony: lots of cheap, cold appetizers along with apparently gourmet dishes and moderate-quality alcohol, although quite cheap considering the price of each ticket.
It looked like a scam.
Or a business opportunity.
Anyway:
"Thank you so much for your recognition," G.Reed said. "We are doing everything we can to innovate and I have no doubt that we have made the right decisions, therefore, we must continue on the same path."
G.Reed stepped off the podium and, surrounded by applause, returned to his table.
A lot of people who he had never seen him in his life approached him to congratulate him/introduced themselves/gave him their contact info/gave him their resumes/talked to him about cancer—as if he knew anything about it...
G. Reed was tempted on more than one occasion to turn around and leave while they talked, but if they were pretentious enough to pay the exorbitant price of a ticket to an objectively mediocre ceremony, it might not be wrong to keep in touch with them, so for the rest of the ceremony, G.Reed pretended to pay attention to whatever they were saying.
-------------------------------------------------
Days passed and, due to the success of their strategy of constantly increasing prices without adding absolutely anything to the value of their services, most hospitals began to do the same, so now their absurdly high fees seemed quite reasonable as well, and because of that:
"We need to raise the prices again," G. Reed told the other investors, and they all seemed to agree, except for one who said:
"But we don't have rooms anymore, and whether we raise the prices or not, more patients are going to come. We have to expand the hospital, and that should be our first priority."
The other investors seemed to agree, except for G. Reed who said:
"Or we can have them share the room with someone else," G. Reed said. "The rooms are big enough; we can put two or even three stretchers there."
"But the patients are not gonna like the idea," said the investor. "Many of them are very distinguished people."
"This is a hospital, not a hotel," G. Reed replied. "If they want privacy, we can put a curtain between them or something. And we can leave a few rooms exactly as they are, with a single stretcher, but those will cost a lot more because they're going to be a VIP service."
The investors seemed very excited about the idea, and they immediately implemented it. Initially, the patients weren't satisfied at all with the new measures, but, because they had no other option if they wanted to continue being in the hospital, and given the possibility of regaining their privacy by getting one of the few VIP rooms in the hospital, they ended up accepting them.
From time to time, G.Reed walked through the hospital's hallways to find and observe Nui Sanz. She seemed increasingly dissatisfied with an increasingly expensive and increasingly useless treatment.
G.Reed, or rather Swindle Jones, seemed very pleased by that.
But his plan wasn't over.
Swindle then left the hospital, went to his house, took off G.Reed's costume and put on another one that he hadn't worn in a long time.
D.Ceive was back.