"Trevor, we received a request from Royston Tan. He was asking us if we would like to sponsor his next movie."
William Wang approached me the next day, waving his smartphone. As my secretary and vice-president (we had yet to find someone to delegate the role of secretary to), he was in charge of screening all calls and bringing only the most important matters to me while I focused most of my time and energy in building stuff.
The production of antimatter in particular was consuming a lot more of my time and attention than I expected. So was the Alcubierre drive, for that matter, but it was impossible to build the warp engine without an energy source. Hence I prioritized the production of antimatter first, so that we could generate the tremendous amounts of energies needed.
However, William brought this weird topic up to me, a few days after my visit to Lily Ling's family's manor. At first, I had half a mind to dismiss the request, but I recognized the name. Royston Tan? Wasn't he the director Lily and Arnold Ang were speaking to that other day? The one where they held some celebrity conference or gathering in Howard Hotel?
Speaking of which, it turned out that the gathering in Howard Hotel was just an excuse for the illegal celebrity prostitute syndicate to snare more targets, such as Lily. Unfortunately for them, my presence disrupted and ruined their plans, leading to the whole lot of bastards being caught and a few of them being killed.
I had no regrets killing Zachery Zhao. The rapist deserved it. Similarly, I had no sympathies for the late Yvonne Yang, who was murdered by the syndicate to cover up their crimes. Unfortunately for them, she had left the evidence to her agent, Victoria Lai, as one last spiteful act of defiant revenge, which eventually led to their downfall.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, indeed.
"Hmm, why is he asking us?"
"Because your fiancée is cast in his movie and he wondered if you would like this opportunity to put the name of our company on the big screen. You know how sponsoring a critically acclaimed movie would be great advertisement for us. Not to mention, Royston Tan is an up and coming young director. Having relations to him is a good thing."
I nodded, unable to deny that. However, I must have continued to look unconvinced, for William pressed on.
"If Royston Tan's next movie is as good as his previous ones, which earned him accolades and even several awards, then us contributing to it would leave a good impression on the arts and entertainment scene."
"You do realize that our company has little to do with the arts and entertainment industry?" I asked dryly. In fact, it was the direct opposite. We were an engineering company that designed technological machines for the future.
"Hah! Don't pretend to be some snobbish scientist now. I know for a fact that you have an interest in art and entertainment. You read plenty of sci-fi stories. You play Warhammer 40,000 and own a massive fraction of the Black Library sci-fi novels. You also bought entire series of military sci-fi books from Amazon, a lot of which involves space fleets, space marines and battle mech. Ian Douglas is your favorite author, isn't he? And even though they stopped publishing the series halfway, you read almost the whole Starfist series. I haven't even included the Battletech series that you own yet."
"How do you know about that?" I asked, getting disturbed by William's intimate knowledge of my reading habits. This was a downright invasion of my privacy.
"Bro, we've been buddies for over a decade now. It would be stranger if I didn't know about this. Besides, you were the one who told me about them." William grimaced. I then recalled how I attempted to introduce my favorite military sci-fi series to him, despite him not being interested. It was incredible how he still remembered which were my favorite series, despite him having no intention of reading them. What a pal.
Or maybe he just had a good memory.
"That said, I don't think Royston Tan is intending to make a sci-fi film, is he? It's not as if he's interested in space opera."
"No, he's the artsy kind of director. Rather than space opera, he makes soap operas featuring the daily lives of regular human beings."
That sounded as boring as fuck to me, but then again I only read military sci-fi featuring massive battles between space armadas, or a squad of space marines defying all odds to overcome a technologically superior alien enemy or countless insect-like aliens that swarmed over human planetary systems like locusts, or wars between towering giant robots sporting enough laser and particle weaponry to level entire cities.
Yeah, you could probably see how I ended up in my current job. I was literally trying to make my fantasies a reality.
Even so, since this involved Lily, I had no choice but to feign at least the minimum amount of interest and ask for more details.
"So what is Royston Tan's new film about?"
If he wanted my company to sponsor his new movie, he had to at least provide some details. Otherwise it would be unprofessional. No company was stupid enough to sponsor a movie when they had no idea what it would be about. Especially since it would involve a massive influx of cash, investment and commitment.
"Um…hold on a second." William was scrolling down his smartphone right now, hastily rereading the email he had received. He raised an eyebrow in an exaggerated manner before modulating his tone to sound as dramatic as possible. "The new film promises to invoke emotions of melodrama and intense empathy by showcasing the lives of people who have been displaced by the building of the dam at the Three Gorges River. The plot will specifically revolve around a man whose home village has been demolished in order for the government to forcibly build the dam, and his attempts to come to terms with his dislocation. While leaving the village that has been his home for decades, he attempts to find the people from his past, including a woman he loved and had sworn to marry, but these encounters end in bittersweet tragedy."
"Hmm…" I paused for a moment, turning the idea over my head. That indeed sounded like melodrama, something you would expect from an arts film. Even though I wasn't very familiar with Royston Tan's work, I knew enough to have some kind of idea of how it would unfold. I couldn't say it was appealing to me, but I could see how it would be popular among many circles, particularly film students. Honestly, I could see the artistic and emotional value in such work.
Yeah, this would work.
"I like the idea of filming about the displacement of people…people who lose their homes where they have lived for decades, the sacrifice they make because the government wants to push economic and technological development through."
That was something I could sympathize with, but sometimes I had no choice. I was aware of how much harm I would cause by creating such hi-tech weapons for warfare. But by doing so, I saved more soldiers' lives. Besides, even if I didn't, the researchers and engineers from other nations would eventually develop their own versions. Only the most naïve would believe that true peace could be maintained if I – as an individual – didn't work on inventing new weapons and military technology. Someone would do it eventually. At the very least, my military technology was focused on saving soldiers' lives. That was why they took the form of defensive energy shields and highly armored giant robots or near indestructible battleships.
My intention wasn't to magnify firepower and kill more of the enemy, but rather to preserve more of our soldiers.
Even so, I wasn't blind to the fact that people would inevitably die because of me. Perhaps I was a hypocrite, but my hypocrisy was necessary for the survival of this nation. The other nations weren't going to sit around and put off developing their own weapons and hi-tech devices just because I refused to invent anything.
However, there was another angle I was interested in.
"Ask Royston Tan if he intends to include an environmental perspective. As in, will he also film the environmental destruction that the dam-building project results in? Or will it be entirely focused on the human aspect?"
"Uh, that's a good question." William pondered on this for a moment before he nodded. He then began typing away furiously on the touchscreen of his smartphone. "I'll ask him right away."
"Thanks."
"Still…" William looked up from typing on his smartphone, smirking. "I didn't know you were such an environmentalist."
"I…probably am not."
I sighed and turned away. One of my biggest reasons for developing nanotechnology was the environment. After centuries of pollution, the world was slowly sliding toward an unlivable state. If we didn't do anything, it would be too late.
Hopefully nanotechnology could help decrease the carbon content in the environment, with nano-bots moving through the oceans and converting oil spills, plastics and other forms of pollution into harmless substances – or even beneficial substances. Unfortunately, I knew that was but a pipe dream. It would be so easy to wish for some magical solution to hand-wave pollution away and undo environmental damage with the flick of a finger, but it wasn't realistic.
The most practical measures was still to limit the emission of greenhouse gases, stop fracking and shut down fossil fuel and oil industries for good. Fortunately, we had already done that in the last century or so, before it was too late. I remembered the Great Green Deal of the mid-twenty-first century, which was designed to halt global warming before temperatures soared to unlivable levels. The oil tycoons and politicians who promoted fossil fuels were overthrown and mobbed by angry people who were losing their homes to coastal flooding when the polar caps melted and caused the sea levels to rise. Great famines in Africa because of climate change had shaken the world, and eventually the poor population said enough was enough.
People power was the best power.
"All right, I've sent the question. I'll let you know when Royston Tan replies." William waved his smartphone, as if to emphasize his point. I nodded gratefully.
"Thanks. I'll be relying on you."