Zahn Und Klaue

Chapter One: The Auction

Chapter One: The Auction

"The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential...these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence."

- Confucius

Konrad drummed his gloved fingers against the car door of the stretch limo, staring through the tinted window at other passing vehicles in thoughtful silence.

How long had it been since he went outside in the sun? How long had it been since he just decided to go for a drive, let alone take a walk, just for the pleasure of being able to go anywhere he wanted?

'Must have been close to twenty years,' he thought wistfully.

As an expensive Jaguar passed, a sudden feeling of nostalgia swept over him.

He remembered how in his youth he was a dashing and impetuous teenager, taking his father's cars out for a drive through Ravensburg, much to the chagrin of Jurgen's father.*

He vividly recalled how as a boy he used to love playing hide and seek in the forest with Jurgen.

Since the worsening of his condition, however, Konrad found himself a prisoner in his own home, unable to go outside for fear of being spotted and photographed. Even though the castle was isolated, with no neighbouring houses or villages for miles, surrounded by mountains and forests, he could never channel the courage to take a stroll through the woods. Hell, he couldn't even bring himself to step out into his back garden for fear of stumbling upon some nosy villager, reporter or some damn guard on patrol.

'How ironic,' Konrad thought bitterly.

His castle mansion was renowned for having the best security systems money could buy, perfect for keeping everyone out, but the very same security systems and personnel prevented Konrad from doing the very things he longed for, keeping him confined to both the damn wheelchair and to certain sections inside the mansion itself, further entrenching those feelings of being a prisoner.

He used to love playing hide and seek as a child. How like Fate to take the thing he loved and make it into something he hated; all he ever did nowadays was hide.

"Is everything alright, Herr Baron?" his chauffeur Heinrich, a blonde man in an old fashioned uniform complete with breeches, a black double-breasted coat and matching chauffeur cap, asked in German.

Konrad grunted. "Just wondering."

"About what, sir?"

"Time, Heinrich," he sighed. "Time, and where it all went. I find everything so unrecognizable nowadays. I find it hard to believe this was the same city that I used to visit when I was a boy."

"You should feel proud, Baron," he heard Dieter speak up. "If it wasn't for you and your work with Ultratech, none of this would have been possible. You've done some incredible things."

Konrad sighed. "And yet, part of me can't help feeling regret."

"What's there to regret, Baron? You made a shit-ton of money. Your business is booming. We now have technologies that we never had before-"

"And yet," the Baron interrupted, "I can't help thinking about the cost of everything, Dieter. With these technological strides come new problems. New unforeseen consequences. Various companies are now coming up with new creative ways to fuck the other one over for the sake of a dollar and to claim the other's resources, and Ultratech is doing everything it can to just survive the tide, but one of these days, we might not be so lucky. And that's not even thinking about the potential consequences on the environment itself. The pollution. But even worse, even after all these technological innovations, even with all of the money that I was able to make, I am still no closer to finding a cure." Turning his hooded head, he glanced at his bodyguard. "Tell me, Dieter...do you think the world would have been different had I not been to Nepal? If I had not made that...discovery? Do you think the world could have been...better? Was I wrong in what I had done?"