Amber shook her head quietly. Beside her, Jacob looked like he wanted to burn the world down.
“Over a two-week stay, which is the median, the costs of running our pod doesn’t even touch that line,” Nick said. “And I’m pleased to report that the modifications to the already-manufactured pods cost almost nothing and would come out even when producing new ones.”
“You’re kidding.” Amber flipped a page ahead and began to read, her brows drawn together in concentration. “Holy shit, you’re right.”
“I haven’t even reached the best part yet.” He grinned.
“You haven’t?” She looked up.
“Nope.” He put his folder on the table and leaned on his hands to fix them both with a smug look. “We have a whole set of research showing that things like our game could help bring people out of comas faster and recover more of their brain function.”
Amber frowned now. She and Jacob exchanged a look.
“I knew it was a theory,” Jacob said, “but I didn’t think it had been studied.”
“There was a huge study on it.” Nick couldn’t stop smiling. This alone had been worth the extra time. “Dr. Dubois at American University. He went through an insanely rigorous process with neurosurgeons, psychiatrists, neuroscientists—the whole nine yards. They even did a set of very, very successful tests on mice.”
“Not…humans?” She raised an eyebrow. “Nick, I gotta say, I don’t think the mouse ICU market is all that big.”
“You’re not thinking of how many mice we could fit in one of those at a time,” Jacob objected.
“Oh, you make a good point.”
“Guys.” Nick laughed. “Focus. The results were all good. They were really good.”
“So why isn’t there already a product on the market?” Amber shrugged. “There must be something you didn’t see—”
“Well, you see, IterNext Corp was seeking approval at the same time for a different method of treating patients in comas.” He raised an eyebrow. “Somehow, out of nowhere…the FDA approval didn’t come through for Dubois.”
“Wait.” Jacob frowned at him. “Who blocked it?”
“Well, I don’t have any idea officially, but the head of the FDA accepted a real cushy post on the board of IterNext when he retired.” Nick shook his head.
“Fuck that.” His friend was furious. “They don’t get to do things like that! These are people’s lives they’re playing with. If we make this public—”
“Nothing will happen,” Amber said quietly.
Both men looked at her in surprise.
“Look.” She shrugged. “They can get away with things like that. It’s how it works in Washington. Money buys influence. That’s how it’s been forever.”
“And you’ll seriously simply give up because a few lobbyists—” Jacob’s voice was rising.
“I’m not giving up. I’m saying everyone who gets into congress winds up doing things like this!” She waved her hands to encompass the room to emphasize the idea of everyone. “Every election cycle, there’s a new set of people who will shake things up, and has the system changed at all? No. So before we go all-in on this, I want us to understand that we’re probably…tilting at a windmill.”
A long pause followed while the two men digested her statement.
“Where did you get windmills from?” Nick asked finally.
“It’s a reference,” Amber said wearily.
“To what?”
“I don’t know. My dad says it all the time.” She shrugged. “It means you’re doing something futile.”
“This isn’t futile, though.” Jacob stabbed a finger onto the sheet of paper. “This got blocked, okay? Sure. But that was before we had the resources we have now. Before people could do things like write a song about an airline destroying their guitar and have it go viral on Twitter and before people could dredge up videos and photos from decades ago and destroy someone’s whole career.”
“Your eyes are looking a little crazy,” Amber told him.
“Maybe we can’t change how politics works from inside the system,” Jacob said dangerously, “but we can sure as hell make a ton of people mad that there’s a cheap way to make people better and the FDA didn’t approve testing. It’s not like no one’s talking about this lately. We have our moment.”
“We don’t have any allies,” she pointed out wearily. “We can’t simply take this up ourselves. Who will we go to? This kind of thing needs someone to sponsor a bill. It needs someone to make calls. Most of all, it needs someone in the senate, and in case you haven’t noticed, we don’t have much spare cash lying around.”
Jacob leaned back in his chair for a moment, his jaw set. He shook his head