CHAPTER 128: A CHANCE

"You work for mniTech Corp?!" Liam asked in shock, his voice coming out louder than he intended.

He turned to the people that had frozen and turned towards them before he apologized.

This seemed like a ’quiet bar’s, a bar designed for people who want to drink, relax, and talk without all the commotion of a normal bar, so his sudden shout definitely disturbed the peace.

After the other drinkers turned back to what they were previously doing, Liam’s attention went back to Ethan as he waited for an answer.a

"Well, not exactly work for," Ethan said casually, lowering his voice as he leaned back in his chair. "But I guess you could say... I’m involved."

Liam blinked, trying to process. "Involved? Ethan, OmniTech is like—one of the hottest names right now. Half the news sited won’t shut up about them! And you’re saying you’re... what, some kind of contractor?"

Ethan chuckled softly, shaking his head. "Something like that. Let’s just say I’ve got a hand in a project of theirs. Nothing too crazy."

"Nothing too crazy?" Liam hissed, leaning closer so the surrounding people wouldn’t overhear. "Dude, OmniTech is outpacing Google in cybersecurity right now. You realize what you just said, right? That’s not ’nothing too crazy.’ That’s... insane."

Ethan was getting even more amused at Liam’s reaction. "Relax. I didn’t bring it up so you’d lose your mind over it. Just... keep it between us, alright?"

If he was losing his mind with just this, then how much more would he, if he found out that Ethan was actually the owner.

Well, Ethan would have to wait to find out that reaction since he didn’t intend on telling Liam just yet.

They might have been ’friends’, which was an extreme stretch of the word, back in university, he had no idea what type of man Liam had become and whether he was trustworthy, was still for Ethan to decide.

"You’re right...." Liam said, "but really, this is insane, how are you involved with OmniTech Corp and call it ’not a big deal’. And how is it a small company at this point?"

"Forget that, let’s talk about what you’ve been up to," Ethan said, switching the topic, "you also look, different."

Liam took a sip of his drink, put it down before sighing, "yeah, a lot happened after university, but for a while I was helping my sister in her projects.... Well, until the government shut us down and she had been depressed since."

Well that was news, Ethan and Liam weren’t close enough for him to know about Liam’s sister, so he was genuinely surprised learning this information.

"What were the projects about?" He asked, leaning a bit forward.

Liam hesitated for a while, unsure whether to tell him or not. But for the past few months the burdens had been piling up for a while and with it came stress.

His older sister was his only family, but since the government shut down their projects, she’d retreated into herself. Weeks turned into months of silence, her once-brilliant spark dimmed to a shadow. Liam had been carrying both their weight since then—financially, emotionally, and mentally.

He rubbed the back of his neck, staring into his half-empty glass, looking a bit lost. "We were... working on something in the biomedical field. A mix of biotech and software. Cutting-edge stuff, but maybe too cutting-edge for the suits upstairs." He gave an empty laugh. "They called it ’premature experimentation.’ Said we were poking where we shouldn’t."

Ethan’s interest was immediately piqued. His next step was the medical field and unlike with Sentinel, he needed people, hence the need for OmniTech Corp’s expansion and the reason he wanted to meet Liam today.

"What kind of project?" He asked again, wanting to be sure.

Liam hesitated again, but the dam had already cracked. The words slipped out, heavy with frustration. "Basically, a doctor in a box. You feed it patient data—scans, vitals, genetic markers, even voice analysis—and it could give you a diagnosis more accurate than ninety-nine percent of practicing physicians."

Ethan’s eyes narrowed slightly. "So... a system that could replace doctors?"

"Not replace," Liam said quickly, almost defensively. "Assist. Enhance. It wasn’t meant to take jobs, it was meant to save lives. Early-stage cancers, rare genetic disorders, neurological issues that most doctors miss, we had the algorithm catch them. Patients could walk in with symptoms and walk out with answers in minutes with no risk of them being misdiagnosed."

Ethan leaned back, there was no expression on his face but at the current moment, all his minds held a grin.

He already knew that in his past life, systems like this wouldn’t exist until at least the late 2020s and even then, only in restricted forms and only accessible to a few.

"And they shut you down," Ethan murmured.

Liam gave a bitter smile. "Of course they did. The medical board said it was ’unethical’ to let a machine practice medicine. The FDA claimed it was unsafe because it hadn’t gone through ten years of trials. And the insurance companies," his jaw tightened, " they lobbied like hell. Because if our system worked, people wouldn’t need to burn through thousands of dollars in tests, treatments, and specialist visits. The entire business model of healthcare would collapse."

He took a long sip from his glass before setting it down a bit too hard. "So they pulled funding, seized our research data, and told us to ’cease and desist.’ My sister, never recovered from that. She poured everything into the project. Now she barely leaves her room."

"So now, I bartend on the side, do freelance coding to keep us afloat. Feels like a waste of everything we worked for." He finished both his words and liquor.

Liam felt as if a heavy burden has lifted from his shoulders by just talking about it with Ethan.

"Sorry for dumping all this on you man," he apologized before sighing again, "I had no one else to talk to."

Ethan was silent for a while before he offered, "...what if I offer you and your sister a chance to finish what you started?"