Amsterdam, Netherlands
Two middle-aged men were in a dark pub, drinking cheap whiskey with bitterness and anger on their faces. One of them looked murderous, but he did not have any way to vent the frustration building up in his chest.
He took another gulp of the brown liquor and felt the burn as it flowed down his throat.
A few months ago, they were living a comfortable life, and the world was their footstool. As part of the board of the International Health Alliance, they did not only have wealth from the large donations made by major corporations looking for public image improvement and tax deductions.
They also had the income from selling some of the information, drugs and devices discovered and made in their underground labs. Even though the main goal was to address genetic editing, their scientists were not completely useless.