Phineas watched Yujin rush off with a smile on his face. It always gave him a warm feeling when he saw a happy customer.

He occasionally fielded questions, but his "booth babes" were well trained and were handling things just fine.

By eleven o'clock, the small crowd of a few dozen had grown to over a hundred, and the venue security staff had to step in and install barriers to herd people into a serpentine and prevent the walkway between exhibits from being clogged.

By two o'clock, some of the people in line to try the headsets had started selling their spots, and the security staff had to turn people away because there simply wasn't enough room.

Each personal headset demo took about fifteen minutes, and they averaged three per hour per small room. So, by the end of the first day, they had provided personal demos to about 300 people.

But by the end of the day, people were skipping the demo line and simply buying their headsets. So, by the end of the first day, Phineas and his team had sold almost 3000 headsets.

CES lasted four days, so if things kept up like this, they would run out of headsets to sell before the conference ended. So, Phineas sent a message requesting that more headsets be shipped to the venue. He didn't care if they had to charter a private jet. He did not want to run out during the conference.

——————————

Larry Fowler, CEO of Primal, was not happy. He had worked hard to make sure their newest VR headset model, the Primal Pro 2, was ready for CES. And he had expected there to be crowds at his booth, just like last year.

Except... his booth was dead. And nobody even bothered to glance at them.

James, one of the salespeople manning his booth, returned from his mission looking serious.

"Well?" asked Larry.

"Sir, it's Horizon. Their exhibit is packed; hundreds of people are lined up waiting to give their headsets a try. And their presentation video is... well, frankly, it's hard to believe. But when I asked a couple of people who had just finished their demo, they all said the same thing."

"What?" asked Larry impatiently.

"They all said the headsets are just as good as the presentation made them out to be. I watched. Every person who tried one, bought one. And even more people were just buying one without even going through the demo."

"Wait, are you telling me they are actually selling headsets?" asked Larry.

"Yes, sir," said James.

"And it's not their original model?"

"No, sir. I watched the video presentation, and I have to say, it made the AVR Explorer look absolutely amazing. If even half of what people are saying about it is true, we might have a problem. Especially since their price is only half of ours."

"Half?!" exclaimed Larry. "You mean after their CES discount, right?"

"No, sir. Their full price is half of our full price. They have to be selling at a loss because they claim their resolution is 16K."

"16K?! They have to be lying. No one makes displays with that resolution," said Larry.

James shrugged.

"Alright, go man the booth. I need to make a call," said Larry.

Normally, hiring a blind man to work at a VR headset company would be considered a shameless diversity hire, but Aaron Casavant was a genius firmware coder and had a big chip on his shoulder when it came to accessibility. And Larry had a new job for Aaron.

——————————

When Phineas arrived at his exhibit on the morning of the second day of CES, he found people already lined up for the demo. And by 9 o'clock, just as many people were lined up as had been at the peak on the previous day.

Things continued to go smoothly until around ten-thirty when a man with milky white eyes and a cane showed up.

People immediately began muttering to each other, wondering what a blind man was doing at a VR headset exhibit.

If the man had been wearing dark glasses, they might have assumed the man was faking it, maybe as a prank, but they could all see his eyes, and they were milky white. No pupil. So, it seemed safe to assume the man was genuinely blind.

Phineas walked up to the blind man and asked, "Are you here for a demo?"

He suspected the man was an accessibility activist there to make some noise but wanted to remain polite. Besides, he knew something the blind man didn't.

"Oh, sure, sure," said the blind man, voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'd love to see how your headset stacks up against the competition."

"Wonderful," said Phineas, ignoring the man's sarcasm. "If you'll follow me, I'd be happy to help you try out our new AVR Explorer."

"No, no," said the blind man. "I want to do it right here, where everyone can see."

"Alright, no problem. If you'll wait just a moment, I'll go fetch a headset and gloves."

"Gloves?" muttered the blind man.

Before Phineas could take more than two steps, one of his employees ran up and handed him a headset and gloves.

"Here we are," said Phineas.

He held out the headset to the blind man and tapped on with his fingernails, while saying, "Here's the headset."

He didn't have much experience working with blind people, but assumed they did not like being patronized. So he tapped his fingernails on the headset so the blind man could hear it and locate the headset without Phineas needing to tell the man where it was.

The blind man reached out and grabbed the headset without hesitation, then ran his fingers over it, feeling the head strap and cables. After exploring it for a moment, he donned the headset.

"Great, now here's the power pack," said Phineas, holding out the power pack, tapping his fingernails on it as well.

The blind man grabbed the power pack, explored it for a moment, then grabbed the correct cord dangling from the headset and plugged it in.

"Here is the left glove," said Phineas. He held it in the same position as he had the power pack.

The blind man reached out and grabbed the glove and put it on, frowning when he discovered how loose it fit.

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