Chapter 9
Chapter 9:
The next morning, Aurora sat in a coffee shop in Midtown. It was loud, crowded, and perfect.
She had her laptop open.
She had bought the Put options yesterday. The news had broken this morning: FDA rejection. Vanguard Pharma plummeted 60% at the open. Her options exploded in value. The leverage turned her $4,700 investment into nearly $80,000.
She closed the position. Cash secured.
Now, Phase Two.
She navigated to the backend of Pulse Interactive. The company was in a death spiral. Their flagship game, CyberRealms, was crashing every four hours due to a server overload error that their developers couldn’t find.
Aurora found it in ten minutes. It was a memory leak in the chat protocol. Amateur hour.
She didn’t just fix it. She rewrote the kernel to optimize it by 200%. She sent an encrypted email to the CEO, Victor King.
Subject: I fixed your game.
Inside was the patch and a proposal.
At the Pulse Interactive headquarters, three blocks away, chaos turned to silence.
“Sir!” a developer shouted. “The servers… they just stabilized. Latency dropped to zero p>
Victor King, the CEO, rushed to the screen. “What did you do p>
“Nothing! Someone sent a patch. An external IP p>
Victor checked his email. He read the proposal. He grabbed his coat.
Twenty minutes later, Victor King entered the coffee shop. He looked frantic. He scanned the room until he saw the woman with the phoenix sticker on her laptop, as described in the email.
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He marched over.
“Are you Phoenix?” he demanded.
Aurora looked up calmly. “Sit down, Mr. King p>
Victor sat. He was a big man, intimidating, but right now he looked desperate.
“Why did you fix my game p>
“Because it was broken. And I hate broken things,” Aurora said.
She slid a document across the table.
“Consulting Agreement?” Victor read the title. He scanned the terms. “You want phantom stock options? And total anonymity p>
“I want a stake in the success,” Aurora said. “And I have the source code for Apex Ascendant. It’s a game engine that will make CyberRealms look like Pong p>
She turned her laptop around and showed him a demo. The graphics were hyper-realistic. The physics were perfect.
Victor watched, mesmerized. This was worth billions.
“Who are you?” Victor whispered.
“I’m your new silent partner,” Aurora said. “Sign it, Victor. Or I’ll sell this to Thorne Industries tomorrow p>
Victor paled. Sterling Thorne was his rival.
He grabbed the pen. He signed.
“Smart man,” Aurora said.
Outside the window, a black Maybach pulled up to the curb.
Elias Thorne stepped out. He hadn’t tracked Aurora. He was tracking Victor King. Pulse Interactive was a potential acquisition target, and Elias kept tabs on his competition.
He saw Victor King sitting in the window of the coffee shop.
He saw him shaking hands with a woman.
Elias froze on the sidewalk. The woman was Aurora.
He watched as Victor left, looking both terrified and elated.
Aurora packed up her laptop. She walked out of the coffee shop and almost bumped into Elias.
“You again,” she said.
“You know Victor King?” Elias asked, his voice guarded.
“I’m looking for work,” Aurora lied smoothly. “Pulse seemed like a good place to start p>
“Did he hire you p>
“Let’s just say I made a good impression p>
She checked her watch. “I’m late p>
“For what p>
“City Hall. My divorce is being filed at noon p>
Elias opened the rear door of the Maybach.
“Get in,” he said.
“I can take a cab p>
“Get in, Aurora. I want to see this p>
Aurora looked at him. She saw respect in his eyes.
She got in.