Darien did not speak for several seconds.

The two employees watched him from their desks. They could not hear Walter’s voice, but they could see Darien’s face changing. That alone made them sit straighter.

"You understand what you are saying, right?" Darien asked. "If I put money into these companies and the fall continues, your money burns. My company burns before it even opens properly."

"It will not fall all the way," Walter said.

"You sound very sure."

"Because I caused it."

Darien’s fingers tightened around the phone.

The room around him felt smaller.

He had guessed that the shortage was not clean. The timing was too strange. Several companies were hit in the same direction, and the market was reacting faster than the news could explain. Still, guessing and hearing the man admit it were not the same thing.

"You caused it," Darien said slowly.

"Enough of it," Walter replied. "Do not worry about the full market. Buy the ones that fell because people are afraid of supply. Not the ones that are weak from inside. You know the difference."

Darien looked toward the television again. One ticker showed a company down almost twelve percent. Another had fallen eight. A third was still moving lower.

"How long do I hold?"

"You decide. This is the initial push I promised you. A small gift for our company. After this, you work with your own head."

"And if the news changes against us?"

"Then you will learn faster."

The call ended.

Darien kept the phone against his ear for a moment even after the line went dead.

The young woman finally asked, "Sir?"

Darien placed the phone down.

"Open the list of chip-dependent companies that fell today," he said. "All of them. We are buying."

The young man blinked. "All of them?"

"The good ones," Darien said. "If their fall is only supply panic, we buy. If their accounts are rotten, we leave them to drown." 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

He stood and moved toward the whiteboard.

"Sort them into three groups," he said. "Companies with orders but no chips, companies with weak cash, and companies whose stock fell only because everyone panicked together. The third group is where we enter first."

The young woman opened her laptop at once. The young man moved slower, still unsure whether this was bravery or madness.

Darien understood him.

If Walter was lying, this move could ruin Northline before its name appeared properly in the market. If Walter was telling the truth, then they were standing in front of the first real trade of their lives.

His hand still remembered the electric pain from Walter’s cane, but his mind was awake now. Fear had brought him into the room. Opportunity was keeping him there.

Elsewhere, Adam was paying the other side of that opportunity.

He was inside the second apartment, the place he used for product work. The curtains were shut. Boxes sat against the wall. On the table were ORS packets, water bottles, two strips of tablets, and a plastic container filled with the controller chips Aster Core needed.

Adam had already learned not to treat his power like a free machine.

Every repeated paste pulled something from him. Hunger came first. Then thirst. Then a dull ache behind his eyes. ORS helped because it gave his body water, salt, and glucose together, but it did not remove the cost. It only stretched the time before his body started shouting at him.

He mixed another packet into water and drank half of it.

"Again," he muttered.

He touched the stored chip, focused, and pasted. One chip appeared, then another, and then the rhythm settled into his breathing.

For the first hour, he kept a steady rhythm. For the second, his fingers started trembling. By the third, he had to sit down between batches. The tablets stayed on the table. He did not swallow them carelessly. He had bought them for emergencies, not for stupidity.

The pile grew past two hundred, then two hundred and fifty, and finally three hundred.

Adam stopped with his hand still over the table.

His vision swam for a second.

Last time, two hundred and fifty had nearly emptied him. This time he had pushed fifty more. That was progress, but it was not enough. Aster Core now had more than twelve orders waiting in some form. If he could make three hundred a day, he could keep them alive for now. If the demand kept growing, he would become the weakest part of his own company.

That thought annoyed him more than the headache.

He tried to stand.

His legs refused.

Adam lowered himself to the floor instead and lay back beside the table. The room spun once, then settled. He wanted to plan the next step. He wanted to think about machines, suppliers, and whether he could copy a larger production unit someday.

Sleep took him before the thought finished.

At the police department, Rovan Hale was not allowed to sleep.

He stood in front of Havel’s desk while Havel looked at the report again.

"I am telling you what I already told you," Havel said. "The department has no clean evidence against you yet. That is why you are still walking."

Rovan kept his face stiff.

"Sir, I did my job."

Havel looked up. "If I find out your hand is inside this, the department will not be the first thing you fear. I will be."

Rovan lowered his head a little.

When he left the room, he went straight to the constables who had moved under him during the Maren case. His voice stayed low, but every word carried pressure.

"No one talks loosely. If someone asks, you followed information, reached late, and secured the scene. If I hear one stupid story outside, I will know where it came from."

One constable nodded too quickly.

Rovan returned to his desk and opened his email.

The message from the unknown side was already there.

Continue investigating international organizations. Send every small movement, every name, and every rumor.

Rovan stared at the screen.

"What cursed morning did I wake up on," he whispered, "that this man entered my life?"