All Chapters of The Tycoon System: Chapter 401
- Chapter 410
427 chapters
Silverlake Vs Jasper
The morning in Silverlake started quietly, almost deceptively. The streets buzzed with the usual traffic, delivery vans rolled along the avenues, and office towers reflected sunlight in neat, mirrored grids. Inside Jasper’s Silverlake branch, however, calm had already fractured.Jackson was the first to notice it. “Sir, multiple notices have arrived overnight.” He spread the folders across the table. “Anti-monopoly review. Comprehensive tax audit covering Oakridge and Silverlake. Consumer protection investigation for the home robots. All within the last forty-eight hours.”Jasper picked up the first folder, thumb brushing over the official seal. “No incidents, no verified complaints?”“None,” Jackson replied. “Everything is procedural. But the timing… it’s coordinated. Too perfect to be random.”Lena, standing by the large screen, pulled up news clips from various outlets. “Public perception is shifting. Media frames it as necessary scrutiny. Investors are holding back. Axiom Dynamics
A Declaration
Jasper walked into the hearing chamber without pausing.Cameras flashed the moment the doors opened. The sound came in bursts—sharp, impatient. Journalists leaned forward from behind the barriers, voices overlapping, questions thrown without aim.“Mr. Hale—sorry—Mr. Jasper!”“Is it true your company manipulated suppliers?”“Are you under investigation for fraud?”He didn’t answer.Jackson walked half a step behind him, jaw tight, eyes forward. Security cleared a narrow path. The room was already full. Every seat taken. Observers pressed along the walls. Phones were raised everywhere.This wasn’t routine.Jasper knew that before he reached the table.Outside, the noise filtered faintly through the thick walls. Protest chants. His company’s name twisted into something hostile. Signs lifted high, words written in red and black. Exploiter. Fraud. Corporate parasite.He sat.The chair was stiff. Cold. Designed to keep people alert and uncomfortable.Across from him sat the committee. Seven
Threat level: High
Jasper stepped out of the building and into noise.Cameras flashed before his foot fully cleared the doorway. Voices rose from every direction, questions layered over one another, none waiting for answers. Security formed a loose barrier, guiding him down the steps as the crowd pressed closer.“Mr. Jasper—”“Was the recess planned?”“Are the allegations true?”He didn’t look at them.Jackson stayed close, eyes scanning, one hand already near his earpiece. The air felt tight, charged in a way Jasper couldn’t immediately place. Not panic. Not anger.Something sharper.Then the System flared.Not blue. Not amber.Crimson.“Hostile intent detected. Long-range threat locked.”Jasper stopped.Not by choice.The System seized his center of balance, forcing a subtle shift, pulling his upper body down and to the side with brutal precision. It felt unnatural, like being moved by an invisible hand that didn’t ask permission.A crack split the air.Not loud. Clean.The sound passed where his head
Quiet but not safe
The official notice arrived three hours before sunrise.It came through Jasper’s private channel, encrypted, flagged urgent but written in the same polite bureaucratic language as always. Clean. Careful. Bloodless.He read it once.Then again.A renewed hearing request.Temporary recess approved.Security concerns acknowledged.Additional documentation requested.Each line was harmless on its own. Together, they told a different story.Pressure hadn’t eased.It had condensed.Jasper set the tablet down on the desk and leaned back in his chair. The office lights were still dim, the city outside barely awake. Somewhere below, Silverlake was starting another day as if nothing had happened.Jackson stood across from him, arms folded, jaw set. He hadn’t spoken yet. He didn’t need to.“They’re calling you back in,” Jackson said finally.“I expected that,” Jasper replied.His voice was steady. No irritation. No surprise.Jackson exhaled through his nose. “They approved the recess just to mak
Threat Resolved
The news hit Silverlake like a sudden tremor. Screens flickered in every office, every home, every public space, and every social media feed erupted in a wave of disbelief and speculation. Kovius Hale, the politician who had dominated headlines for weeks, was under arrest. Charges ranged from obstruction of justice to falsification of records, abuse of office, and conspiracy to manipulate public narrative.The announcements came carefully. Investigators spoke with measured precision. Documents, quietly leaked from multiple anonymous sources, corroborated every accusation. Hale’s earlier attacks on Jasper were dismissed as fabrications born of desperation and fear. There was no room for interpretation—his fall was swift, public, and absolute.In the press, commentators debated how long he had been compromised. Analysts traced his career, noting a trail of decisions that suddenly looked less like policy and more like cover-ups. Headlines rotated from “Hale Arrested: End of an Era?” to “
The chairman was dead
The news arrived quietly at first, through encrypted channels and whispered calls. Then it spread. The Chairman was dead.In a dimly lit lounge far from the prying eyes of Silverlake’s streets, a powerful mob boss leaned back in his leather chair, the edges of the room lost in shadow. Smoke curled from the half-extinguished cigar between his fingers, and his eyes, sharp and calculating, traced the faces of his informants as they confirmed the rumors.“They’re saying it’s true,” one muttered, voice low.The mob boss didn’t reply at once. He exhaled slowly, letting the smoke drift across the ceiling. “Then it’s true,” he said finally. “The Chairman is gone.”The men around him shifted nervously. They had expected some reaction, some sign of fear. He offered none.“He… he was the one behind Kovius Hale, wasn’t he?” another asked.“Yes,” the boss said. “Every move, every whisper of influence, every shield he built. All of it.” His fingers tapped the armrest, measured and deliberate. “His
Mission Triggered
The first alarm went off three seconds too late.Jasper was already moving when the glass doors at the front of the Silverlake branch shattered inward. Not diving. Not running. Just stepping aside as bullets chewed through where he had been standing.“Lock it down,” Jackson shouted somewhere behind him.The System overlaid the room in pale lines. Angles. Paths. Threat markers blooming red one after another.Hostiles: twenty-three.Weapons: automatic.Intent: lethal.Jasper didn’t answer Jackson. He didn’t need to.He stepped forward.The first man rounded the corner near reception, rifle raised. Jasper closed the distance before the trigger finished pulling. The System corrected his stance, twisted his shoulder, guided his grip. The rifle clattered to the floor. The man went down without a sound.Another came from the left. Then two more.“Fall back!” someone yelled. Not Jasper’s people. One of the attackers.They hadn’t expected resistance like this. Not from him.Jasper moved throug
Persistent Jasper
Jasper arrived ten minutes early.The restaurant sat at the corner of a narrow street, squeezed between a shuttered laundromat and a phone repair shop that looked permanently closed. The sign above the door flickered unevenly, one letter dimmer than the rest. Inside, the lights were on, but barely.He paused outside for a moment, letting the System finish its passive scan.No alerts.No threat markers.Mission target confirmed.Jasper stepped in.The smell hit first. Old oil. Stale food. Something metallic underneath it all. The floor tiles were cracked, patched in places with mismatched replacements. Two customers sat near the window, heads down, eating in silence. The counter was chipped. The menu board hadn’t been updated in years.Worse than expected.A man behind the counter looked up slowly. Mid-forties. Tired eyes. Permanent scowl. He wiped his hands on a stained rag and didn’t smile.“We’re not open yet,” the man said.“It says open,” Jasper replied.The man glanced at the doo
Another attempt
Jasper did not sleep. He stayed seated across from his sister long after the medic said she was fine, long after the adrenaline should have worn off. She lay curled on the narrow bed, jacket still on, hands tucked close to her chest. Her breathing was uneven at first, shallow and tight, but eventually it slowed. Then it evened out. Only when her eyelids stopped fluttering did Jasper allow himself to move. Two guards stood inside the room, positioned at opposite corners. Neither spoke. Neither shifted their weight. Another guard remained just outside the hallway, visible through the open door, back straight, eyes forward. The building itself was quiet in the way expensive security always was. No footsteps. No idle voices. Just the soft hum of reinforced systems working in the background. Jasper watched his sister for a few seconds longer. Then he stood. “Don’t let anyone in,” he said quietly. “Yes, sir,” one of the guards replied. Only then did Jasper leave the room.
Systems
Jasper barely had time to settle back into routine.The morning had been uneventful. Meetings cleared. Production metrics reviewed. A minor delay in one of the overseas facilities, already resolved. He was halfway through a cup of coffee when the alert hit his System interface.Red.Priority override.Emergency classification.He frowned slightly and tapped the projection open.“Report,” he said.The feed expanded instantly. Live footage. Shaky. Grainy. The camera angle was wrong, tilted, as if the unit transmitting it had been struck.A home robot stood in the center of a living room.One of his models.Domestic-use series. Care, security, assistance. Non-lethal by design.Its movements were wrong.Too sharp. Too fast. Servos twitching between frames. The head rotated a full one-eighty and snapped back into place. Furniture lay overturned. A wall-mounted screen flickered violently, cracked down the middle.“Status?” Jasper asked.A system voice responded. Neutral. Automated.“Unit HX