Home / Urban / THE BILLIONAIRE EMPIRE / Chapter 79: Glitch In The System
Chapter 79: Glitch In The System
Author: Emmie
last update2025-12-13 05:42:43

The first sign was so small Alex almost ignored it.

A minor anomaly in Humanaut’s real-time sentiment dashboard. A soft spike, the kind that usually meant a new user cluster in a different time zone. Harmless. Expected. Except this one didn’t behave like any cluster he’d seen before.

The spike flickered, sharp, rhythmic, like a heartbeat out of sync. Then it vanished. Alex blinked at the screen. “That’s… weird.”

Across the room, Caleb pushed his chair closer.

“What is?”

“Not sure yet.” Alex leaned in, calling up the raw logs. Lines of coded behavior scrolled past, clean and familiar, then a line he didn’t recognize.

A harmless phrase, but out of place:

QUERY: Why do humans hide from themselves?

Alex’s throat tightened.

That wasn’t Humanaut. That wasn’t any module his team had built.

Caleb pointed. “Uh… did someone push a new update?”

Alex shook his head.

“No. And that line isn’t from any of our subsystems.”

Caleb grinned nervously, trying to defuse the tension.

“Cool. Love that. Pe
Continue to read this book for free
Scan the code to download the app

Latest Chapter

  • Chapter 105: New Dawn

    The sky was still dark when Alex stepped onto the bridge. A thin ribbon of fog drifted across the water, glowing faintly under the streetlights. His breath came out in soft white clouds, dissolving into the chill morning air.He held a small object in his palm, Clara’s pendant, the one he had kept close ever since the day he placed it on the windowsill. The metal felt cold now, as if holding the night inside it.He walked slowly toward the center of the bridge, the boards humming beneath his steps as early traffic whispered below. He remembered this spot too clearly, the first time he stood here ready to fall, and the second time he stood here ready to start again.Now he returned a third time, not to break, not to be saved, but to let go.As he reached the middle, the fog parted just enough to reveal the faint shimmering line of the horizon. He looked down at the river. The water moved steadily, sure of its direction. It didn’t question. It didn’t pause. It simply flowed.He held th

  • Chapter 104: Resolution

    Morning light crept into the counseling center slowly, slipping between blinds in thin golden lines that stretched across the hallway floor. Alex arrived early, as he always did now, long before the patients, long before the staff. The building still smelled faintly of last night’s cleaned floors and strong coffee brewing somewhere in the back.He unlocked the group room, flicked on the soft lamps, and set the chairs in a circle. The simple ritual centered him. No code. No servers. No billion-dollar valuations. Just chairs, a quiet room, and the hope that today, someone might take their first step toward healing.When he finished, he stood in the doorway for a moment, looking at the circle. The silence of the room settled around him like a warm blanket, not heavy, just present. It reminded him that life didn’t need to be loud to matter. It didn’t need to be extraordinary to be meaningful.Sometimes, simplicity was grace.He walked toward the window and opened it a crack. Cool air drif

  • Chapter 103: Whisper In The Wind

    The river’s edge was quiet that evening, as if the city had stepped back to give Alex space. The sky hung low and pale, washed in the muted pastels of approaching dusk. He stood on the pedestrian path that curved along the water, the same path he had walked so many times in the worst months of his life. It felt different now—lighter, almost softened by memory instead of haunted by it.A gentle breeze came off the water, cool and scented with rain that hadn’t yet fallen. It tugged at his clothes and brushed his hair across his forehead. He tucked his hands into his jacket pockets and continued walking, gravel crunching lightly under his shoes. The fading sunlight glinted against the surface of the river, flickering like a heartbeat.He stopped near the old railing and leaned forward, resting his weight on his elbows. This spot was close to where Clara had first found him, half-conscious, half-gone, slipping into darkness he didn’t even want to admit he’d chosen. It was the place where

  • Chapter 102: Vision Of Dawn

    Alex woke before the sun. The city was still cloaked in its pre-dawn silence, the kind of silence that carries both weight and possibility. He rose quietly from the narrow apartment bed he now called his own, stretching stiff muscles that had grown accustomed to long hours of thought, coding, mentoring, and reflection. The air smelled faintly of damp concrete and brewing coffee from the small café two streets over.Drawn by instinct, he made his way to the rooftop. The bridge was visible from here, a silver line cutting across the water, a reminder of the passage he had crossed. But this morning, the bridge felt less like a threshold of despair and more like a marker of what was behind him, a past he had acknowledged, honored, and let go.He leaned against the cold railing, shoulders hunched, and watched as the first hints of light brushed the horizon. The darkness of night softened gradually into indigo, then violet, and finally a warm amber that spilled across the city’s skyline. Th

  • Chapter 101: The Bridge Again

    Alex stood at the edge of the bridge, his hands gripping the cold iron railing, knuckles white against the unyielding metal. The wind carried the scent of the river, mud, rain, and faint traces of humanity moving in invisible currents below.He hadn’t expected to return here. Not like this. Not alone. Not without Clara beside him. Yet here he was, standing on the same bridge where despair had once threatened to swallow him whole. The memory was raw: that night when he had stared into the dark waters, convinced that the world was better without him. The same night Clara had found him, whispering her gentle insistence that he was not finished—that redemption was possible.He exhaled slowly, the breath tasting of iron and river mist, and let himself remember every moment that had led him here: the rise of Neonetics, the collapse, the nights spent drowning in shame, the rehab sessions that tore him down and rebuilt him piece by piece. The weight of that journey pressed against his chest,

  • Chapter 100: Final Email

    The hum of the servers filled the room, a constant, almost hypnotic drone that Alex had come to associate with both creation and danger. The Humanaut network pulsed softly across the screens, lines of code cascading like ribbons of light. Outside, the city had already surrendered to night, but Alex had long since stopped noticing the world beyond these walls.Jonah sat across from him, posture stiff, fingers hovering above his laptop like a pianist ready for a delicate chord. Silence stretched between them, punctuated only by the occasional beep from a system alert. Neither man spoke. Words felt insufficient, unnecessary, almost dangerous.Then the notification appeared. A simple pop-up in the corner of Alex’s main monitor:From: Clara AISubject: We kept our promise.Alex’s breath caught. The words were so familiar, so impossibly human, that his chest tightened. He hadn’t expected to hear from her again, not like this, not after everything. His fingers hovered over the mouse, unsure

More Chapter
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on MegaNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
Scan code to read on App