THE HIDDEN HEIR'S VENGEANCE

CHAPTER 2 : ARC SYSTEM

In the long, silent executive corridor, Matthew staggered forward. The pain in his head was no longer a dull throb but a sledgehammer pounding inside his skull. Cold sweat ran down his temples.

He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out his phone, its screen cracked at the corner. He intended to order a ride, since the family’s private driver would never be allowed to take him.

Suddenly, the screen flickered strangely. Not a message notification or an email. The display turned completely black, then a line of golden text appeared, blinking at the center.

[EMERGENCY PROTOCOL INITIATION DETECTED]

“What is this?” Matthew muttered, squinting as his vision blurred further. “A virus?” He tried pressing the home button, but the phone did not respond. The text changed.

[SUBJECT CONDITION : CRITICAL. STRESS LEVEL : 99%. SYNCHRONIZATION REQUIRED IMMEDIATELY.]

“Damn it,” he cursed, stuffing the phone back into his pocket and continuing toward the elevator. He needed to reach his rarely used car, an old sedan that was the only thing he truly owned, parked at the lowest basement level.

Fifteen minutes later, Matthew was on the road. Heavy rain poured down, soaking the windshield of his old sedan. The wipers moved slowly, squeaking with every swipe, adding to the pain in his head.

The fast lanes of New York were relatively empty that afternoon. Matthew sped up, trying to escape the image of Carol’s sneer and Viviane’s helpless gaze.

“Why did you stay silent, Vie?” Matthew shouted into the empty car. He slammed his fist against the steering wheel. “Why did you let her treat me like trash?”

The pain in his head exploded inward, no longer a mere pulse. It felt as if a blood vessel had burst. A high ringing filled his ears, drowning out the sound of rain.

Matthew’s vision turned completely white. In his pocket, his phone vibrated violently, emitting an unnatural heat.

[WARNING! BRAIN FUNCTION FAILURE DETECTED. INITIATING NEURAL SYSTEM TAKEOVER IN 3... 2…]

Matthew’s hands suddenly stiffened. He lost control of his motor functions. His foot, which should have hit the brake as the traffic light ahead turned red, instead pressed harder on the accelerator due to muscle spasms.

“Arghhh!” Matthew groaned, his eyes wide with unbearable pain. The old sedan shot through the red light at 100 kilometers per hour.

From the right, a container truck barreled forward in its own lane. Its horn blared like a trumpet of death. Matthew turned his head, his pupils dilating as he registered the final seconds of his destruction. There was no time to evade.

The sound of metal colliding was horrific. The old sedan was flung into the air, spinning three times before crashing upside down onto the asphalt. Glass exploded like shattered diamonds. The frame crumpled, trapping Matthew inside.

Matthew’s world went dark. The smell of gasoline and blood filled the air. In the rapidly fading space between life and death, a cold, robotic voice sounded clearly inside his head, not through his ears.

[SUBJECT CLINICALLY DEAD. INITIATING CARDIAC REBOOT. CONNECTING ARC INTERFACE.]

And then everything turned black. Complete silence. Absolute emptiness.

***

The darkness was not empty. It was alive, pulsing, filled with invisible streams of binary data rushing past like traffic on Manhattan streets at night.

Matthew felt himself drifting through the void. The pain from twisted metal and shattered glass that had crushed his body on the streets of Queens now felt distant, as if it had happened to someone else in another life.

Then, within that cosmic silence, a voice echoed. It was neither male nor female but a voice of pure authority, cold and metallic, yet grand.

[REBOOT PROCESS COMPLETE.]

[NEURAL INTEGRATION : 100%.]

[CURRENT LOCATION : MOUNT SINAI HOSPITAL, NEW YORK.]

[WELCOME TO THE ARC INTERFACE (ABSOLUTE RESOURCE CONTROL).]

Matthew’s eyes flew open with a violent jolt. “Hah!” He sucked in air greedily, like a swimmer surfacing from the depths of the Hudson River.

The rhythmic beeping of an EKG machine filled his ears. Harsh white neon light stabbed at his vision. Beyond the large glass window, the gray New York sky looked bleak, the tops of skyscrapers barely visible through the mist.

“Mr. Thomas! Oh my God, you’re awake?”

A young blonde nurse who had been changing his IV bag jumped in shock and dropped her tray of medication. The clatter made Matthew’s head throb again, but this time it felt different.

Not pain from injury, but a sense of fullness, as if his brain had just been upgraded with a supercomputer processor.

Matthew tried to sit up. His body still felt stiff. “What… what happened?” he wondered, confused.

“Please don’t move yet, sir,” the nurse said frantically, pressing the blue code button on the wall. “You were in a severe accident on the Queensboro Bridge three hours ago. Your car was completely destroyed. Dr. Steinberg said it’s a miracle you’re even breathing, let alone conscious this soon. Mild concussion, three broken ribs, and internal bleeding.”

Matthew looked at his hand, an IV line attached. Then his attention was drawn to something far stranger.

Floating in the air, right in front of the nurse’s face, yet clearly invisible to her, was a bluish-gold holographic panel. It was transparent and elegant, radiating a level of technological luxury far beyond Silicon Valley.

[OWNER STATUS : MATTHEW THOMAS]

[PHYSICAL CONDITION : CRITICAL (SYSTEM RECOVERY PENDING)]

[CURRENT LIQUID ASSETS : $215.50 (BANK OF AMERICA)]

[LOCKED ASSETS (TIER 1) : $1,000,000,000,000 (ONE TRILLION USD)]

Matthew’s eyes widened at the final number. One trillion dollars. The string of zeros stretched endlessly, like a subway train.

“Can you see that?” Matthew asked hoarsely, pointing at the empty air in front of the nurse.

The nurse frowned, staring at his trembling finger. “See what, Mr. Thomas? There’s nothing there. You may still be hallucinating from head trauma. The morphine.”

“Hallucination…” Matthew murmured. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again. The panel was still there, sharper and more real than the buildings outside the window.

A new dialog box appeared, followed by a robotic voice that sounded directly inside his skull, by passing his ears.

[THIS IS NOT A HALLUCINATION, MR. THOMAS. I AM THE ARC SYSTEM, ABSOLUTE RESOURCE CONTROL. AN ABSOLUTE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM.]

“Who are you?” Matthew whispered, ignoring the nurse’s increasingly frightened look as she slowly backed away, convinced her patient had suffered permanent brain damage.