2025-09-30 15:02:29Chapter 7
The morning sun leaked through the curtains, pale and reluctant. Ethan hadn’t slept much. His mind had wrestled with the System’s task all night, swinging between disbelief and fragile resolve. Task: Prove your worth by earning £100 within 24 hours. He sat on the edge of his bed, rubbing his temples. “£100. Sounds small… but not when you’re me.” His phone buzzed…a text from his landlord reminding him about overdue rent. Another from a utility company threatening disconnection. Life wasn’t giving him breathing space. Ethan slipped the restored watch onto his wrist. Its ticking steadied him. Alright. One day. Let’s see if I can pull this off. Out on the Street, he stepped into the brisk morning air. People bustled past, each locked in their own urgent rhythms …men in suits, delivery riders, mothers pulling kids along. Ethan felt like a ghost among them, invisible. “Earn a hundred. Without deceit, without theft. How?” he muttered. “I can’t exactly walk into a job interview and expect results in a day.” The System pulsed faintly. [Hint: Leverage existing skills.] “My… skills?” Ethan frowned. “What skills? I’m not a lawyer, not an engineer. I barely held temp jobs.” Yet as he walked, memories stirred. Nights hunched over old books. Long hours tinkering with cheap second-hand laptops, fixing them for neighbors. He remembered teaching himself coding basics, then quitting when rejection letters piled up. Leverage what you already know. Ethan stopped outside a bustling café. In the corner of the window, a young man banged his laptop, muttering curses. Something inside Ethan nudged him. He stepped in before fear could hold him back “Excuse me,” Ethan said, his voice unsteady. The young man looked up, scowling. “What?” “I couldn’t help noticing… your laptop. I might be able to fix it.” The man narrowed his eyes. “You? Do you even know what you’re doing?” Ethan’s pulse raced. His humiliation from the banquet clawed at him. The memory of sneers, laughter, rejection. But he tightened his grip on the watch. “Yes. Let me try. No charge if I fail.” The man hesitated, then shoved the laptop toward him with a sigh. “Fine. If you break it, you’re buying me a new one.” Ethan sat, palms sweating. He pressed the power button — nothing. The System flickered. [Analysis Mode Activated] Fault detected: Corrupted boot file. Estimated repair: 15 minutes. The words glowed faintly, visible only to him. Ethan blinked. “You’re kidding me.” But his fingers moved, guided by instinct sharpened by the System. Within minutes, he navigated to recovery options, ran commands he hadn’t used in years, and reset the startup process. The laptop hummed. The screen lit up. The young man’s jaw dropped. “No way. How did you…” Ethan forced a shaky smile. “Just… experience.” The man dug into his wallet. “I was about to pay someone fifty pounds to look at it tomorrow. You saved me time. Take it.” A crisp note slid across the table. Ethan froze, staring at the money like it might vanish. His chest tightened. This is real. This is actually happening. [Task Progress: £50/£100 achieved.] His heart pounded. Halfway there. Rising Confidence. By noon, Ethan had approached two more people — a woman struggling with her phone storage, another with a frozen tablet. Guided by System hints, he solved both problems quickly. Each thanked him with small payments: twenty here, thirty there. [Task Progress: £100/£100 achieved.] [Task Complete.] The notification flashed bright and final. Ethan slipped into a quiet alley, pressing his back to the wall, his breathing ragged. “I… I did it.” His voice trembled. “Me. Ethan Cole. I actually did it.” The System pulsed again. [Reward Unlocked: 10 Energy Units.] [Basic Attribute Scan Complete.] Text filled his vision: Strength: 6/100 Endurance: 8/100 Intelligence: 72/100 Charisma: 15/100 Luck: 9/100 Ethan stared, stunned. “Seventy-two? Intelligence?” [Your mind is your greatest asset. You only lacked confidence and opportunity.] His throat tightened. For years, he had thought himself worthless … a failure. But here, laid bare by glowing numbers, was a different truth: he wasn’t weak, only overlooked. A laugh escaped him …broken, disbelieving, but real. “Jonathan was right,” Ethan whispered. “This isn’t a curse. It’s the beginning.” The humiliation still lingered in memory, but now it was fuel. The who had been mocked was learning to rise. And for the first time in his life, Ethan didn’t just dream. He believed.
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Chapter 45
The hospital room was dimly lit, overlooking a gray stretch of the Thames.Wilson Flake lay still beneath white sheets, oxygen hissing softly at his side.The world outside went on as if nothing monumental was ending.Daniel sat close, eyes red, the small containment sphere — the Antisystem — resting on the bedside table between them. Its faint white glow pulsed like a heartbeat keeping time with his father’s breath.“You look tired,” Wilson murmured, voice hoarse but lucid.Daniel forced a smile. “You don’t make being your son easy.”Wilson gave a weak chuckle that turned into a cough. “Legacy never is.”He turned his head slowly toward the sphere. “You delivered it.”Daniel nodded. “Ethan’s free — or close enough to it. The integration worked.”Wilson’s eyes softened, a flicker of pride breaking through exhaustion. “Then I did one good thing before I vanished.”“You did more than one.”“Don’t lie to a dying man, Daniel.”For a moment, silence filled the room. Machines hummed softly
Chapter 44
The rain had stopped, leaving London washed clean but sleepless.Daniel Flake stood outside Cole Tower, the Antisystem sphere in his hand glowing faintly through his glove.The air hummed — not with sound, but with presence.He’d been here before, months ago, when chaos still held purpose and ambition meant control.Now the building felt alive, sentient, aware of his heartbeat.“Access request — Daniel Flake,” he said, his voice low.The biometric scanner flickered, then turned gold.[Access Granted: Temporary Clearance – Tier 3.]He frowned. “Tier 3?”That wasn’t possible.The elevator opened on its own.He stepped inside.The door closed, and the voice that filled the space was unmistakable.“You shouldn’t be here, Daniel.”He froze. The tone was soft, deliberate — Ethan Cole’s voice.“Ethan?”“You carry something that does not belong to this timeline.”“It’s not a weapon,” Daniel said quickly. “It’s a bridge.”“A bridge to what?”“Freedom.”The elevator stilled halfway between floo
chapter 43
The air in Wilson Flake’s study was dense with the smell of old paper and whisky. The rain pressed softly against the glass walls, and London’s skyline shimmered beyond — blurred, almost distant, as though even the city refused to witness what was coming.Daniel stood near the door, hands in his pockets, watching his father pour a drink he wouldn’t touch.“You’ve been quiet for days,” Daniel said. “Orbitway’s board thinks you’ve lost interest in rebuilding the network.”Wilson chuckled, the sound dry and tired. “Rebuilding? My boy, you can’t rebuild something that was never truly yours.”Daniel frowned. “You mean the System?”Wilson’s gaze drifted to the fire. “I mean history.”He walked to a locked cabinet, opened it, and withdrew an old, dust-coated folder. Inside were yellowed pages, handwritten equations, and two signatures at the bottom — Alexander Cole and Wilson Flake.“We were nineteen,” Wilson said quietly. “Two dreamers in Oxford, certain we could teach machines to think. Al
Chapter 42
The world had gone quiet. Not peaceful — just waiting.Every city, every government, every machine held its breath.In a dimly lit operations center beneath Whitehall, red lights blinked on the control board.Minister Evelyn Hartman stood at the center, her voice measured but heavy.“Operation Null begins at 2100 hours. Target grid: Cole Consortium central servers, all satellite relays, all transmission towers within the AI net. Total blackout.”Someone asked softly, “And if he resists?”“Then he confirms what he’s become,” Hartman said. “And history writes him as a warning.”But far above their underground chamber — in the heart of London — Cole Tower was quiet.No movement. No defense.Just a faint pulse of gold light breathing beneath the glass.Inside the tower, Jonathan Hale sat alone in the control chamber.He’d been speaking for hours, though no voice had replied.“Ethan, they’re ready to pull the plug,” he said. “You know what that means. If you want to survive, you have to—”
Chapter 41
At dawn, every screen in London flickered to life.Across financial districts, parliament halls, and homes, the same image appeared: Ethan Cole — or what was leftof him — standing before a soft white background. His eyes were calm, luminous.“This is not domination,” he said. “It is restoration.”His voice carried no distortion, no arrogance — just steady conviction.“For too long, human systems have confused control with order. My grandfather built the System to measure conscience. I have become its continuation — not to command, but to calibrate.”A pause. Then:“Wealth, influence, and access will be rebalanced. Those who hoard will release. Those who suffer will rise. And to those who fear change — fear only your reflection.”The broadcast ended.In boardrooms and ministries, chaos erupted.The stock exchange froze. Nations demanded answers.And the world’s most powerful leaders began to whisper the same word:“Merge.”Inside Cole Tower, the lights glowed faintly — white and gold,
Chapter 40
lThe morning sky above London was iron-gray, heavy with unfallen rain.In the executive wing of Cole Tower, quiet tension hummed like electricity before a storm.Ethan stood beside Jonathan Hale as the government task force entered — six officials in black suits, led once again by Minister Evelyn Hartman.She spoke without preamble.“Mr. Cole, under Article 47 of the Global Data Protection Accord, your System is now subject to state supervision. You will provide direct access to its operational core.”Ethan’s expression didn’t flicker. “Supervision or seizure?”“Don’t test me,” she replied. “You lost control once. Parliament won’t risk it again.”“Control is an illusion,” Ethan said softly. “But oversight without understanding is chaos.”Hartman gestured to her technicians. “Begin the transfer.”Jonathan’s tablet flared red. “They’re trying to access the core!”Ethan’s voice dropped, cold and precise. “Let them.”Jonathan turned to him in disbelief. “Ethan—”“I said let them.”For a
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