Evelyn Reed stared at Leo, her expression a rare, captivating mixture of profound disbelief and grudging, analytical admiration. In her world of ruthless corporate raiders and hedge fund titans, a world built on the cold, hard logic of numbers and market forces, she had heard audacious plans. She had seen companies dismantled in leveraged buyouts, CEOs ousted in brutal proxy fights, and entire markets broken by a single, perfectly timed short sell. But she had never, in her entire, meticulously organized life, heard anyone propose solving a witness protection problem by acquiring a major metropolitan hospital as if it were an underperforming tech startup.
"Acquire Aethelburg General," she repeated slowly, the words feeling alien on her tongue. She began pacing, a habit she fell into when processing complex, high-stakes variables. "Leo, that's not a company; it's a quasi-governmental institution. It's operated by the Aethelburg Public Health Trust, a non-profit. Its board members aren't corporate executives susceptible to stock buyouts; they're city council appointees, university deans, and philanthropic old-money fixtures whose families have run this city for a century. They are, by design, insulated from the very market forces you're talking about. They can't be bought out."
"Everything has a price," Leo said, his voice gaining a chilling, resonant confidence that seemed at odds with the visible tremor in his hand as he reached for his coffee. The physical weakness was still there, a deep ache in his bones, but his mind was a forge, hammering out a new reality. The [Portfolio] screen hovered in his vision, a constant reminder of the cosmic balance sheet he now lived by. "You're thinking in terms of money, Evelyn. That's a single-variable analysis, the kind of thinking that got me stuck under a falling I-beam. The System operates on a different set of metrics. Power isn't just financial capital; it's leverage. It's information. It's influence. And influence is just a matter of identifying the correct pressure point."
He pushed himself off the couch, walking over to the suite's large smart television with a deliberate, steady gait that cost him more energy than he wanted to admit. "Julian, interface with this display. Project my System view."
Acknowledged, the mental voice replied, cool and instantaneous.
The television screen, previously dark, flickered to life. It now displayed a perfect, high-resolution mirror of Leo's [Portfolio] dashboard, visible to Evelyn for the first time. She stopped pacing, her breath catching softly. The clean, minimalist lines, the glowing cyan text, the cold, hard categories of ASSETS and LIABILITIES—it looked like the most advanced, most secret trading platform she had ever seen. It was the language of her world, but written in the grammar of the gods.
"This," Leo said, gesturing to the screen, "is our reality now. And in this reality, the Aethelburg Public Health Trust isn't just an institution. It's an asset. And every asset has a vulnerability."
He focused his will, and the display shifted. A complex, branching diagram of the Trust appeared on the screen, pulled from public records and a dozen other databases with impossible speed. At the top were the twelve members of the board of directors, their faces, affiliations, and public financial data displayed next to their names.
"You're right, we can't buy them," Leo conceded. "But a board of directors is just a system of control. To control the asset, you don't need to own it. You just need to control a majority of its board. We need seven of them."
Evelyn crossed her arms, her analytical mind immediately engaging with the problem, her initial shock replaced by strategic curiosity. "Let's accept your premise. Seven directors. One is the mayor's sister-in-law. Another is the Dean of Medicine at Aethelburg University, a man famous for his unimpeachable ethics. A third is Beatrice Ashworth, the matriarch of a family that basically founded this city. These people are fortresses, Leo. How do you plan to 'influence' them?"
"You don't," Leo said, a predatory grin touching his lips. "You don't influence a fortress. You find the cracks in its foundation. Or you find the secret tunnel underneath. We're going to run a vulnerability scan. A deep one. On all of them."
He turned away from the screen, facing Evelyn directly. The plan was already forming in his head, a beautiful, intricate piece of architecture with multiple points of support. "This is a multi-front operation. It requires our entire team."
"We have a team?" Evelyn asked, raising a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "As of yesterday, our 'team' was you, me, and a supernatural being in a janitor's uniform."
"We're scaling up," Leo confirmed. "You're the CEO, running the public-facing and legal strategy. Julian is our Head of Security and direct-action operative. And we're about to hire a Head of Information."
He looked at Evelyn. "That private investigator you have on retainer. You said she was a ghost. Is she good enough to haunt twelve of the most powerful people in the city?"
"She's good enough to find out what God had for breakfast and bill him for the intel," Evelyn said without hesitation. "Ex-Mossad, specializes in digital infiltration and data extraction. She's expensive, paranoid, and communicates entirely through encrypted, single-use channels. I've never even seen her face. She goes by 'Glitch'."
"Hire her," Leo commanded. "Don't give her a blank check. Offer her something better. Offer her a partnership. A stake in Paradox Holdings. Money is an insult to an artist of her caliber. Offer her the ultimate puzzle to solve."
Evelyn's eyes lit up with appreciation for the strategy. "A stake. That's good. It ensures loyalty beyond a paycheck. I'll draft the offer."
"Her mission," Leo continued, pacing now, a new energy flowing through him, "is a full digital workup on every board member. I want their financial records, their hidden debts, their browser histories, their secret communications, the GPS data from their cars. I want every skeleton in every one of their closets, digitized and delivered to my desktop."
"Next," he said, turning to Julian, who stood motionless in the corner. "The hospital itself. We need an inside man."
"A human asset on the inside is a high-risk variable," Julian's voice echoed in his mind, a logical, cold counterpoint. "Humans are susceptible to emotional compromise and external coercion."
"Which is why you will be the one to select him," Leo replied. "I want you to do the same thing you did at the hotel. Find me the Head of Hospital Security. Scan his profile. Find his leverage point—greed, fear, ambition, pride, whatever his primary emotional driver is—and persuade him. We need him on our payroll by morning."
Acknowledged. Executing... Julian's golden eyes glowed, and he fell perfectly still, his consciousness already probing the digital and conceptual weaknesses of a man miles away.
"That leaves the final front," Leo said, turning back to Evelyn. "The public one. The one you command. We can't look like we're taking over a hospital. We need a pretext. A damn good one. A Trojan Horse."
He gestured to his [Portfolio] on the screen. "We have an asset we haven't used yet. [Concept: Self-Healing Crystalline Matrix]. The material from the I-beam."
Evelyn's eyes widened as she connected the dots. "You want to...?"
"Exactly," Leo confirmed. "Paradox Holdings is about to make its first major philanthropic gesture. We are going to make a massive, public donation to Aethelburg General. We're not just giving them money. We're giving them a revolutionary new bio-compatible material. A material that is stronger, lighter, and safer than anything on the market. We will announce the formation of a new 'Medical Technology Wing' at the hospital, funded entirely by us, dedicated to creating next-generation prosthetics and surgical tools."
"And as the primary benefactors," Evelyn finished, the full, brilliant scope of the plan laid bare, "we demand several seats on the board to oversee our 'investment' and ensure it is managed properly. It's a classic corporate raider tactic, disguised as an act of unimpeachable charity. They can't possibly say no without looking like they're rejecting life-saving technology for their patients."
"It's a start," Leo said. "While you are charming them in the boardroom, Glitch will be blackmailing them in the dark, and Julian will be securing their operational control. A three-pronged attack. Foundation, walls, and roof. A complete architectural takeover."
It was a beautiful, ruthless, and impeccably designed plan.
In a room that existed nowhere and everywhere at once, a room made of cold, hard light and absolute order, Director Marcus Thorne—the real Marcus Thorne—watched a series of data streams converge. The man in the hospital bed, the bumbling corporate proxy, was his creation, a disposable tool. But the tool had been captured, and the anomaly it was meant to observe had proven to be far more than a minor paradox.
"Report," Thorne commanded, his voice echoing in the non-space.
A featureless attendant, an entity similar to Julian but glowing with a cold, sterile blue light, materialized before him.
"Asset 'Cleaner Unit 734' has been compromised. A hostile entity has seized a 51% controlling interest. The unit is now operating under a new designation: 'Julian'. It is serving the anomaly, designated 'Leo Vance'."
Thorne's ageless face, a mask of cold perfection, showed no emotion. "A leveraged buyout of a conceptual asset. Audacious. And the proxy?"
"The 'Marcus Thorne' proxy has been apprehended by local law enforcement, facilitated by the Vance anomaly. The anomaly has successfully shifted all legal liability for the Titan Tower event."
This, finally, elicited a reaction. A flicker of something that might have been annoyance, or perhaps even respect, in Thorne's eyes. This wasn't just a powerful anomaly; it was a clever one. It understood systems. It understood liability.
"The local authorities are a temporary complication," Thorne stated. "The media is a greater one. The Vance anomaly is currently anonymous. He must remain so. We cannot allow him to build a public power base. A martyr is infinitely more difficult to erase than a monster."
He turned to his attendant. "The 'Hunter' protocol. We need an asset that operates outside our direct command structure, one that specializes in single-target acquisition. Is the Predator System user available?"
"The Predator System user is active and awaiting a contract," the attendant confirmed. "Their methods are... direct."
"Direct is what we need," Thorne said. "This Vance anomaly thinks in terms of systems and corporations. We need to introduce a variable he cannot model. A pure, chaotic force of nature. A shark in his wading pool." He paused, considering. "But a hunter needs a trail. We need a vector to our target. A weakness."
The attendant displayed a new data file. It was a simple employee record from the now-defunct Thorne & Associates.
REED, EVELYN.
"This entity has been identified as the anomaly's primary support structure," the attendant reported. "She operates with extreme efficiency in the baseline financial and legal worlds. She is currently constructing a corporate shield around the anomaly. Analysis suggests she is the greatest immediate threat to maintaining the anomaly's anonymity and the primary enabler of his strategic actions."
Thorne looked at the file, at the picture of the sharp, intelligent young woman. He saw not a person, but a critical vulnerability in his enemy's defenses. The queen on the chessboard.
"A perfect target," Director Thorne said, a cold, thin smile gracing his lips for the first time. "The Predator has its prey. Instruct it to begin its surveillance. I want to know everything about her. Her routines, her habits, her weaknesses. And when the time is right... I want her removed from the board. Permanently."
He waved his hand, and the data streams vanished. The game had changed. His simple sanitation mission had just escalated into a full-blown corporate war against a rival CEO he hadn't even known existed. It was an unforeseen, chaotic variable.
And Director Thorne despised chaos more than anything.