The day I personally secured my parents a spot on the billionaire list was the day I found out I wasn’t their biological son. “Rhodes, you’re moving out tomorrow. Before you go, make sure you finalize the repayment for all the upkeep expenses.” That was Victor. “Undergraduates can barely find jobs now, but out of the kindness of our hearts, we’ll let you stay on as a janitor at the office.” That was Lydia. I simply smiled, declining their pitiful offer, and prepared to go home, pack my things, and clear out. I thought their calculated coldness had reached its limit. But when I saw the two large suitcases and a cardboard box—already packed and sitting on the curb—at the front of the house, I couldn’t help but be stunned by their efficiency. After fishing my laptop out of the box, I instinctively typed in the top-tier administrative password I’d used for five years. Idiots. Without me, how do you plan to hold onto any of this? 1 I walked calmly through the throng of people, exiting the gilded, echoing doors of the stock exchange. I hailed a random cab and gave the driver the address of the sprawling house I’d lived in for over two decades. The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror, probably recognizing me; the bell-ringing ceremony had been live-streamed across every business channel. He said nothing, simply muting the financial news playing on the radio. I leaned against the window, watching the blur of neon lights slide past. My phone was vibrating constantly. I didn’t need to look to know it was the media, scrambling for a first-hand scoop. I just turned it off. The car stopped at the gate of the estate. From a distance, I could already see them: two large suitcases and a cardboard box, standing alone on the cold pavement outside the wrought-iron gate. I let out a soft, cold laugh. They certainly were efficient, desperate to ensure I didn’t waste one extra second inside. I dragged the luggage to the front door and, out of habit, placed my finger on the scanner of the biometric lock. “Access Denied. Please contact the administrator.” The electronic voice was ice-cold. The mockery in my eyes deepened. This entire security system, hardware and software, had been personally designed and deployed by me. The so-called administrator’s top-tier access had, until a few hours ago, been mine. I’d been locked out by my own creation. Perhaps it was better this way. It saved me the energy of going inside to perform the charade of fatherly affection, maternal concern, or brotherly love. I sat down on the stoop and opened my laptop. I swiftly logged into the internal server backend. I was curious to see just how thoroughly they had stolen my things. I typed in the top-tier account and password I’d used for five years. But instead of the familiar admin interface, a blazing red window popped up: User Not Found. They had truly cut all ties. I was contemplating my next move when the phone I’d just turned off suddenly lit up in my pocket. It was the one number I thought I would never see again. 2 The encrypted call request flashed for less than three seconds before it disconnected. It felt like a phantom limb, a brief hallucination. The screen went dark, returning to the pre-power-off black. I tried to turn it back on, but the phone was dead. I gave a wry chuckle. My immediate priority was finding a place to sleep. I flagged down a cab and headed to a moderately respectable budget hotel nearby. “A room, please.” I slid my driver’s license across the counter. “That’ll be three hundred sixty-eight for the room, plus a five hundred dollar deposit. How would you like to pay?” “Card,” I said, handing over the corporate bank card I’d used for years. It was a secondary card Victor Kingston had arranged, where all my salary and project bonuses were deposited. But when the front desk clerk inserted the card into the POS machine, an insistent, high-pitched alarm sounded. “Beep! Beep! Beep!” The young woman looked confused, tried again, and got the same result. She looked at me apologetically. “Sir, I’m sorry, there seems to be an issue with this card. It won’t process.” My heart sank. “Try this one.” I pulled out my personal savings account debit card. I’d opened it in college, and it held the modest savings from various scholarships and side projects—not a fortune, but certainly enough for a few nights in a hotel. The result was the same. “This one too…” Her voice was barely a whisper. I asked the clerk to at least plug in my dead phone for a few minutes. When it finally powered back up, an urgent text message from the bank immediately popped onto the screen. “Dear Mr. Rhodes Montgomery, pursuant to an application filed by Mr. Victor Kingston, all bank accounts registered under your name have been placed under a freeze pending review of ‘Maintenance Fee Reimbursement,’ totaling $XXX,XXX.XX…” I actually laughed out loud. Victor Kingston, you magnificent bastard. You should have been a Chief Financial Officer. So, a hotel was out of the question. I dragged my luggage back out onto the street. The night wind cut through my suit, slightly chilling. I opened my phone and found the number for Wesley. He was my chief programmer, the one I’d personally mentored, who always called me “Rhodes, boss” with an almost worshipful respect. I dialed. It rang for a long time. “Hello? Wesley, it’s me.” The other end was silent, save for a faint, shallow breathing sound. “I need you to help me retrieve the original development logs for the ‘Aether’ system…” “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number.” He cut me off, and the line went dead. Disbelieving, I called the number of another core team member. Number not in service. The partners who had once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me—sharing cup noodles through all-night coding sessions and the pure triumph of solving an impossible problem—were either hanging up, turning off their phones, or had become ghosts. This was the complete severance. A cold, calculated move to starve me into submission. I stood at the crosswalk, watching the traffic rush past, feeling a sense of bewilderment for the first time. My money was gone. My home was gone. Even my comrades had been turned into enemies. He was truly trying to destroy me. 3 I dragged the two suitcases across the midnight streets for so long that my legs went numb. Finally, I stopped at the entrance of a dark alleyway, where a cheap, flickering sign advertised an hourly rate. Scribbled crookedly on the wall in red spray paint were the words: ROOM FOR RENT, $300/MONTH. Fine. This will do. The landlady was a woman with a cigarette dangling from her lip, who eyed my expensive suit, then my two obviously high-end suitcases, with suspicious curiosity. She finally tossed me a greasy key. First month’s rent and a deposit, cash only, no questions asked. I emptied my wallet of the last few crumpled bills and traded them for a ten-by-ten-foot space. It contained a narrow cot, a chipped wooden desk, and a buzzing light bulb that flashed sporadically. The walls were covered in the stains of the previous tenant, and the air was thick with the mixed scent of damp mildew and cheap perfume. I lay down on the hard mattress in my clothes, staring up at the stubbornly flickering bulb. I didn’t sleep a wink. The next morning, I was woken by a sudden uproar. Footsteps were shuffling loudly in the hallway, mixed with a woman’s sharp cry and a man’s harsh voice. I ignored it, until there was a sharp, insistent knocking on my door. “Ratt-a-tat-tat!” The knock was impatient, almost confident. I assumed it was the landlady, and got up to open it. When I pulled the door open, I froze. It was Preston. He was wearing a perfectly tailored bespoke suit, looking like a prince who had wandered into the wrong side of the tracks. And trailing behind him were several reporters, cameras hoisted on their shoulders, the lenses pointed directly at me. The flashbulbs began popping—click-click-click—stabbing my eyes with painful light. “Rhodes, my brother,” Preston’s eyes immediately welled up with performative tears. “How could you be living in a place like this? Don’t you know Mom and Dad and I have been worried sick about you?” He started to reach for my hand, but I sidestepped, avoiding his touch. He didn’t miss a beat. He pulled out a thick, white envelope and, for the benefit of the cameras, attempted to press it into my hand. “Brother, I know you’re struggling right now. This is from Mom and Dad. Take it, find a better place to stay—don’t punish yourself.” His voice cracked with what sounded like genuine concern. “Just apologize to them, admit your mistakes, and the door to our home will always be open for you.” I looked at him, and the situation was so ludicrous that I nearly smiled. “Preston,” I said, my voice rough from a night without water, “do you honestly believe everyone is as stupid as you are?” The performance on his face fractured. The tears in his eyes nearly spilled. “Brother, how can you say that… I’m only trying to help…” “Cut the act,” I interrupted him. “Did you bring the media here to check on me, or to make sure my death is sufficiently ugly? Is your ‘boy genius’ narrative crumbling so fast that you need to use my corpse as a stepping stone to climb higher?” Preston’s face went completely white. He hadn’t expected me, reduced to this state, to still have the nerve to speak to him like this. He took a deep breath, dropping the innocent-victim routine. He stepped closer, leaning in to deliver his words in a low voice only I could hear. “Rhodes Montgomery, wise men know when to yield. You have nothing left. How do you expect to fight me? I promise you, one word from me, and you won’t even be able to stay in this hole.” He paused, a cruel satisfaction curling his lips. “Settle down and be a non-entity. Admit that everything was mine, and maybe I’ll be merciful enough to get you a job scrubbing toilets. Otherwise, enjoy starving on the street.” He pulled back, instantly restoring his kind, innocent expression, and sighed theatrically for the cameras. “Brother, think carefully about this.” With that, he and the entire media circus noisily retreated. I closed the door, listening to the murmurs and footsteps fade away. Starve on the street? Scrubbing toilets? I walked to the room’s single, dusty mirror. My hair was a mess, my eyes bloodshot, and I looked like a dishevelled wreck. But the light in those eyes, even in the dim reflection, was terrifyingly bright. 4 My world didn’t quiet down after Preston left. The landlady in the hallway, the corner store owner—they all gave me an extra look before leaning in to whisper to their companions. I didn’t need to check the internet to know the latest narrative was already blowing up. I locked myself in the ten-by-ten room and opened the laptop. On the screen, an unfamiliar encrypted communication request popped up. The interface was retro, a program Sawyer Brooks and I had written in college for fun. Only we had the encryption key. We hadn’t used it since graduation. I accepted, and a line of text appeared, written in her familiar, sharp tone. “Well, well, well, Rhodes Montgomery, America’s Most Wanted. How’s the international news treating you?” I could almost see Sawyer’s eyes curving into that mischievous, knowing smile of hers. She was the certified genius of our graduating class, the only one who could go toe-to-toe with me technically. After graduation, she went to Wall Street, and I came back here. We had drifted apart. I wasn’t in the mood for banter. I quickly typed: “Just spit it out.” “Alright, direct. I like that,” she instantly replied. “I did a free due diligence sweep on Kinetic Group, consider it a friend’s discount. Found something interesting. Your technical reports and your financial data don’t align. Especially the recent core patents. Beautiful theoretical models, but the underlying architecture… Tsk tsk. Full of holes. It can’t possibly support that valuation.” My heart plummeted. Sawyer continued: “Then I saw your news. My guess is the real engineering god is hiding in a glorified broom closet right now, contemplating the meaning of life, right?” I remained silent. She knew everything. “Send me your account number,” her next message flashed. “Any problem money can fix is not a problem. If it can’t be fixed, you haven’t spent enough.” I managed a tight-lipped reply: “All my cards are frozen. And I don’t even have a workstation. Money is useless to me right now.” They hadn’t just stolen my work; they had severed every possible avenue for me to fight back. No power, no server access, no tools. I had the knowledge of how to slay a dragon, but not even a rusty butter knife. Sawyer was silent for a few seconds. Then, a message flashed that sent a jolt through my entire body. “Who says you don’t have a weapon? Did you forget? The empire you built with your own two hands—your throne is still waiting.” My mind went blank. The throne? “Rhodes, are you losing it? The ‘Aether’ System’s Creator Backdoor—you forgot?” I felt all the blood rush to my head. My fingertips went instantly numb. How could I forget? To prevent commercial espionage and external hacking, when I designed the fundamental logic of the Aether System, I left myself one single, top-level access point, completely independent of all administrative systems. The activation key for that backdoor was a super-long randomized string tied to my personal biometric data. In the entire world, I was the only one who knew it. Victor and Preston, they thought they had won by taking my admin account and revoking my access. They thought they had the key to my house. They didn’t know that I was the architect of the entire building. And I could, at any moment, pull the foundation out from under the whole damned thing.
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