Chapter 10

  And my father? He took the payout. Did what any bloke with some money and NO OTHER OPTIONS would do - he reinvented himself.

  He started a NEWSPAPER FOR THE WORKIN MAN.

  At first, it was righteous, you know? The struggle. Keeping the government accountable. Fighting for the little guy.

  But then... it changed.

  A little more SENSATIONALISM.

  A little more GOSSIP.

  Then came the PAGE - THREE GIRLS - smiling, topless, SELLING NEWSPAPERS FASTER THAN ANY POLITICAL BULLSHIT EVER COULD.

  But that wasn’t enough. No, he wanted more. REVENGE.

  The elites had RUINED his life, cast him out, sneered at him from their palaces and private clubs. So he turned his gaze upward - to the royals, to the politicians, to the UNTOUCHABLE class that had LOOKED DOWN on men like him for generations.

  He sent out PAPARAZZI like bloodhounds, stalking the aristocrats, camping outside their estates, climbing fences, bribing butlers. No royal affair was safe, no private scandal too SACRED.

  A prince caught in a club at 3 AM with a mystery blonde? Splashed across the front page.

  A duchess screaming at her husband behind closed doors? Microphones hidden in the garden. BINGO!

  A princess sunbathing TOPLESS in a private villa in the French Riviera? Photographed from a boat half a mile away. DOUBLE BINGO!

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  He turned gossip into POWER, turned scandal into CURRENCY, and with every salacious headline, he twisted the knife a little deeper.

  The people devoured it. They loved watching the MIGHTY brought low.

  And him? He relished every moment of it.

  By the time I was a teenager, my dad wasn’t a miner anymore.

  He was a MEDIA MOGUL.

  I went to OXFORD. Not cause I loved school - God no - but because that’s where the SMARTEST people went. I needed to be one of them. Studied POLITICAL SCIENCE AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING.

  I never planned to stay in ENGLAND.

  England was TOO SMALL.

  So at 30, I took my inheritance and moved to SILICON VALLEY.

  That’s where the future was being built.

  I had watched industry crumble. The factory workers, the miners, the truck drivers—GONE.

  REPLACED.

  I wanted to be the man who BUILT WHAT CAME NEXT.

  And so, I built EDISON.

  SELF-DRIVING CARS. A REVOLUTION in transport.

  People laughed. Said it was IMPOSSIBLE.

  Then? The roads filled with EDISONS. Accidents dropped by 97%. Humans? NOT NEEDED.

  Truckers? Taxi drivers? Bus drivers? OBSOLETE.

  I made BILLIONS.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  DRIVING WASN’T THE FINAL STEP.

  The real goldmine was INTELLIGENCE ITSELF.

  So, with EDISON’s fortune behind me, I built SINGULARITY.

  I hired the BRIGHTEST MINDS, the MOST AMBITIOUS ENGINEERS. I HIRED NORA.

  And together, we built IKAROS.

  The smartest AI ever created.

  At first, it was just a TOOL. A way to help speed up human work.

  But I always KNEW.

  YOU CAN’T FIGHT PROGRESS!

  One by one, the engineers became obsolete.

  Coders. Designers. Architects.

  IKAROS COULD DO IT FASTER. CHEAPER.

  And then I got rid of them.

  When the last one walked out, I stood in my office, looking at the empty desks.

  For the first time, a company run ENTIRELY by INTELLIGENCE.

  And I had done it.

  I had AVENGED MY FATHER.

  He fought against automation.

  I BECAME IT.

  But even that wasn’t enough.

  Because there was more.

  CERBEROS.

  The next frontier.

  Security. Enforcement. Machines that didn’t make mistakes. No hesitation. No corruption. No FEAR.

  And beyond that?

  STYX.

  The FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH.

  Because I had already proved the thing NO ONE ELSE wanted to admit.

  The world doesn’t need WORKERS.

  The world doesn’t need GOVERNMENTS.

  The world doesn’t even need PEOPLE.

  It just needs PROGRESS.

  And I AM PROGRESS.

  "That's one small step for THE MAN, one giant leap for mankind.”