Chapter 2
It was still raining in Manhattan when I left the Aksim Group headquarters building.
The black Maybach drove smoothly on the puddle-filled asphalt road, the windshield wipers sweeping regularly across the windshield.
This is my seventh year in this world.
Pushing open the apartment door, the interior was a somber, dark space.
I didn't turn on the main light, but instead loosened my slightly tight tie, walked to the bar, and poured myself a glass of single malt whiskey.
Add ice, about two fingers' width of the liquid.
I took my wine glass and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. From the seventieth floor, I could overlook the city's most bustling financial center.
The skyscrapers in the distance looked like giant steel pillars piercing the night sky.
I took a sip of whiskey. The ice cubes clinked against the glass, making a crisp "clinking" sound.
I summoned the administrator panel with my mind .
A very subtle blue ripple appeared in the air.
Immediately afterwards, a semi-transparent system control panel unfolded before my eyes . This was something only I could see, with countless green data streams scrolling across it, monitoring the currency trends, resource distribution, and population activity of the city and even the world in real time.
Yes, I am not some penniless ordinary employee, nor am I a behind-the-scenes partner of Aksim Group who barely managed to obtain shares through handouts.
In the real world, I am in a top-secret laboratory 150 meters underground in Silicon Valley.
I am the chief architect of a quantum computing system valued at trillions, and this seemingly impeccable modern city in front of me is just one of the thousands of sandbox test servers I have created .
Wall Street invested heavily in creating this system with only one ultimate goal: to train a top-tier AI that can perfectly simulate business games in reality, predicting crises and making real money for the tycoons.
But when the system was first built, my partner David and I had a concern: if these AIs continue to evolve in the free market, will they evolve to behave in ways that harm humans?
Someone must personally test their intelligence level and limits.
So, I put on the neural link headset, entered the closed simulation pod, and logged into this world as a "regular assistant" with the lowest privileges .
Time is different inside the sandbox world than outside. I might stay inside for a month, while only a few minutes or even seconds might have passed outside.
Soon, I met Serafina.
She wasn't the CEO back then. She was just a low-level data analyst at a third-rate investment bank on Wall Street.
I still remember the scene from that night very clearly.
It was a rainy day, and I was buying a hamburger from a food truck on the street. She was standing on a street corner without a rain shelter, wearing a cheap and ill-fitting business suit, clutching a proposal that was soaked by the rain.
Her boss stole the merger and acquisition deal she had worked on for three sleepless nights and kicked her out of the office.
I still remember what she said to me through the rain that day:
“One day, I will buy that building. I will make sure that the person who kicked me out today doesn’t even have the right to stand in front of me and report.”
It was an extremely rare and advanced form of self-awareness. As a researcher, I was drawn to this "ambition" that transcended established procedures.
I told her, posing as a stranger's assistant, that there was a financial loophole in the proposal that was hard for ordinary people to notice. I told her that if she went directly to the underground parking garage and confronted the company's final decision-maker, she could get back what had been stolen.
That night, she succeeded. We sat under the canopy of the food truck and celebrated her first commission with two cups of the cheapest instant coffee.
From that day on, my original intention for the test began to subtly shift.
I stayed by her side and watched her climb up the ranks from a lowly analyst who couldn't even afford coffee.
Initially, I just wanted to be an observer, recording the evolution of her data. But as she revealed more and more of her humanity—she would fall asleep on my shoulder after working overtime, excitedly pull me to run in Central Park when she received a bonus, and stay up all night by my bedside when I was sick.
Gradually, I began to blur the lines between illusion and reality.
a program in the system , and I took this relationship seriously.
To make her journey smoother, I started using forces I shouldn't have.
When her startup faced a dead end due to a broken funding chain, I turned on my computer late at night, pulled up the risk control models of those veteran Wall Street venture capital firms, and quietly lowered their "risk assessment value" of Serafina by fifteen percentage points. The next day, those investors who had previously refused to see her lined up to deliver checks to her desk.
When competitors tried to strangle her by monopolizing the supply chain, I accessed the global shipping dispatch system and orchestrated a legitimate customs strike and logistical delays, precisely causing her competitors' goods to rot in the port while her cargo ships sailed unimpeded.
Over the past seven years, every seemingly miraculous turnaround she achieved, every business miracle that amazed the industry, was backed by me sitting in front of the control panel, smoothing out the loopholes in the rules of this world line by line for her.
I was willing to be the invisible person behind her. I thought that as long as I gave enough, as long as our memories were real enough, a real heart would be born from her code, and she would know how to be grateful and understand what irreplaceable love is.
That time in the underground parking garage on Newport Street, a thug rushed out of the darkness , and the second the blade was about to stab her, my body reacted faster than my reason , and I lunged forward to take the blow for her.
I lay in a pool of blood, watching her press her hand against my wound, large tears streaming down my face. At that moment, I felt it was all worth it.
Unfortunately , Kyle appeared later.
Kyle wasn't created by me,he was a natural product of this world , representing "old-school capitalism." Behind him stands a complex web of conglomerate interests, a bridge Serafina must use to break through global monopolies.
At first, I thought Serafina's move toward Kyle was just a charade for the multi-billion dollar acquisition deal.
I watched as Serafina moved closer to him little by little. It started as a casual encounter at a business dinner, then it became a weekend golf game, and later, her staying out all night.
Later I realized that it wasn't a charade of working for profit at all.
I pulled up the surveillance footage of the two of them together.
On the yacht, she and Kyle kissed on the deserted deck. The blush and smile on her face were so vivid and radiant, but not for me.
It was at that moment that I suddenly felt a wave of fatigue.
She truly fell in love with her new lover, who was labeled as "old money".
I refuse to give her up, not only because she is someone I created, but also because this relationship is equally precious to me.
I tried to communicate with her and salvage the relationship. But all I got were increasingly impatient and perfunctory responses.
" Theodore , you don't understand the current situation."
“ Theodore , your vision is too limited. We need the Kyle family’s connections.”
" Theodore , adults need to know how to make the best choice between emotions and interests."
The whiskey in my hand was almost empty. Most of the ice had melted, diluting the remaining liquid until it was tasteless.
Two hours ago, in the CEO's office on the 70th floor, when she pushed that "Organ Donation Agreement" in front of me, this seven-year-long sociological and emotional test finally came to an abrupt end.
If she shows even the slightest change of heart , if she feels that losing me, her lover of seven years, is not worth it compared to Kyle , I will not hesitate to help her solve all her financial problems, and even cure Kyle, even if it means exposing the truth of this world.
But she didn't.
I put down my empty wine glass, walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, and took one last look at the city in the rain.
There was no anger.
This relationship is dead, and I have no interest in fixing it.
Tomorrow afternoon , when the operating lights come on and the anesthetic is injected into this body, that will be the moment I press the "logout" button on this server.
