Chapter Three: The Price of Attention

In V21B, his reflection had disappeared from the monitor. The gift was not free. Every time reality accepted his edit, it deleted a little of the editor. At eleven, Obsidian called an emergency meeting. Aurora had announced a nearly identical car and bought the prime commercial slot after the third quarter. A leaked video accusing Obsidian of concealing battery failures drove negative sentiment up sixfold in ten minutes. Crown Capital immediately proposed taking control of Starbridge's Super Bowl project. Neither Zhixia nor Tang appeared on the transition team. Chen, naturally, did not exist at all. “They want the master,” Zhixia said. “What's in it?”