Chapter Three: The Price of an Apex

Fifteen minutes later, the acquiring company withdrew its offer. Within two hours, Chen sold a route the market considered essential and used the cash to swallow his opponent. Financial news called it his most savage move in twenty years. The collateral emerged that evening. Chen no longer remembered the two minutes and eleven seconds surrounding his eldest son's birth. Neither did his family. The delivery-room recording had blackened; the time on the birth certificate bled into silver-gray. The new negative showed young Chen seeing his baby through glass, his hard face suddenly tender. At the height of his borrowed state, Chen barely glanced at it. “You see people again. Opportunity doesn't return.”