T
The sterile, humming chill of the server farm reassured Ren Alaric Kingswell in a way nothing else ever had.
It was constant. Predictable. A sound that never lied.
Sensors lined only the rooms that housed the servers themselves. Instead of simple data relays, they now pulsed with dense, compressed streams of information, carrying markets, contracts, energy grids, and entire national economies through their circuits. This was not merely infrastructure.
It was leverage.
Ren walked between the rows of cabinets, hands clasped behind his back. The technicians maintained the temperature to the decimal, ensuring the machines — and the experiments they enabled — remained undisturbed. The air carried the faint scent of ozone and overworked metal.
He already knew which cabinets routed foreign energy distribution and which carried defense-sector redundancies. Not because he had memorized schematics.
He had helped design the system. He understood its tolerances, its blind spots, and the failures it could survive.
A soft chime sounded in his ear.
"The Norilsk claim has been finalized," his assistant said. "Exclusive extraction rights. Thirty years."
Ren nodded once. "And the counteroffers?"
"Withdrawn."
As expected.
He paused beside one of the central pillars — steel, glass, and quietly humming circuitry — and rested his palm against its cool surface. Far above, Kingswell Tower carved into the night sky like a blade. Governments would revise their internal forecasts by morning, quietly correcting errors they could never admit publicly.
A win, then.
It didn't feel like one.
His parents had never shaped him through speeches. Only through principles repeated often enough to become instinct. Influence required distance. Decisive action invited resistance. And real power, unlike symbolic authority, always demanded payment.
Tonight, the cost felt heavier.
"Move tomorrow's call with the East African consortium forward by six hours," Ren said.
There was a brief pause. "The European board won't like that."
Ren allowed himself a thin, sour smile. "They'll adapt."
He turned toward the elevator, his pace measured, unhurried, as the doors slid shut behind him.