Six months earlier, the walls of Ryan's bedroom held the weight of a secret too valuable to share.
It was the day after he had drawn the improved design of the Glock 45—detailed, refined, optimized beyond military standards. He sat on the edge of his bed, blueprint resting on the desk, the ink barely dry.
The room was quiet, except for the steady tick of the clock. The morning sun cast faint shadows through the blinds. The moment should have felt like triumph. He had done it—taken a legendary firearm design and elevated it. Recoil stabilization, modular build, safety mechanisms, grip comfort, ballistic efficiency… all upgraded. All perfect.
Too perfect.
He tapped the pencil against his knee, staring at the drawing. He could walk downstairs and hand it to his mother, Martha, that day. He could show her what he had created—with the help of Great Sage, his mysterious skill that guided his hands and mind like an unseen mentor whispering in his ear.
But that would be unnatural.
Even suspicious.
"Great Sage," Ryan said under his breath, "what's the likelihood my mother believes I made this on my own… overnight?"
"Unlikely. A sudden display of such advanced technical ability will raise concerns or invite external scrutiny."
He nodded, already thinking ahead. The idea had to come from him—not just the design, but the context, the story. Genius had to be witnessed, not declared.
He couldn't simply appear brilliant.
He had to become brilliant in the eyes of others—especially the adults who held doors closed unless you gave them a reason to open them.
It was then that Ryan hatched his plan.
He would play the long game.
Over the next six months, Ryan executed his strategy with precision. By day, he was the quiet, studious boy at Palisades Middle School—present, polite, consistent. But that image was carefully constructed. Every answer he gave in class, every test he aced, every casual comment he made about engineering or ballistics—it was all calculated to build a reputation.
Teachers began to take notice. Students whispered in the hallways. "Ryan's a genius," they said. "He's going to invent something huge one day."
Exactly as he intended.
After school, while others played or hung out in front of the gas station down the street, Ryan came home, dropped his bag, and stepped into his true life.
"Great Sage," he would whisper, sitting at his desk, "compile current blueprints. Continue refinement."
"Acknowledged. Improvements underway."
His room transformed into a silent command center. He worked under the hum of code and calculation, while his skill—a vast, invisible intelligence—tapped into encrypted networks, archived repositories, and private research forums. No firewall could stop Great Sage. And Ryan didn't even ask how. He simply received.
Every design he reviewed—old NATO handguns, prototype railgun sidearms, energy-dispersal pistols—was digested, improved, and stored in his digital archive. Not for fame. Not yet. These were seeds for the future.
He knew no one suspected a thing. Not his classmates. Not the teachers. Not even Martha. And that was the point.
Then, precisely six months after he first put pencil to paper, Ryan completed the entire middle school curriculum. He passed the accelerated evaluation test, aced the project interviews, and was granted permission to skip grades and immediately enter the Horizon Program.
Only after the approval came through did he hand the final, perfected Glock 45 design to his mother.
Martha stood at the kitchen counter drying her hands when he placed the thick envelope in front of her. She raised an eyebrow, then smiled, expecting another school project.
Instead, she opened it—and her face froze.
"Ryan… what is this?"
"A side project I've been working on," he said, calmly. "It's based on the Glock 45. But heavily improved. Structural integrity, accuracy, handling, manufacturing cost—it's better in every category. All the parts are modular and compatible with existing machinery."
Martha's eyes scanned the blueprint again. She had once worked as a mechanical consultant for a military development contractor, years ago—before Ryan was born. That world felt distant now. But she hadn't forgotten how to read a weapons blueprint. Not like this one.
"Did you make this all yourself?"
Ryan nodded. "Started half a year ago. Remember when I asked you about the grip angles and weight distribution?"
Her hand went to her mouth.
"Yes, but I thought—" She looked at him, her voice softening. "Ryan… you were already done, weren't you?"
He didn't answer, just smiled.
There was a long pause. Then Martha carefully folded the blueprint and held it against her chest like it was made of gold.
"I can't manufacture this," she said quietly. "Not even close. But I still have contacts… people in procurement and development. Defense connections. I think we can protect this design."
"Patented?"
"In your name," she said, eyes shining. "The government needs to see this."
Ryan said nothing. Just nodded again.
And so, she made the calls.
A week later, a black SUV pulled into their quiet suburban street and parked in front of their modest house.
Ryan watched through the blinds, curious but composed. A man in a sharply pressed uniform stepped out of the vehicle. He was tall, in his fifties, with a steel-gray buzzcut and ribbons on his chest that marked a lifetime of battles fought in silence.
Beside him stood a younger man—an officer with a black tablet under his arm.
Martha met them at the door, dressed professionally, her expression formal but nervous.
"General Harrow," she said. "Thank you for coming."
The general's eyes scanned the inside of the house quickly. "This is the boy?"
Ryan stood in the hallway, back straight, chin up.
"Yes, sir," he said.
The general stepped inside, and without ceremony, took a seat at their small dining table. The officer laid the blueprint out carefully on the table as if it were a sacred document.
Harrow studied it. His expression was unreadable.
"I've seen every sidearm the DoD's labs have tried to push through in the last ten years," the general said after several minutes. "And none of them touched this. Weight efficiency, modularity, stress tolerance—this could replace the M17 entirely."
Martha stayed quiet, letting the general speak.
He looked up at Ryan. "Where'd you get this?"
"I designed it," Ryan answered.
"No labs?"
"No help."
Silence.
The general nodded slowly, then leaned back. "We'll take it. Patent, blueprints, exclusive manufacturing rights. And we'll pay."
Ryan's pulse quickened, but he kept his face calm.
"How much?" Martha asked.
The officer answered, scrolling on the tablet.
"One-time acquisition fee of one hundred million dollars, clean. Plus a 20% share on every unit sold domestically or for military use, and 10% on any licensing agreement with foreign allies."
Ryan blinked. "That's… a lot."
The general smiled for the first time.
"We've spent more on worse."
The contracts were laid out on the table.
Martha read them carefully, asking questions, adjusting clauses.
Ryan watched it unfold, both surreal and predictable.
This was the moment he had planned for.
And it had arrived exactly when he wanted it to.
Later that night, when the SUV had driven away, and the house was quiet again, Ryan sat on the porch with his mother, sipping warm tea.
"You really did it," she said, voice full of awe.
"You got me the meeting," Ryan replied. "You made the call."
She smiled.
"Why didn't you show me everything earlier?"
He thought about it. Then answered honestly.
"Because it wouldn't have made sense back then. Not until the world was ready to believe it."
She looked at him with a new kind of pride—one layered with realization. Her son wasn't just smart. He was strategic. Patient. Calculated.
A once-in-a-lifetime mind.
Ryan glanced up at the night sky, thinking about what came next.
This was only the beginning.
He had played the long game.
And now, the game was his to shape.