Arrival in Washington
Washington, D.C. was a different battlefield.Silicon Valley ran on ambition and disruption. Wall Street on greed and calculation. But D.C.?
D.C. ran on power—naked, intoxicating, bought-and-sold power.
Arthur understood this the moment his convoy of black cars rolled past the marble monuments and neoclassical facades. The city breathed history and corruption in equal measure.
Inside his lead car, Carmen gazed out the tinted window at the Capitol dome. "So this is where empires live and die."
Arthur's lips curved. "And where mine will root itself deepest."
Eva, scrolling through encrypted feeds on her tablet, murmured, "They already know you're here. The think tanks, the lobbyists, the watchdogs. Your name is in every briefing packet today."
Jessie cracked her knuckles. "Then let's make sure they learn fear as quickly as Silicon Valley did."
Aurora, dressed in a flowing cream coat, added softly, "Fear is good. But loyalty lasts longer."
Arthur nodded. "We'll give them both."
The First Contact
Arthur's first dinner in Washington was no casual affair.The host: Senator Richard Halstrom, an old-guard powerbroker with ties to both defense contractors and Wall Street. His Georgetown mansion gleamed with oil paintings, crystal chandeliers, and a smug confidence that came from decades of unchecked influence.
Halstrom welcomed Arthur with a politician's smile. "Mr. Ashford. The wunderkind himself. Or should I say… disruptor?"
Arthur shook his hand firmly. "Disruption is what cowards call evolution."
They dined with a dozen senators and their aides, the conversation a carefully choreographed dance of flattery, veiled threats, and mutual probing.
Halstrom finally leaned back with his glass of scotch. "Arthur, I'll be blunt. The Valley doesn't last here. We eat your kind alive. You can buy companies, maybe even countries. But you'll never buy this town. This is our empire."
Arthur's smile was thin and cold. "Then it's time you realized: your empire already belongs to me. You just haven't signed the papers yet."
The First Strike: The Think Tanks
Politics wasn't about speeches. It was about who wrote the speeches, who funded the research, who whispered into ears behind closed doors.
Arthur began with think tanks.
He poured money into a failing institute and remade it into the Ashford Policy Forum, a think tank that produced reports aligning Arthur's monopolies with "national interests."
Carmen charmed intellectuals and policy writers at dinners, ensuring they wrote glowing reviews of Arthur's "vision for American progress."
Eva quietly hacked into rival think tanks, planting subtle data manipulations that discredited their credibility.
Within six months, half of Washington's most quoted "policy recommendations" had Arthur's fingerprints on them.
Lobbyists and Puppets
Arthur knew senators were expensive. But lobbyists were cheaper—and more powerful.
He summoned Washington's most ruthless lobbyist, a woman named Victoria Kane, to a meeting in his D.C. mansion.
Victoria arrived in a blood-red suit, heels clicking like gunshots. She didn't bother with pleasantries. "You're rich. You're new. You think money buys everything. It doesn't here. Influence is about patience."
Arthur studied her for a long moment before sliding a file across the table. Inside were photographs, financial records, and phone logs.
Her eyes flicked over them—and widened. The file contained her entire career of corruption, every bribe, every mistress, every illegal offshore transfer.
Arthur leaned forward. "I don't need patience, Victoria. I need results. You work for me now."
For the first time in her career, the queen of K Street was silent. Then she whispered, "Yes, Mr. Ashford."
The Political Network
Once Victoria was his, the dominos fell:
Senators desperate for campaign funding suddenly had checks arriving from Ashford-affiliated PACs.
Congressmen found their challengers undercut by Ashford media smears.
Think tank authors discovered their "independent" reports being amplified by every major newspaper.
Jessie ensured reluctant senators found their secrets quietly "retrieved" and filed into Arthur's vault. Blackmail became a scalpel in her hands.
Aurora used charm and old-world elegance, hosting galas in D.C. where power players mingled under her careful orchestration. "They must believe they're our partners," she told Arthur. "Even as they sink deeper into dependency."
The First Victory
It came in the form of a bill.The "Digital Sovereignty Act"—initially designed to curb monopolies like Arthur's.
But after weeks of Ashford lobbying, rewrites, leaks, and pressure, the bill passed with language that cemented Arthur's dominance instead.
Halstrom himself shook Arthur's hand on the Senate floor. "You're dangerous," he muttered under his breath.
Arthur smiled faintly. "No. I'm inevitable."
The Empresses' Ascendancy
Each Empress found her stage in Washington:
Carmen became the face of Ashford philanthropy, dazzling reporters and earning glowing profiles in magazines.
Eva quietly embedded Orion's predictive AI into government contracts, making Ashford Systems indispensable.
Jessie recruited former intelligence operatives into Ashford's private network, ensuring no senator dared betray them.
Aurora began mingling with First Ladies, wives of senators, and social elites—spinning Arthur's empire into dinner table gossip and social prestige.
Together, they were not merely consorts. They were queens, expanding the empire's roots in every corridor of power.
Arthur's Reflection
Late one night, Arthur stood on the balcony of his mansion overlooking the Potomac. The city glowed beneath him, its monuments bathed in light, its halls of power humming with whispers he now controlled.
He thought of Gareth Stone—the Titan who fell in Silicon Valley.And he thought of Halstrom—the senator who believed Washington was untouchable.
Both had been wrong.
Arthur whispered into the night:"An empire isn't conquered by armies. It's conquered by whispers, signatures, and shadows. And soon, this city will kneel."
The Potomac flowed endlessly beneath him, carrying secrets into the dark.