The check in Ethan's pocket felt strangely warm, as if it were a burning coal about to pierce through the denim of his jeans. One hundred thousand dollars. For someone who, just a week ago, had been choosing between buying a can of tuna or paying for laundry, the amount felt like the budget of a small nation.
"All right, Aeon. We've got the money. Now we need to turn this wreck into a factory," Ethan said as he locked the warehouse door behind him with a heavy iron bolt, dust dancing in pale shafts of light.
[Money is the fuel, Ethan, but the mind is the engine. Our priority now is not comfort. I want you to purchase an industrial-grade 3D printer, a set of optical conduits, and large quantities of carbon graphene. I'll send you the shopping list now… and try not to sound like you're buying components for a nuclear bomb when you speak to the suppliers. We don't want to attract federal attention too early.]
Ethan laughed dryly as he opened his laptop. "Don't worry. In this neighborhood, people buy stranger things than graphene every day. But tell me—how are we supposed to produce 500 units with a single machine?"
[Who do you think I am? A regular desktop printer? Once I get my digital hands on the control system, I'll reprogram the print heads to operate at the molecular level. We'll be printing the circuits directly inside the raw material. The process will be twenty times faster than any factory in China.]
Ethan smiled. Aeon's technological arrogance was starting to amuse him. "All right, genius from the future. Let's begin."
The next three days were a race against time. Ethan used part of the money to buy an old, battered truck to avoid drawing attention with anything flashy, and began transporting equipment. He ordered components from different suppliers—laser lenses from a medical company, cooling units from a server hardware shop, chemical vats from an industrial dealer.
On the fourth night, the warehouse had transformed. At its center stood the massive industrial printer like a metallic beast, surrounded by thick cables feeding into a central processing unit Ethan had assembled by hand under Aeon's guidance.
"Aeon, I'm ready. The raw materials are in the vats, and power is stable. Do we start?"
[Wait. There's a problem with power consumption. If we run the molecular press at full capacity, the warehouse will draw as much electricity as an entire neighborhood. The power company's dashboards will light up like New Year's Eve, and we'll have police visitors within ten minutes.]
Ethan's hand froze above the power switch. "And the solution? I can't exactly buy a nuclear reactor right now."
[The solution is simple—and insane at the same time. We'll borrow power from the surrounding grid. There's a high-voltage line running fifty meters behind the warehouse. I'll send an electromagnetic pulse from the warehouse antenna to create an inductive field. We'll pull electricity straight from the air without the meter registering a single cent.]
Ethan's eyes widened. "You're suggesting we steal electricity from the air?"
[It's not theft. It's redirecting wasted surplus energy. Don't be dramatic, Ethan. In my time, energy was free like air… or at least it was before your ancestors burned the planet with oil.]
The process began. The antenna atop the warehouse emitted a low hum, inaudible to humans, yet Ethan felt static electricity raising the hairs on his arms. Suddenly, the printer's screens flared to life in intense neon blue. The laser heads began moving at insane speeds—far beyond anything allowed in the manufacturer's manual.
The printer produced a sound like siren song, a harmonic metallic chant. With every second, a fully formed phone case emerged—velvet-black, smooth as silk to the touch, yet hard as diamond.
"This is incredible…" Ethan whispered, holding the first piece. It was slightly warm, and when he snapped it onto his phone, the screen immediately lit up with a fast-charging symbol.
[I've begun decrypting an additional 0.5% of my data using the new processor we built. I can now further optimize production quality. Ethan—do you notice something about the case?]
Ethan examined it closely. "It looks perfect… wait. What's this logo?"
On the back of the case was a tiny, microscopically engraved emblem: a circle containing a fractured lightning bolt, resembling intertwined letters "I" and "A."
"Ionic?" Ethan asked.
[I added a small personal touch. The logo glows green when the battery is full, and red when it detects someone attempting to open the case and steal the secret. A warning message wrapped in elegance.]
Ethan laughed, shaking his head. "You really like showing off, don't you, Aeon?"
[When you spend ten thousand years as silent code, you learn to appreciate aesthetic touches. Now stop chatting. We have 499 more units to produce before morning.]
Ethan spent the night monitoring the machine, packing the products into sleek cardboard boxes Aeon had designed to be minimal and eco-friendly. He felt exhausted—but it was a satisfying exhaustion, the fatigue of building something real.
At dawn, the warehouse held ten large boxes, ready for delivery. Ethan sat on the floor, drinking cold coffee, staring at his small kingdom.
"You know, Aeon, Marcus is going to be shocked by the quality. He'll think I have a secret factory in Switzerland."
[Let the fool think whatever he wants. What matters now is the next phase. After delivering the shipment, we'll need to hire someone. You can't manage shipping, orders, programming, and cooking at the same time. Your brain is begging for sleep, and you smell like engine oil.]
Ethan rubbed his dirty face with his hand. "You're right. I need someone I can trust… someone who sees the vision and doesn't ask too many questions about how it works."
[Look for the talented failures, Ethan. They're the ones who change the world—because they have nothing left to lose.]
Ethan closed his eyes for a few seconds, enjoying the hum of the machine as it finished the final unit. They weren't just phone cases—they were the first shipment of a revolution that would tear the global energy economy apart. And he, once a broke student, now held the reins… alongside a cosmic, intelligent parasite that made the impossible feel like a crude joke.