Monday, 2:00 PM. The Locke Compound.
Cassandra Locke didn't offer me a drink. She didn't offer me a seat. She simply turned her back on me and walked rapidly toward the massive holographic projection table in the center of the room. Her fingers danced across the invisible interface, pulling up complex schematics, lines of code, and three-dimensional models of neural networks.
She was vibrating with a manic, obsessive energy. The paranoia that usually kept her locked away from the world had been entirely eclipsed by the sheer, intoxicating prospect of completing her life's work.
"If you truly control the Oracle," Cassandra said, her voice rapid and breathless, her eyes darting across the floating data streams, "then you understand the limitations of its current architecture. It's a brute-force predictive engine. It analyzes macro-economic trends, geopolitical shifts, and corporate communications. It predicts the market."
