Chapter 586: Liberation Holdings Revealed 2

Amanda’s smile became radiant, a supernova of condescension and confidence. "We only started operations three weeks ago."

The silence that followed was different. It wasn’t shock. It was a vacuum, a complete absence of sound as two hundred brains bluescreened simultaneously.

"Three... weeks?"

"Yes. Three weeks and two days, precisely. We’re quite new. Our hedge fund just starting. Currently limited to minimum daily returns of only four hundred."

"Four hundred million?"

"Yes, four hundred million daily

minimum.

Like I said, we guarantee clients five percent returns within first twenty-four hours. Liberation Funds takes only two percent as fee. We expect to remove the cap entirely within six months."

Every person in that room understood exactly what that meant. I could see the calculations crystallizing.

"That’s impossible," Elise said flatly, but the conviction was gone, stripped away by the tidal wave of data Amanda had just unleashed.

"I understand skepticism. It’s healthy. But it means you’re interested enough for proof. The truly wealthy don’t waste time seeking proof unless genuinely intrigued."

"I want

proof."

"Of course." Amanda’s gaze flicked to me. I gave her the nod—just a millimeter of movement, the signal we’d rehearsed. The signal that meant:

Burn it down.

She raised her left wrist to show off her slick

Quantum Watch.

"Before I show fund performance, I should mention Liberation Holdings doesn’t just invest in technology. We create it."

The tap was soft. Almost gentle.

The holographic display erupted—not with light, but with

presence

. A massive, three-dimensional interface materialized above her wrist, fifty-five inches wide, hovering with crystalline clarity. Multiple windows—financial data, trading algorithms, market feeds—floating with perfect resolution.

The light from it painted the front row’s faces in ghostly blue-white, turning their shocked expressions into skull masks.

But that wasn’t what made them gasp.

The hologram was

solid

. Tactile. Amanda reached out and touched a floating window. It rippled like water, interface adjusting to her gestures with the give of actual matter. Her fingers left no print but created concentric circles of distortion, like touching a pond.

"What the—"

someone breathed, the words strangled.

Amanda pinched her fingers, grabbed the holographic display—actually

grabbed

it, her knuckles whitening—and threw it toward the auction screens.

The hologram flew thirty feet through the air, spinning like a discus, and

merged

with the

8K

displays seamlessly. No lag. No distortion. Data expanded, filling screens with perfect clarity, numbers cascading like waterfalls of light.

The room lost its mind.

People surged forward, climbing over chairs, their $5,000

shoes

leaving scuff marks on the marble. A commodities trader shoved a pharmaceutical heir. A shipping magnate elbowed a sovereign wealth fund manager. They pressed against the dais, necks craned, eyes wide as trauma victims.

Not at the financial data. At Amanda’s wrist. At the watch producing tactile holograms. At technology that shouldn’t exist for another decade.

"What..." Elise climbed the dais steps without realizing, standing next to Amanda, staring at the watch like a religious artifact that had just performed a miracle. "What just happened?"

"Oh, this?" Amanda gestured casually, like dismissing a waiter. "The

QT-7

Personal Interface Device. Liberation Holdings funding partnership with Quantum Tech. Fully integrated personal computing system with haptic holographic interface, quantum-encrypted communications, real-time

AI assistance,

with a 100% human personality you can set to your liking and gender too, no limits, biometric security, direct neural-link compatibility."

Science fiction made real, and she was treating it like a party trick.

"The holographic interface uses laser projection and magnetorestriction creating tangible, interactive displays up to seventy inches. Processing power equivalent to fifteen hundred conventional high-end servers, all smaller than a matchbox."

She tapped again. New hologram—three-dimensional hand. She touched it. The holographic hand responded, fingers moving, rotating, and I could see people in the front row

flinch

as it passed through their personal space, expecting to feel something.

"Full haptic feedback. You can actually feel the holograms. Temperature, texture, resistance—synthesized through magnetorestriction and focused ultrasound. Not just visual.

Tactile."

A tech investor—a man who’d funded three unicorn startups—was

trembling

. "That’s twenty years ahead of Google, Apple, Meta—"

"They don’t have this," Amanda agreed pleasantly, like discussing the weather. "Liberation Holdings and Quantum Tech do. Final testing phases. Won’t be available publicly for another year minimum, possibly two."

She let that sink in. Let them feel the walls of their technological superiority crumble.

"However, we do

provide

them to our

investment clients

and strategic business partners. A perk of doing business with Liberation Holdings. When managing portfolios at our level, you need the best tools available."

"How many exist?" Elise’s voice had cracked like a dropped porcelain mask.

"About fifty currently. Small batches while refining manufacturing. Each custom-configured—biometric lock, neural pattern recognition, quantum-encrypted link. Not something you can steal and use."

She gestured at the screens, now blazing with impossible numbers. "But we’re not here to discuss technology. We’re here for fund performance. Let’s look at numbers."

The screens showed everything in crystalline detail—no, not crystalline.

Surgical

. Each digit was a scalpel, each percentage a suture, each graph a perfect incision into their skepticism.

Liberation Funds Performance

-

First 3 Weeks:

Starting Capital:

$8B

Week 1 Returns:

$7B

(+87.5%)

Week 1 Ending:

$15B

Week 2: Steady growth, optimization

Week 3 (This Week):

$5B

(+33.3%)

Current Total:

$20B

This Week’s Breakdown: Monday-Friday: $5B in 5 days Average daily return:

$1B

Consistent across all market conditions.

Charts showed algorithmic precision, prescient market timing, diversification across forex, commodities, crypto, equities. Billions moving, each trade a perfect stitch in a tapestry of impossible wealth.

The room erupted again, but this time it wasn’t sound—it was

pressure

. A physical wave of greed and terror so potent I could taste it in the back of my throat, metallic and sharp. People surged forward, their faces transformed. These weren’t business titans anymore. They were disciples at a revelation, addicts at a fix.

They pressed against the dais, not touching Amanda—some instinct warned them not to touch—but close enough that their collective body heat formed a second atmosphere. I saw tech innovator crying silently in disbelief at the tech, tears tracking through his foundation. Another was laughing, a hysterical giggle that wouldn’t stop. A woman had her phone out, recording, her hands shaking so violently the footage would be unusable.

These were people who’d seen everything. Who’d bought and sold nations. Who’d made and lost billions before breakfast.

They’d never seen

this

.

Elise stood frozen, hand covering her mouth, but not in shock—in prayer. As someone running a private bank, she understood exactly what she was looking at. Not just beating in the auction. Not just winning. This was the discovery that the game they’d been playing was checkers, and Amanda had just introduced chess while everyone else was still learning to spell "king."

They hadn’t just been shown a hedge fund making the world’s best look like children playing Monopoly.

They’d been shown the future—and the future was wearing a watch that cost more than their souls.

I remained seated, Madison beside me, watching chaos unfold like a symphony we’d composed note by note.

"You didn’t tell me about the watch demonstration until today I almost came unprepared," Madison murmured, her voice barely audible over the din.

"ARIA suggested it at night," I replied quietly, watching a Saudi prince try to climb onto the dais and be held back by his own security. "Sometimes the best way to prove you’re not bluffing about your hedge fund is to casually demonstrate technology they can’t even conceptualize."

"They’re going to throw money at us." She said it like a weather forecast. Rain tomorrow. Money today.

"That’s the idea."

The auction was over.

But the real game—the one where we owned them all—was just beginning.