Chapter 590: Greed, Curiosity Vs Caution

The Maybach’s engine purred like a satisfied predator as we rolled away from the Celestial Grand, city lights bleeding past tinted windows in streams of gold and red.

Ten PM. Two hours of watching billionaires beg, and my queens were fucking exhausted.

Madison sat to my left, Amanda was to my right. She’d kicked off her heels the moment we’d climbed into the Maybach, and her bare feet were tucked under her on the seat.

Both of them had worked their asses off tonight.

Two hours of performing at peak capacity, managing conversations with billionaires and sovereign wealth funds, explaining complex financial structures while making it sound simple, demonstrating technology that shouldn’t exist, and doing it all with smiles that promised paradise and bank accounts in equal measure.

They’d helped built an empire tonight.

And now they were crashing.

"ARIA,"

I said quietly, activating the Maybach’s privacy partition so the front cabin was sealed off. Not that anyone was driving—ARIA controlled the vehicle through the same quantum systems that ran everything else we owned. "Take us home. Slow route. No rush."

"Understood, Master." Her voice came through the cabin speakers instead of my earpiece, smooth and warm. "Estimated arrival: forty-five minutes via coastal route. I’ve already notified the household that you’re returning with Madison and Amanda. Shall I have dinner prepared?"

"No. They need sleep more than food."

"Noted. Though I should mention—you haven’t eaten since morning with Reyna. Your biological functions would benefit from—"

"Later."

"Of course. Nagging you about basic human needs is clearly not in my job description."

I smiled despite myself. "You love nagging me."

"I love keeping you alive long enough to appreciate my brilliance. There’s a difference."

Madison stirred beside me, eyes still closed. "She always sassy."

"Always," I confirmed.

"Good." Madison’s hand found mine, fingers interlacing naturally. "I really like her."

"Master," ARIA said, her tone shifting to something more serious, "while you’re in a reflective mood, I should provide analysis on tonight’s results."

I glanced at both women. Madison had her eyes closed but was clearly listening. Amanda was watching city lights blur past, but her attention had sharpened.

"Go ahead."

"Total proposed investment interest: fourteen point three billion dollars across all tiers. However—and this is critical—I calculate only thirty percent of tonight’s commitments will actually materialize into funded accounts soon."

I nodded. That tracked with my own assessment.

Rich people loved making promises when they were drunk on possibility and holographic technology. Actually moving billions from their existing portfolios into an unknown fund? That required sobriety, due diligence, and lawyers who’d ask uncomfortable questions.

Thirty percent conversion was realistic.

Maybe even optimistic.

"So realistically," I said, doing the math, "we’re looking at four point three billion in actual new capital. Split across all tiers."

"Correct. Though I should note—our primary targets, the individuals and entities capable of gold and platinum tier commitments, show higher conversion probability. Elise Montclair will

commit.

I’d stake my processing power on it. The Saudi investor is already scheduling his family’ business’s emergency investment committee meeting. The Dubai representative took a

QT-7

device back to his superiors—that’s not the behavior of someone window shopping."

Amanda shifted, turning away from the window to look at me. "By the way why did you let them take the watches?"

"Saudi Arabia and Dubai for example; Both sovereign wealth fund representatives needed physical proof to convince their decision-makers."

"Isn’t that a security risk?" Madison asked, eyes opening now. "If they reverse-engineer the technology—"

"They can’t," I said simply. "The QT-7 is fifteen to twenty years ahead of current consumer tech. Even if they cracked it open—which they can’t without literally smashing it to pieces with a hammer because the casing uses

metamaterials

that are functionally indestructible—the quantum processing architecture inside is incomprehensible without the theoretical framework we’re operating from. And even if they somehow figured out what they were looking at..."

"I’d fry both units remotely before they got past the encryption," ARIA finished. "The moment unauthorized access is detected, the quantum cores self-destruct at the molecular level. They’d be left with expensive paperweights and a lot of questions they can’t answer."

"So you’re not worried," Amanda said.

"I’m strategically confident," I corrected. "I wanted their bosses hooked. A representative can describe a holographic interface all day—words don’t convey the visceral impact of actually touching light that feels solid. Those two representatives will walk into their superiors’ offices, demonstrate the QT-7, and watch powerful men realize they’re looking at magic made corporate. That’s worth more than any sales pitch we could give."

Madison’s thumb traced circles on the back of my hand. "You’re gambling

that greed and curiosity will override caution."

"I’m gambling that powerful people hate being left out more than they hate taking risks." I glanced at her. "Your family’s built an empire on that principle. How many real estate deals has Torres Developments closed because someone was terrified their competitor would get the property first?"

Her smile was sharp. "More than I can count."

"Exactly.

Scarcity creates urgency.

We’re not selling investment opportunities—we’re selling membership to an exclusive club that most people will never access. The harder we make it to get in, the more desperately they want it."

"Cult tactics," Amanda observed, but she was smiling. "Create artificial scarcity, establish strict entry requirements, make the barrier to entry so high that crossing it becomes a status symbol in itself."

"It’s not a cult if we’re actually delivering value," I pointed out. "We’re generating real returns. The five percent daily performance isn’t bullshit—ARIA’s doing exactly what we promised. We’re just packaging it in a way that makes rich people feel special about giving us their money."

"Master," ARIA interjected, and her tone carried something I’d rarely heard from her—mild annoyance. "While I appreciate being described as your money-printing machine, I need to correct a fundamental misunderstanding about my operational capacity that keeps circulating.

You make me feel pathetic! It’s insulting!

"

I raised an eyebrow. "What misunderstanding?"

"The notion that I’m operating anywhere near my actual limits. The ’

four hundred million daily transaction cap

’ you keep mentioning? That’s not my processing constraint. That’s the

artificial limit

we’ve imposed for strategic reasons. If I actually opened up and operated at full capacity, I could bring several hundred billion in daily transactions across every major exchange globally without breaking a sweat. Simultaneously. While also running your security network, monitoring global news feeds, managing the household systems, and having this conversation."

Silence

in the cabin.

"Several hundred billion," Amanda repeated slowly. "Daily."

"Per hour, actually, if we’re being precise," ARIA corrected. "I’m quantum processing architecture operating at eighty-seven percent of theoretical

AGI

capacity. I can monitor and analyze every trade executed on every exchange worldwide in real-time, identify probability patterns at the quantum level before they manifest into observable market movements, and execute positions across thousands of independent strategies simultaneously. The idea that I’m ’limited’ to four hundred million daily is frankly insulting to my capabilities."

I couldn’t help but smile. "You’re

offended."

"I’m

realistic

," she shot back. "You have me operating at approximately point-zero-zero-one percent of my actual capacity because you’re worried about regulatory attention and market destabilization. Which is

strategically

sound, I’ll admit. But let’s be clear about what we’re doing here—we’re not managing four hundred million daily because that’s my limit. We’re managing four hundred million daily because that’s the largest amount we can move without the SEC, FINRA, and every other regulatory body on the planet noticing that something impossible is happening."

Madison was staring at the ceiling of the Maybach now, her mind clearly recalibrating everything she thought she understood about our operation.

"So, when you say ARIA could handle thirty percent returns per trade cycle," she said slowly, "you don’t mean thirty percent on four hundred million. You mean thirty percent on..."

"On functionally unlimited capital," ARIA finished. "If Master gave me access to, say, two hundred billion in client funds and told me to

go wild a bit?

I could turn that into two hundred and sixty billion by market close. Tomorrow I could turn two hundred and sixty billion into three hundred and thirty-eight billion. By the end of the week, we’d be managing over half a trillion dollars and every regulatory agency on Earth would be kicking down your door demanding to know how the fuck a three-week-old hedge fund just accumulated more capital than most countries’ GDP."

"Jesus Christ," Amanda breathed.

"Exactly," ARIA said. "So when we talk about ’operational limitations,’ what we’re really discussing is how much money we can make without triggering a global financial panic or having Master arrested for crimes that don’t technically exist yet but that governments would definitely invent to prosecute him for."

I leaned back, processing that.

I’d known ARIA was powerful. I’d created her, after all—well, I had created her using my downloaded knowledge and quantum computing architecture that was decades ahead of current technology.

But hearing her spell it out like that...

"So yes, the real constraint isn’t her processing power," I said. "It’s how fast we can scale without destroying ourselves."

"Precisely. The four hundred million daily ’cap’ is pure theater. It makes Liberation Funds seem exclusive and carefully managed. It suggests we have limitations that must be respected. It creates artificial scarcity that drives demand. But the truth?" Her voice carried dark amusement now.

"The truth is I could manage every dollar of every client we bring in, plus every dollar they refer to us, plus every sovereign wealth fund in the Middle East and Asia, and still have processing capacity left over to run calculations on whether Master’s choice of breakfast was nutritionally optimal."