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Chapter 50: Just Know The Future
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It would undoubtedly attract trouble, but trouble was his second wife, and she always brought interesting gifts that played into his long-term plans.
[He's building a mythology. The "Is it real or CGI?" debate is free marketing!]
[I don't think the people who know the X-Men's abilities would be happy with this.]
[It's cool shit, but as usual, Adam's playing with fire.]
[Well, he's into readheads, and fire is one hot readhead.]
[Trouble is his second wife... I'm stealing that line.]
The global uptake had been fascinating to observe. Messenger, as he'd anticipated, faced an uphill battle in the US, where the market was locked down by entrenched players, mostly Apple.
But internationally, it was exploding, mirroring the trajectory of WhatsApp in his old life.
Pulse and Flow were gaining steady, respectable traction. They were far from dominating the market, but the foundation was solid, the growth curve promising.
This placid analysis was shattered by the shrill, encrypted ring of his secure line.
The caller ID displayed a few words: The Fury and the Furious.
Adam answered on video, his face a mask of a pleasant smile. "Director. To what do I owe the..."
"Cut the crap, Cypher," Fury snarled, his one eye blazing with enough intensity to short-circuit the screen.
"You have exactly ten seconds to give me an explanation, or I won't be able to stop one of the most powerful men on Earth from turning your shiny new tower into a pile of glowing slag."
Adam's cybernetic eye whirred softly as it focused. "Hm? Interesting." He let out a soft chuckle. "I assume you're referring to Tony Stark?"
Fury's scowl deepened. "So you know. I know it's unlikely you had a direct hand in his abduction, but your financial actions over the last 48 hours are screaming for attention."
"You spent years as a HYDRA lab rat, so there was no record of your activities for years, which already makes you suspicious in his books."
"But you didn't even try to hide it! You bought nearly a billion dollars in Stark Industries stock while it was in the toilet, and the instant the news broke that Tony was alive, you opened a massive short position?"
"That doesn't just look like luck, Cypher. That looks like you have a mole in his boardroom, and you know he's about to announce he's shuttering the weapons division and sending the stock crashing again. So, what the fuck is going on?"
Not only that, Tony was very suspicious of everyone right now, due to the oddity of his kidnapping.
Adam raised his eyebrows, a picture of innocent surprise. "He's closing the weapons division? That is surprising."
Fury opened his mouth to call him on the obvious lie, but Adam continued smoothly, his tone shifting to one of conspiratorial concern.
"I shorted the stock because of the other thing," Adam said, leaning forward. "Director, don't you know about the biggest problem festering inside Stark Industries right now?"
The shift in tactic worked. Fury's anger was momentarily supplanted by intrigue. "What other thing?"
"I've been conducting my own investigation into Tony Stark's kidnapping," Adam explained, his voice dropping as if sharing a state secret.
"I traced the ones behind it to their base in Afghanistan, to find Tony. The plan was to sell the location to you, to Stark Industries, or just do the man a favor. Call it building goodwill."
He sighed, a theatrical display of frustration. "Unfortunately, I was too late. Goddamn geniuses are so annoyingly competent."
"My surveillance drones arrived just in time to see him blast his way out in what I can only describe as a piece of walking, futuristic artillery. Talk about a wasted effort."
He paused, letting the image of a fully-armored Tony Stark sink in. "But at least I knew he was returning. So, I bought the stock at its absolute bottom."
"When the news officially broke, and the price skyrocketed to what I believed was an unsustainable high, I shorted it."
"It was not because I knew about the weapons division; that's a fascinating new data point; but because I knew the company was critically ill from within. You know, because of Obadiah Stane."
[OH MY GOD! HE'S THROWING STANE UNDER THE BUS WITH SUCH CASUAL ELEGANCE!]
[He's weaving truth, lies, and half-truths into a perfect tapestry of plausible deniability!]
[Fury's brain is buffering. He came in for a financial crime and got a corporate treason warning.]
Fury was rendered completely speechless. His mind raced, connecting dots he hadn't even known were there.
Adam pressed his advantage. "I'm honestly surprised your people didn't uncover the Stane connection. But since we're sharing, do me a favor and tell Tony to be very, very wary of his dear Uncle Obadiah."
"My investigation strongly suggests he had a significant role in the kidnapping, though I couldn't uncover the hard proof."
"Tell Tony to investigate it himself. I'm sure the resources available to 'one of the most powerful men on Earth' will uncover far more than my humble efforts could."
He leaned back, an amused smile playing on his lips. "And please, Director, stress to him that I was the one who gave you the tip. Don't go taking credit for my work."
The call ended with a sputter of static from Fury's end, the Director left to comprehend the psychological whiplash he'd just experienced.
Adam Cypher was more than an opportunist; he was a force of predatory capitalism wrapped in a charming, unhinged package.
He saw crises not as disasters, but as landscapes of potential profit. The question of whether such a person appearing among mutants was a good thing was answered definitively in Fury's mind.
It was very, very bad. The man was a strategic hazard.
[Fury's one eye just witnessed a masterclass in chaotic-good-evil-neutral business practices.]
[My boy Adam knows! Networking before all else!]
[I knew it. Fury and Adam are definitely gonna be enemies!]
Adam chuckled, standing and walking to the floor-to-ceiling glass window of his office.
Most of what he'd told Fury was, of course, a beautifully crafted lie. He hadn't investigated anything.
He had simply known the script.
The plan had been brutally simple, a move he considered almost crude. It didn't need much brain power from him.
He had liquidated every cent he had; Emma's investment, the Maggia payouts, the Kingpin's loot; and poured it all into Stark Industries stock while it was bottomed out from Tony's disappearance.
Tony returned; the stock soared. Adam opened a massive short position at the peak of the emotional rally.
Tony announced the end of weapons manufacturing; panic ensued; the stock cratered.
Adam closed the short, reaping a colossal profit.
He then used those profits to buy even more shares at the new, post-announcement low.
He was now positioned for the next, inevitable surge: the public debut of Iron Man and the revelation of the Arc Reactor.
When the world realized Stark Industries wasn't dying but transforming into the most revolutionary energy and tech company on the planet, the stock would skyrocket to heights previously unimagined.
Adam's initial investment would look like the steal of the century.
[It's so simple when you have meta-knowledge. He's playing the stock market with a walkthrough.]
[He turned Tony's entire character arc into a get-rich-quick scheme. I'm equal parts horrified and impressed.]
[Justin Hammer is weeping somewhere.]
[It isn't even something that requires brain power, as Adam pointed out. Just gotta know the future.]
[Just, hehe.]
Adam stroked his chin, contemplating his next move. He'd already received tentative investment offers from Oscorp and other corporate entities, all of which he had politely but firmly refused.
The 2% stake he'd been 'forced' to cede to Emma Frost for her invaluable help still felt like a painful concession.
In his vision, Cypher Enterprises was to be his wholly-owned kingdom.
Emma, for her part, seemed endlessly amused by his possessive stinginess.
A more immediate annoyance was the subtle but growing resistance to his advertising campaign.
He was detecting obstructions; slowed approvals, mysterious algorithmic demotions, pressure from unnamed government officials.
His cyberpathy traced faint digital threads leading back to shadowy sources.
It was a tactic he recognized.
If one assumed every anonymous act of corporate or political sabotage was the work of HYDRA, the world suddenly made a lot more sense.
He took a deep breath; the sprawling, vulnerable city laid out before him like a feast.
He was acutely aware of his own weakness.
He could orchestrate the downfall of kings and manipulate markets, but a single, well-placed bullet could end it all.
His survival so far was largely due to his judicious use of Fade in vulnerable situations, a curse that made him nearly imperceptible.
Without it, any competent sniper could write his epitaph.
His mind was a fortress, but his body was its crumbling gatehouse. He had the genius, the cyberpathy, the ingenuity, but he lacked the vessel to fully realize his potential.
He had always known why, of course. He had just never possessed the sheer capital and the secure infrastructure required to act.
It was time to change that. He needed upgrades. Not just a few, but a fundamental overhaul.
And the first, most critical enhancement would not come from a lab, but from the ethereal currency he had been carefully accumulating. It was time to make a significant withdrawal from [Information].
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