The gray light of dawn had barely begun to bleed through the floor-to-ceiling glass when I took my place behind the mahogany desk. Routine was the only armor I possessed in a world where gods and monsters were beginning to stir; it was a form of control that anchored my soul against the pull of the shifting fog.
I noticed the cup before I noticed the person. It sat on the edge of my desk, a dark ceramic vessel emitting a wisp of steam. Black. No sugar. Just as the memory of my grandfather's tea had dictated.
"I didn't order this," I said, my voice echoing in the vast, empty quiet of the office.
From the periphery, Sharon—looked up from her tablet. Her silhouette was framed by the burgeoning light, making her look like a figure from a Renaissance painting. "I know."
I glanced at her, "You're persistent."
She offered a small, knowing smile. "And you're predictable."
I paused, a silver of irritation flaring. "Predictable?"
"Your schedule," she said, ticking off points on her fingers as if they were mission objectives. "You arrive at 7:40. You skip breakfast. You consume caffeine before you ever touch a piece of paperwork. It's an efficient, if somewhat joyless, loop."
"Observation," I replied, sitting down and taking a sip of the bitter liquid. "Not friendship."
"Friendship starts with observation, Aryan," she said easily, her tone light but her eyes carrying the weight of the promise she had made to a dead man.
She remained by my desk, her presence like a persistent hum in a quiet room. I watched her for a moment—the way she feigned interest in her files while waiting for me to acknowledge her.
"Sit," I said.
She blinked, the mask of the secretary slipping for a fleeting second. "Excuse me?"
"You're hovering. It's a distraction. Sit."
She pulled out a chair, her posture perfect—the relaxed readiness of a predator who had spent years in the field.
"I have a task for you," I said, leaning back. "One that requires more than just administrative skill. I want you to search for companies working on large-scale search engines. Crawlers, ranking algorithms, data aggregation. A system that indexes the very fabric of the internet."
Her brow furrowed. "Search engines? At that scale? The technology is fragmented, Aryan. There's no unified logic for it. It doesn't truly exist yet."
"Exactly," I said, my voice dropping to a low register. "Which is why I want it."
I saw the spark of intrigue in her eyes—the moment where the SHIELD agent met the visionary.
"This isn't exactly Umbrella's current field," she noted.
"It will be. It will be the foundation of everything we are."
Three days passed in a fever of data. On the fourth morning, Sharon entered with the silent grace of a ghost, placing a thick, leather-bound folder on my desk. There was a look of restrained satisfaction in her eyes.
"I found seven," she said. She began to dissect them with surgical precision. "Three are collapsing under debt. Two are stagnant, run by men who fear the future. One is a government puppet, choked by political friction. But the last one..."
She slid a single document toward me. Atlas Search Systems.
"Prototype crawler algorithms," she explained, her voice sharp with professional focus. "Early ranking logic. They're brilliant, but they're bleeding. The CEO refused advertising. Investors fled. They're forty million in debt and drowning."
"Perfect," I said.
She looked at me sharply. "Perfect? They're bankrupt in all but name, Aryan. Acquiring them won't be a clean transaction."
"I don't need clean. I need ownership," I replied. "They are drowning, Sharon. I am offering them air. I want controlling interest. Full IP rights. Quiet acquisition."
She leaned forward, her gaze searching my face as if looking for the "Resurgent Heir" she had been told to watch. "You're planning something much bigger than a company. This is just a brick, isn't it?"
"It is the corner-stone," I replied.
"Alright," she exhaled, a faint smile playing on her lips. "I'll handle the negotiations."
The contract was signed in the dead of night. Forty million dollars. A pittance for the keys to the world's information.
When Sharon returned with the finalized documents, she looked personally triumphant. She leaned against my desk, folding her arms. "It's done. Full IP. No liabilities."
"Good work," I said, barely looking up from my screen.
She waited. The silence stretched. "That's it?" she asked, amused. "No celebration? This was your first major strike."
"I don't celebrate inevitabilities, Sharon."
"You're hard to talk to," she said, but her smile didn't fade. She studied me for a long moment, the warmth returning to her gaze. "You know, you don't have to treat me like a threat all the time. You keep everyone at arm's length. It's a lonely way to build an empire."
"And yet you keep stepping closer," I countered, finally looking her in the eyes.
"Because I don't think you're dangerous," she said softly. "I think you're exhausted. I think you haven't slept properly since the funeral. I'm not here to spy on you, Aryan. At least, not officially."
———-
A faint smirk touched my lips. "Prepare the rebranding."
She straightened instantly. "Rebranding? What's the new name?"
"Google," I said.
She blinked. "Google? Why? It sounds... nonsensical."
"It comes from googol," I explained, the weight of my previous life's knowledge fueling the words. "A mathematical term. One followed by a hundred zeros. It represents an impossible quantity—information beyond human scale. That is what we will organize. That is what we will own."
She let out a low breath. "You really are planning to change the world, aren't you?"
"No," I replied, turning back to the glowing screen. "I'm planning to own how people see it."
She sat down, pulling her chair closer without asking. "What's the next step?"
"Scale," I said. "Refining algorithms to predict intent. Advertising that feels like a service. We will make them trust us first."
She watched me, her expression a mix of awe and a lingering sorrow. "You talk like someone who has already seen the future."
"Perhaps I have," I whispered.
She stood to leave, pausing at the door. "Someone has to make sure you don't turn into a full-blown supervillain, Aryan. It's a lot of power for one man."
"Don't worry," I said, a fleeting smile crossing my face. "If I ever do... you'd never see it coming."
She laughed, shaking her head as she stepped out into the hall. Alone again, I felt the Castle stir in the back of my mind. Google was the first pillar. The search was only the beginning. Once they relied on me to find the truth, the truth would be whatever I chose to show them.
Sharon was a useful variable—a ghost of my grandfather's kindness. But as I watched the digital crawlers of Google begin to wake, I knew that in this new world, even ghosts would eventually have to choose a side
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