"I did not kill… The world did. But that day, I understood something inside me broke. I was no longer just a man… I had become a cold machine, and it terrified me."
Korr Systems was never announced. It simply appeared.
In January 2033, a flood of confidential contracts descended upon several indebted small countries mainly in West Africa, Central Asia, and some Pacific islands. No media connected the dots, but all signed the same deal: integration of a self-sufficient energy model provided by an unknown company under the generic name KORR ENERGY.
Behind each installed infrastructure hid one of the three technologies Aiden fused in 2032:
Resonant atomic cores powered by local gravitational fluctuations,
The Q-Unit Blockchain, whose computing power was now fragmented across mini-satellites,
And NeuroCore v.5.0, disguised as "urban management AI."
No government truly understood what they were installing. But all witnessed immediate effects:
Electricity became free in connected zones.
Water, waste, and data treatment automated themselves.
Local currencies gained abnormally stable value against the dollar.
Dakar, Maputo, Tbilisi, Suva: in just months, 17 territories unknowingly adopted the first steps of OUREA, the complete vision of a post-state world.
Aiden said nothing. He observed.
The Q-Unit protocol entered a semi-public phase.
A few private hedge funds in Eastern Europe began using what they thought was just another cryptocurrency overlay. In truth, they fueled a secondary market where each transaction was:
Split at the nanosecond scale,
Proposed to a consensus algorithm in orbit,
And validated according to the global interest of the Korr system, not supply and demand.
This caused absurd profits for early users, then a silent rush of capital toward Africa and the Pacific.
"Capitalism has always been an illusion. I simply changed the illusion." — Private note, 2034
In 2034, the behavioral AI NeuroCore was officially deployed into low Earth orbit through four nano-constellations camouflaged as weather satellites.
These AIs do not analyze the weather.
They:
Monitor economic flows of micro-nations,
Recalculate data routes in real time,
And erase any deviation that might threaten the balance of the Korr system.
The satellites have minimal defensive capabilities: nano electromagnetic pulses and targeted self-destruction. If an intrusion occurs, one can wipe all critical data from a distant ground server.
When Europe realizes that peripheral states are adopting an untraceable energy network, it tries to respond first with indirect cyberattacks.
A virus is injected into Korr power plants in Abidjan and Phnom Penh. It fails.
Aiden anticipated it. NeuroCore cuts the infected sequence, reroutes the flows, and unmasks the origin. In 6.4 seconds.
Then come physical sabotages.
A Korr Energy station in Suva explodes mysteriously.
From his island at sea, Aiden watches satellite images. He doesn't react.
But the next day, the government server of the state behind the sabotage suffers a massive 4-hour outage, causing a temporary stock market collapse. No official link is made.
"I no longer need to retaliate. The balance I built punishes by itself." — Encrypted journal, 2035
The first cyber-assassination occurs in August 2035.
An anonymous agent tries to manipulate Korr Systems surveillance data to fake Aiden Korr's death. He programs a false cardiac arrest, tampers with vital signal transmission, and redirects his digital will to an AI loyal to the Rydell group, a major Western competitor.
But Aiden is not a man. Not just.
His body is real, yes. But his mind is everywhere: in orbital servers, Q-Unit blocks, resonant cores. NeuroCore blocks the attack and identifies the assailant in 0.12 seconds.
He is found dead two days later. Natural cardiac arrest.
But Korr's data show his energy drink contained nanoparticles inducing cardiovascular stress. The origin of the particles? Unknown.
"I do not kill. I only try to restore balance. Sometimes… the world decides who no longer belongs." — Aiden, 2036
Until then, Aiden had managed to believe he remained outside.
But in January 2036, one decision changes everything: activating an energy protocol in an unstable region of Central Africa triggers a conflict between two tribal factions manipulated by foreign interests. 48 dead.
Aiden reviews the reports. Reads the names. Hears voices in the surveillance videos. Civilians, children. He does not look away.
For the first time, he writes in his journal a phrase that betrays a crack:
"What I triggered can no longer be stopped. And what I saw… I will carry within me until my last breath."
He does not ask for forgiveness. But that night, he does not sleep.
In October 2036, Aiden publishes a treaty.
Not a manifesto. Not a speech.
A post-national sovereignty treaty, recorded on a quantum blockchain, distributed to 1,200 autonomous servers, hosted in 9 offshore jurisdictions:
"OUREA is born. It claims no territory. Recognizes no flag. It is a system."
The treaty announces:
An open-source energy protocol,
An impossible-to-seize cryptocurrency,
A decentralized AI answering to no human authority,
And an autonomous low-orbit satellite network called K-Array.
The world laughs. Then doubts. Then even thinks of attacking.
But it is already too late.
"What I've created can no longer be stopped." — Aiden Korr, excerpt from the OUREA Treaty, 2036