Wealth had changed many things in Derek Morgan's life, but discipline was not one of them.
Every morning, long before the Blackfire building stirred to life, Derek was already awake. The gym on the twenty-fifth floor echoed with the dull rhythm of iron and breath, the smell of sweat and disinfectant hanging heavy in the air. His routine was brutal by any standard—compound lifts, calisthenics, long stretches of cardio that pushed his lungs to burn—but he welcomed the pain. Pain was honest. Pain didn't lie.
The skinny frame that once made him an easy target was gone.
In its place stood a body carved by repetition and restraint. His shoulders had broadened, his chest filled out, veins faintly visible beneath taut skin. His movements were efficient now, economical, the kind that came from someone who understood their body as a tool rather than an ornament. A high-protein diet, carefully calibrated calorie surplus, and relentless consistency had done their work.
When he looked in the mirror these days, Derek didn't see a victim, a scholarship orphan, or a boy scrambling for survival.
He saw control.
That control extended far beyond his physical form.
It was the first of April.
One full month since Reality Quest had entered active development.
On the twenty-third floor, behind layers of biometric locks and armed guards, the impossible had quietly become reality.
The game world existed.
Not as a concept. Not as a collection of ideas on whiteboards or scattered lines of code. It was whole—alive in its own way. A massive open-world environment modeled after Earth in the twelfth century, rendered with an accuracy that made historians stop mid-sentence and stare.
Forests reacted to player intrusion, branches snapping beneath careless movement. Weather systems weren't cosmetic; storms destroyed crops, froze rivers, altered trade routes. Towns remembered what happened to them. Burn a village, and weeks later refugees would gather outside city gates. Save one, and merchants might lower prices or spread your name.
The world didn't reset.
It adapted.
The developers stood in awe of what they had built, but Derek knew this was only the foundation.
"The world reacts," he said during a closed-door meeting with the core engineers and AI specialists. "Now we make it feel."
That was where the NPCs came in.
Not scripted mannequins repeating dialogue trees.
Not mindless targets.
They would scream when wounded.
Panic when outnumbered.
Beg when cornered.
They would fight back with desperation when they believed they could win—and run when they believed they couldn't.
Their memories would persist. A farmer whose family was slaughtered would remember faces. A guard humiliated in defeat would hesitate next time. A child spared might grow up hating—or admiring—the player who spared them.
The AI team exchanged looks, some excited, some deeply unsettled.
"You're not asking us to simulate behavior," one of them said carefully. "You're asking us to simulate trauma."
Derek met his gaze without blinking. "I'm asking you to simulate reality."
Silence followed.
Then someone nodded.
And then another.
Reality Quest was no longer just a game.
It was becoming a mirror.
---
While Blackfire's servers hummed day and night, far from Los Angeles, another machine was grinding into motion.
JBL Investment did not like unanswered questions.
After Derek had rejected their approach, quietly and without hesitation, the firm had exhausted its usual tools. Financial modeling failed. Background checks yielded nothing actionable. Private investigators came back with reports that raised more questions than answers.
So JBL turned to influence.
Old favors were called in. Quiet inquiries were made through regulatory agencies. A mid-level official at the Department of Commerce was asked—casually—if Blackfire Technologies had triggered any red flags.
Nothing.
The SEC had filings, all immaculate. The FTC had no complaints. Homeland Security found no reason to interfere. Even the NSA contacts JBL kept on retainer came back empty-handed.
Too empty.
"He's either clean," one JBL executive said, "or operating so far above the noise floor that we can't hear him."
Fabian Matthews wasn't convinced. "No one moves this fast without touching something dirty."
Still, their government channels stalled. There were no levers to pull, no doors to quietly open. Derek Morgan was, on paper, an unremarkable private citizen running private companies with private money.
Frustration gave way to irritation.
Irritation turned to suspicion.
And suspicion, inevitably, sought another outlet.
"If we can't see inside," the managing partner said, tapping the table thoughtfully, "we make others look."
The pivot was subtle.
An anonymous tip to a tech columnist questioning Blackfire's burn rate.
A whisper to a business news editor about a mysterious startup with no investors and unlimited capital.
A rumor seeded in online forums: What exactly is Blackfire building?
Within days, the narrative began to shift.
"Shadow Tech Firm Raises Eyebrows in Silicon Valley."
"Blackfire Technologies: Innovation or Illusion?"
"How Does an Eighteen-Year-Old Fund a Seventy-Million-Dollar Monthly Burn?"
None of the articles accused Derek directly.
They didn't need to.
They only needed to suggest.
Speculation spread like oil across water. Commentators debated whether Blackfire was a front for foreign capital. Reddit threads dissected satellite images of Blackfire's properties. Amateur analysts claimed Reality Quest was a government simulation project. Others whispered darker theories—psychological warfare, social engineering, even digital indoctrination.
Inside Blackfire, the first signs of pressure appeared.
Employees noticed reporters lingering outside the building. Emails from journalists requesting interviews multiplied. One developer admitted his parents had called, worried he was "working for something illegal."
Ruth, at the reception desk, logged every unfamiliar face with a sharper eye.
Derek watched it all unfold from a distance.
He didn't panic.
He didn't respond.
When Alan Payne called to warn him about the growing media buzz, Derek listened patiently.
"They're fishing," Alan said. "If this escalates, we may need a statement."
Derek glanced at the live feed from the server floor, where Reality Quest's AI modules were being stress-tested, NPCs reacting to simulated massacres, betrayals, and acts of mercy.
"Let them fish," Derek replied. "Silence unsettles people more than denial."
"And if regulators get involved?"
"They won't," Derek said calmly. "There's nothing to find."
Alan hesitated. "And if they invent something?"
Derek smiled faintly.
"Then they prove my point."
He ended the call and turned back to the glass wall overlooking the city. Los Angeles glittered beneath the setting sun, unaware that something was taking shape—something that would redefine entertainment, morality, and consequence itself.
JBL thought pressure would force him into the open.
The media thought rumors would weaken him.
They didn't understand the nature of what they were dealing with.
Reality Quest wasn't built to hide.
It was built to expose.
And soon, the world would be begging to step inside it.