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Chapter 13 - The Quiet Chase

December 2022 – Sunday, 6:47 AM | Brooklyn

The city was still asleep. Pale orange light crept in through Ethan's apartment window, slicing across the steel surface of his laptop. His phone buzzed once—Sienna had liked a photo from last week. He didn't respond. He wouldn't. Not yet.

His black coffee sat untouched as he stared at the blank document in front of him. Project ARGOS—a title in bold. No fluff. No branding. Just bones.

"If you can build something that reshapes the way people behave, you win without ever being seen."

His mentor's words echoed through him. The difference between noise and influence was long-term vision. He went to gym , upgrading his level to master the world with well rounded build .

Sienna was part of a world he hadn't fully left—but now, he was building a world of his own. Something unattached to emotional volatility. Something that wouldn't leave him grasping for certainty.

---

8:12 AM – The Co-Working Space

It was Sunday. No one else showed up on Sundays.

Ethan had three browser tabs open: behavioral tech trends, a whitepaper on social reputation scoring, and a profile of a woman named Amira Voss—a data scientist who had dropped out of Stanford and built one of the most downloaded AI mental health apps of the decade.

He wasn't just building a company.

He was mapping influence: how to control attention, how to quantify desire, how to engineer need before people even knew what they were looking for.

His fingers moved fast. Flow state. Coffee went cold. His focus was absolute.

He opened a private doc:

> Objective: Build a scalable behavior-mapping engine with predictive layering. Use relational feedback loops to optimize user "pull."

Target Phase 1: Prototype under ARGOS – anonymized psychological triggers based on calendar data, typing speed, biometric reads.

Funding Goal: $500k pre-seed. Use alumni network, poker nights, and subtle personal connections. Maintain image: humble but clearly dangerous.

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1:33 PM – Lunch Alone

A tray of sushi. One cold green tea. Laptop open still.

Sienna's text came in:

"Thinking of you. No pressure to respond. Just… hope you're okay."

He stared at it for a long second.

He didn't reply.

Instead, he copied her number into a folder labeled Archive–Emotional History, a cold gesture masked in practicality.

"Sex is the first thing you could do to reach someone's soul," Ethan once thought. But this? Building something from pure vision, without needing validation—this felt more real.

More permanent.

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4:09 PM – A Glimmer of the Future

A voice memo saved to his phone:

> "Project ARGOS is not just about influence. It's about owning the map everyone else follows. Not now. But in five years, people will use apps, take jobs, make love, all with data we taught them to trust. That's the game."

He paused the recording, letting the words sit. Then smiled faintly.

"They won't see me coming."

And for the first time in weeks, Ethan felt something unfamiliar—calm.

Not from Sienna.

Not from sex, power, or conquest.

But from the certainty that, one day, they would all wish they'd gotten closer before he became untouchable.

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