Chapter 188: The Storm (2)

Cupertino, California

.

The early afternoon light cut through the circular glass walls of Applē’s executive suite and the air was thick with tension. The big screen showed Brian Carter’s Lucid unboxing looping endlessly. Then, on another screen was the ongoing livestream of one of the tech reviewers and he was currently playing the most immersive game they could ever imagine.

Timi sat still, hands folded, with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Run me through it again," he said.

"Unknown company," Greg Faraday, VP of Hardware, began. "Product: Lucid. Marketed as wearable tech. But it’s not AR — it’s neural projection. No power ports, no processor lag, zero thermal output. Seven hundred dollars retail."

Timi’s eyes narrowed slightly at the ridiculous pricing, "Seven hundred?"

"Yes, sir."

A long pause. Timi was trying to understand why and how someone will price something so advanced so dirt cheap. Are they trying to ruin what they all have built over the years?

"Who are they?" he asked, after a brief moment of thought.

"Nova Technologies," replied the general counsel. "Delaware LLC. Clean paperwork. No founders listed. Registered through JP Morgan’s private-banking branch. Every transaction airtight."

"Then buy it," Timi said, as he leaned back.

Silence filled the room.

"Sir," the counsel said carefully, "we can’t. The ownership’s layered through sovereign-trust structures. It’s protected."

"Then we make it unprotected," Timi said, without blinking.

"How?"

He turned to the head of policy. "Regulatory squeeze. Data-privacy narrative. Neural-interface safety. If we can’t buy them, we bury them."

"Should we coordinate with Washington?"

Timi’s tone was razor-cold, as he spoke. "You don’t ask Washington. You tell them. Frame it as public safety. Nobody wants brain tech without oversight."

The marketing chief hesitated, before speaking. "That could backfire if it’s clean."

Timo’s reply was almost a whisper. "Nothing’s clean after we touch it."

No one spoke again. In that quiet, everyone understood the order: control the story, or the story controls them.

They knew what’s coming for the company, if Nova Technologies releases Lucid in a week as promised. Not just them but all tech companies will face massive devaluation and they might never bounce back. So, it was better to act now and minimise the damage, than to wait till later.

Besides, all the tech companies’ stock prices are now down 0.5% in the last five minutes.

***

Menlo Park — Mēta Reality Labs

Marcus stood in the darkened briefing room, the flickering reflection of Lucid dancing in his eyes. Around him, his Reality Labs team waited for the verdict.

"It’s thought-responsive," said CTO Andrea, with a tight voice. "Direct brainwave interface. No controller or band, no latency. They just... think."

Marcus said nothing. The silence stretched until it became uncomfortable.

"Our neural-link project—" Andrea began.

"Dead," Marcus cut in. "Pull it. It’s obsolete."

Immediately, gasps rippled throughout the briefing room. They all knew what’s this meant. It meant that the billions of dollars that was spent on the project, all went into a sinkhole.

Marcus walked to the window and looked out over the empty campus lawn, as he said, "If Lucid’s real, the metaverse just left our hands. Every dollar we spent trying to trap people inside digital walls — gone."

The COO spoke softly, "Then we pivot. Integration proposal?"

Marcus turned to look at the COO. "No. They don’t integrate with us. We integrate into them."

"You mean—"

"Acquisition," he said flatly. "If they refuse, destroy them. Safety scare, disinformation, ad campaigns about neural damage. You know the drill."

The communications head shifted uneasily. "That could get traced."

"Then use our PR contractors. The ones who did the Cambridge cleanup."

There was a long pause, as everyone let the gravity of what he just said sink in.

"And if they stay independent?"

Marcus smiled but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. It was ice cold.

"Then we build a digital world that’s compatible with Lucid—and make sure it needs us to survive."

***

Mountain View — Gōōgle Headquarters

The ARCore command floor buzzed with panic. Engineers, executives, and legal counsel packed the glass-walled conference room.

"The Nova website has no backend footprint," said the cybersecurity lead. "No AWS, no Azure, no private servers. It’s like it’s hosted in vacuum."

CEO Sundar looked up from his tablet. "So we can’t trace them."

"Not yet," the engineer said. "But we can drown them."

"How?"

The legal counsel smiled tightly. "Patent infringement. We’ll comb through every optic, lens, and software algorithm in ARCore’s library. Something will match. File a claim. Freeze their shipments before they scale."

Another exec added, "Or we bait them with partnership. Access to our global infrastructure, YouTube integration, AI cloud support. They sign one contract, and they’re ours."

Sundar nodded slowly. "Good. Offer them heaven with one hand, hell with the other. One way or another, they’ll come to us."

***

Seoul — Sāmsūng Electronics HQ

The Mobile Division’s top brass sat around a sleek black table, with faces drawn.

"Lucid’s components are untraceable," said an engineer. "No known supply chain. No chipsets, no lenses, no source materials."

The CEO’s expression was cold. "Then we hit their weak point."

He turned to his procurement chief. "Buy every optics supplier operating in East Asia. If they’re building this device, we’ll own their factories before they realize it."

"And if we can’t find their suppliers?" someone asked.

"Then we find who supplies their suppliers," he snapped. "And we make the cost of doing business impossible."

Another executive murmured, "Should we partner instead?"

The CEO smiled thinly. "Partnership is what we call a siege before the takeover."

***

Shenzhen — Hūāwēi Technologies

Dr. Wen watched the Lucid streams play across six monitors at once. "A wearable that projects direct neural signals," he said softly. "Whoever built this broke every physical limitation we know."

The government liaison leaned forward. "Beijing wants replication. Can you do it?"

Wen folded his arms. "Not yet. But we can extract it."

"How?"

"Corporate espionage, subcontractor infiltration, patent theft — the usual methods. If it’s American, it’ll leak. Everything American leaks."

He turned to his team. "If they won’t share it, we’ll clone it. If we can’t clone it, we’ll counterfeit it. And if we can’t counterfeit it—then we flood the market with counterfeits anyway. No one believes in a miracle once it’s everywhere."

***

Tokyo — Sōny Interactive Entertainment

The PlayStation boardroom was silent. A replay of Lucid’s game interface looped across the screen: Brian Carter’s avatar was currently fighting a war in space against an alien invader in the game Frontline: Starfall Dominion.

"This is reality emulation," muttered a developer. "Not virtual or augmented. Reality."

The CEO exhaled slowly. "Then every headset we’ve made just became ancient history."

The studio head straightened. "We still control content. If Lucid becomes the new platform, we’ll be the first to publish on it."

"Start calling the big developers," said the CEO. "Square, FromSoft, EA. Offer exclusivity bonuses — billions if needed. If Nova wants games, they’ll need us.

And if they refuse?"

The CEO’s gaze hardened. "Then we lobby Japan’s tech ministry to classify Lucid as unregulated neural hardware. It’ll stall imports for months."

***

Zurich — UBS Tech Investment Memo (Internal)

A confidential note circulated through the investment sector that afternoon:

"All six major tech conglomerates have initiated containment operations regarding Nova Technologies.

Applē: Attempting discreet acquisition and regulatory influence through safety framing.

Mētā: Pursuing infiltration and media distortion.

Gōōgle: Legal entanglement and dual-front partnership traps.

Sāmsūng: Supply-chain suppression and vendor monopolization.

Hūāwēi: Replication or counterfeit flooding.

Sony: Content-control and import interference.

Collective motive: prevent market displacement by an unaligned entity.

Collective outcome: inevitable failure. The device is already beyond reach."