The microbot swarm was asleep.
For the first time since I woke up in this universe, I had explicitly ordered Atlas to power them down. They were currently resting in a dormant, compressed state inside the basement vat, resembling nothing more than a pool of still, black ink.
Standing in the kitchen, I chopped a bell pepper with a standard steel chef's knife.
I didn't use my enhanced speed. I didn't use the ring to manipulate gravity and dice the vegetable in mid-air. I just stood there, feeling the cool, solid weight of the handle in my palm, listening to the rhythmic, satisfying thwack-thwack-thwack of the blade against the wooden cutting board.
'I was building a cage,' I thought, sliding the diced peppers into a hot cast-iron skillet. The oil hissed, popping against the metal, and the sharp, bright scent of garlic and pepper filled the air.
The realization had been brewing since yesterday, planted by Jay Pritchett's blunt advice and watered by the simple, greasy act of fixing a bicycle chain. My cheat was absolute. I could bend the laws of physics, rewrite biology, and tear holes in the fabric of space. But in my rush to secure my safety—driven by the lingering, suffocating exhaustion of a past life where I was always one missed paycheck away from ruin—I had treated reality like a checklist.
Build the fortress. Secure the funds. Forge the armor. Launch the satellites.
It was a trauma response disguised as extreme competence. I hadn't been living; I had been aggressively fortifying a bunker. And if I kept relying on the nanites to do everything from cleaning my floors to cooking my meals, I was going to lose my anchor to humanity entirely.
I cracked three eggs into a bowl, whisking them by hand. The slight burn in my forearm, even with the super-soldier serum, was grounding. It felt real.
"Arthur," Atlas's voice murmured quietly from the ceiling speakers, keeping the volume low so as not to disturb the quiet of the morning. "I apologize for the interruption, but Mr. Specter has sent an encrypted, high-priority alert regarding Zenith Logistics."
I paused, setting the whisk down. "Go ahead."
"The purchase of the industrial warehouse in Los Angeles was executed flawlessly, and the offshore funds were sterilized. However, the sheer velocity of the capital movement triggered a manual review algorithm at the FBI headquarters in New York. Specifically, the White Collar Crimes Division."
I leaned my hip against the kitchen counter, crossing my arms. "Harvey didn't bury it deep enough?"
"Mr. Specter's legal architecture is ironclad," Atlas corrected smoothly. "The issue is not legality, but curiosity. An Agent Peter Burke has flagged the sudden emergence of Hastings Innovations.
While they have no evidence of wrongdoing, a phantom company purchasing prime commercial real estate with fourteen million dollars in untraceable, liquid assets fits the profile of high-level money laundering."
I let out a slow, quiet breath.
White Collar.
Of course. If this universe merged grounded, non-supernatural television shows into a single reality, it meant I wasn't just dealing with sitcom misunderstandings. There were brilliant, dedicated investigators out there. Men like Peter Burke and Neal Caffrey didn't need to understand zero-point energy to know when a financial ledger looked suspiciously hollow.
"I could initiate a targeted cyber-intrusion," Atlas offered, the AI's tone remaining perfectly pleasant. "I can wipe your name from the FBI database, alter Agent Burke's internal communications, and re-route their investigation toward a defunct cartel operation in Miami."
"No," I said immediately.
I stared at the eggs sizzling in the skillet. Hacking the FBI was the exact kind of god-complex escalation I was trying to step away from. If I wiped their servers, Burke would know someone was hiding something massive, and he would dig harder.
"We don't erase the trail. We legitimize it," I said, my mind spinning up to the NZT-enhanced processing speed, connecting the dots of the real world. "If they think Hastings Innovations is a shell company, we need to prove them wrong. We need a physical, visible product that explains our sudden wealth, and we need human employees to act as a buffer. We need to buy an existing, struggling tech firm and absorb it."
"A brilliant strategy, sir. Shall I scan the Los Angeles area for suitable acquisitions?"
"No, look up north. Silicon Valley," I instructed, turning the stove off and plating my breakfast.
"Look for companies developing compression algorithms or decentralized networking. Something boring, highly technical, but potentially revolutionary. A company that has the tech but lacks the capital and the management to survive."
"Scanning..." Atlas hummed. Less than two seconds later, the AI replied. "I have located a viable candidate. A startup named Pied Piper, founded by a Richard Hendricks. Their proprietary middle-out compression algorithm is genuinely groundbreaking, but the company is currently hemorrhaging funds due to gross mismanagement, legal disputes with a larger conglomerate named Hooli, and a complete lack of executive leadership. They are on the verge of bankruptcy."
Silicon Valley.
A slow, genuine smile spread across my face. It was perfect. Pied Piper had the exact kind of disruptive, highly theoretical technology that would perfectly mask my Tinker-tech developments, and Richard Hendricks was desperate enough to take a buyout if it meant saving his algorithm.
"Atlas, have Harvey Specter draft a hostile-takeover acquisition offer for Pied Piper. Offer them double their current valuation, stipulate that Hendricks remains lead software engineer, but Hastings Innovations assumes absolute executive and board control. Let Agent Burke trace the money right to a legitimate, functioning Silicon Valley tech firm."
"Drafting the proposal now, Arthur. It will be on Mr. Specter's desk in five minutes."
"Good."
I sat down at the island and ate my breakfast in silence. The food tasted better today. The eggs were a little unevenly cooked, the peppers slightly over-seared, but it was mine.
After cleaning the dishes by hand, I grabbed a light jacket and stepped out the front door. The Los Angeles sun was already warm, burning off the morning haze.