Daniel left at 11:22, an envelope under his arm, two extra burritos in his backpack, and brimming with the energy of a man whose Saturday had been far better than expected. Victor went upstairs with his FT and his portfolio, looking like he needed a few minutes to reflect on what had happened that morning.
Maxwell went upstairs, made himself a fresh coffee, sat down at the kitchen table, and opened the system.
No more reactive navigation. Today, he was going to explore everything thoroughly.
He started at the top of the interface and worked his way down methodically, as if reading something worth understanding: not looking for the essentials, but exploring it like someone walking through a building they're about to buy, checking every room, trying every door. His coded ledger had a new page, a full cup, and nowhere to go until nightfall.
In forty minutes, he found the tracking submenu.
He knew the system recorded his finances, his exercise, and his commute. What he wasn't fully aware of was its scope. He checked the behavioral metrics and paused at one.
Days without complaining about the weather, traffic, or events beyond his control: 1,203 in a row.
He stared at it.
He read it again.
The system had been tracking him for 1,203 days more than three years, and he had silently noticed that, in 1,203 days, Maxwell Dragoski hadn't complained about the weather, traffic, or anything beyond his control. Not once. To anyone.
He leaned back in his seat.
He wondered if it was true.
It was true. He hadn't realized he'd stopped, or that he'd ever decided to stop. It was my second year riding the Blue Line, and I'd seen people spend twenty minutes of their mornings yelling and screaming about things that would be fixed in twenty minutes.
The system had been watching him all along. He kept scrolling and found two more things: Consecutive days maintaining a consistent sleep schedule (before midnight): 1594. And something that made him stop for a completely different reason: Consecutive days of contact (call, visit, or message) with at least one close relative: 2107.
Almost six years. Every single day. His mother, his father, a message, a call, a visit on Sunday. Every single day without fail. He hadn't even noticed. It was simply his life. The system was counting.
He added everything to the log. He was building a reverse-engineered model: if he could identify enough triggering conditions, he could predict when the rewards would arrive and anticipate them.
He was on the third page of his notes when the system beeped.
Not once. Twice.
[Hidden Reward Unlocked]
[Condition: 2190 Consecutive Days Daily Acquisition of Essential Knowledge]
[At least 45 minutes of reading, studying, or skills development every day]
[Not missed a single day of classes since April 4, 2006. 18 years old.]
[6 years. Not a single interruption.]
[Reward: Furnished 2-Bedroom Apartment]
[Address: 1440 N. Lake Shore Drive, Apt. 14C, Chicago, Illinois 60610]
[Size: 1840 sq ft]
[Building Features: Full Service. Doorman. Concierge. Two Assigned Parking Spaces. Unobstructed views of the lake.]
[Current Market Value: $487,000]
[Title: Registered in the name of Maxwell Dragoski]
[Keys: Available immediately at the front desk.] His name is on record.
Maxwell read it.
Then he read it again, hoping he'd made a mistake the first time. Afterward, he carefully put down his coffee, because the alternative would have been to put it down hastily, and when haste meant urgency disguised as action, he didn't act hastily.
1440 North Lake Shore Drive.
He knew the building. He'd seen it every day for three years from the window of the Blue Line, like someone looking at a category of the world that wasn't theirs. The full-service building on the lakefront. The one where the doorman waited outside in the cold, wearing a coat that cost more than Maxwell's entire wardrobe.
He sat completely still in the kitchen of his house in Logan Square, counting to ten.
Then he took the keys.
The BMW sped through Lincoln Park as if it were the perfect car for that street on that Saturday, which, in fact, it was. Maxwell drove within the speed limit, mainly because going fast implied urgency, and urgency meant the number mattered to him, and he'd already decided, even before reaching the car, that the number didn't. His hands on the wheel, at ten and two o'clock, said otherwise. He switched them to nine and three. Better.
He found the 1440 bus and parked on Schiller.
The building was exactly as it had looked from the train. A pre-war building with all the amenities, on the lakefront, the kind of place that was expensive in the sixties and had become even more so since, because proximity to so much water in such a large city was a limited resource, and the market understood scarcity, even if the politicians pretended otherwise. The doorman at the entrance was a man in his sixties, with a steady gaze and a certain calmness, like someone who had seen thirty years of Chicago go by and had reconciled himself to the complexity of human behavior.
He saw Maxwell approaching. He saw the BMW on the sidewalk. He made a decision.
"Good afternoon, sir."
"Good afternoon." Maxwell stopped in the doorway. "My name is Maxwell Dragoski. I believe I'm registered with the building management."
The doorman's face remained impassive. Thirty years in Chicago. Thirty years in Chicago didn't surprise you. He went inside and picked up a phone.
Twenty-two seconds later, a woman in her forties emerged from a door behind a desk. Ms. Elena Pardo, according to her name tag (building manager), exuded the calm and professionalism of someone who had been told the new owner of 14C would be contacting her and had prepared accordingly. She walked toward Maxwell, holding a set of keys on a keyring with the building's logo, as if she were presenting an award.
"Mr. Dragoski. Welcome to 1440. We were expecting you." She said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Like that twenty-four-year-old man in a dark gray jacket who came to pick up his apartment every Saturday on Lake Shore Drive. "Shall I walk you upstairs?"
"Please," Maxwell said.
The elevator was quiet and clean. Mrs. Pardo gave him information about the building during the ride: the concierge's hours, the available services, and the parking situation. Maxwell noticed his two reserved parking spaces. He thought about his two cars. He thought about how he now had as many parking spaces as cars, something that reflected his life.
He opened door 14C.
Maxwell stepped inside.
He had prepared a specific expression for whoever was on the other side of the door: neutral, polite, the expression of a man inspecting a newly purchased property. A professional expression.
The glance lasted about three seconds.
Because the east wall of apartment 14C was floor-to-ceiling glass, and beyond the glass lay Lake Michigan, there was no glimpse of it, no controlled view, only the flat, austere steel blue of the lake in early March, filling the entire wall as if the world had simply rolled past the building and refused to form a horizon at any reasonable distance.
The furnished living room was superb. The kitchen was spotlessly clean: twice the counter space of his Logan Square kitchen, which made preparing a meal take about forty-five seconds. Two bedrooms, clean and ready. Two and a half bathrooms, which seemed more to him than he'd ever needed or imagined.
He wasn't looking at any of it.
He walked to the east window.
Fourteen stories below, Lake Shore Drive formed a narrow strip between the building and the water. Beyond Lake Michigan did what it always did: exist with such an imposing presence that Chicago seemed both enormous and small at the same time. A freighter sailed on the horizon, so far away it seemed motionless.
"Mr. Dragoski?"
He turned. Mrs. Pardo waited with professional patience.
"The climate control system, I was telling you that the building installed individual thermostats in 2009, so it has everything." "It's perfect," Maxwell said.
He paused mid-sentence. He composed himself. "We're very proud of the building's condition. If you need any upgrades or changes…"
"No." He glanced toward the kitchen. Then toward the lake. Back toward the kitchen again. "Thank you, Mrs. Pardo."
He placed the keys on the counter. "Congratulations on the property, Mr. Dragoski."
"Thank you."
He left. Maxwell was alone in the apartment. He gazed at the lake for another minute. Then he went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator empty, cold, and whirring perfectly and closed it. He opened a cupboard. There were already four dinner plates and a set of glasses. He closed the cupboard.
He took out his phone and opened the coded ledger.
Net worth March 10, 2012 2:41 p.m.:
Savings: $6,100
BRK.B (50 shares): $4,050
Google / GOOGL (300 shares): $188,742
BMW 328i (KBB estimated value): $14,500
1440 N. Lake Shore Dr., 14C (Market Value): $487,000
Total: $700,392
He stared at this figure for about four seconds.
Six days earlier, it was $4,847.
He put the phone in his pocket, locked 14C, took the elevator down, nodded to the doorman, who also nodded with the respectful equanimity of a man who treats all building owners equally, something Maxwell appreciated more than he expected, and returned to the BMW. He sat behind the wheel for a while, with his hands on the wheel.
$700,392.
Two cars. Two parking spaces. A 63-square-meter apartment in Logan Square, where he currently lived, and a 170-square-meter condo with lake views, which he owned but did not yet live in. A leather jacket from Banana Republic that he had bought on clearance three years ago. Chicken thighs are thawing in his Logan Square refrigerator.
He started the car. Drove home. He cooked chicken. He watched the seven o'clock news: the segment on the price of gasoline, the segment on economic uncertainty, the segment on the elections, all of which had people making faces at the cameras that supposedly showed concern and, above all, fatigue.
He washed the dishes. He brushed his teeth. He lay down and looked at the ceiling, the Texas damp patch, right where he always was, and in the last thirty seconds before he fell asleep, he thought:
I have to tell the building manager which parking space is for the BMW and which one is for when I have another car.
Because, clearly, that's how things are now.
He closed his eyes.
He fell asleep in four minutes.
�� Power Stones: Author's Note: Six days into his new life, Maxwell Dragowski has a $700,000 fortune and is still sleeping under a sheet of water the size of Texas.
That's about to change. The Tesla Model S is on its way. The villa in Tuscany is on its way. A retail space in the South Loop, an apartment in Paris, a charter flight on a Gulfstream, it's all on its way. And no one around him has the slightest clue why.
Each week, this book contains 20 Power Stones, five bonus chapters in addition to the daily schedule. Five extra chapters of Maxwell being, quietly, absolutely unstoppable.
The button is right below. One tap. Let's create something!