Date: 14th July 2026
Location: Lecture Hall 304 / Main Corridor, London Metropolitan University
Time: 12:15 PM BST
The lecture ended not with a bell, but with the collective, exhausted sigh of sixty students who had just had their brains tenderised by Vincy's thermodynamics.
Usually, when a lecture concludes, the 'keener' students swarm the professor like flies on a rib-eye, desperate for extra credit or to clarify why their math didn't match the board.
But with Professor Vincy, the opposite happened. The students avoided the podium as if it were a radioactive spill. Vincy didn't give answers, he gave riddles that triggered existential crises and literal nightmares.
To talk to him was to invite a psychological 'troll' session that could last hours.
I, however, was the anomaly. In my past 'student' life, I was the only one who approached him with questions that were equally lethal. But today, as I watched him pack his worn leather bag, I hesitated.
I didn't actually have any questions. Not about the curriculum, anyway. I'd known the answers to everything he'd said today since Loop 4.
If I approached him with my usual 'curiosity,' a man as sharp as Vincy would smell the performance. He'd know I was faking the struggle.
["Pryce,"] Eliza's voice drifted through the earpiece, her tone laced with predatory curiosity.
["You're staring. It's making the Professor look like he's about to reach for a silver stake. Are we going to engage, or are you just admiring the way he fails to iron his shirts?"]
"I need a reaction, Eliza," I whispered, shifting my weight.
My legs, though bolstered by the Tesla recovery, still felt like they belonged to a 90-year-old.
"I need to know if his mind is ready for the 'Forbidden' stuff. Not the textbook rubbish. The real thing."
I walked down the tiered steps, my cheap sneakers squeaking against the linoleum. Vincy looked up, his eyes narrowing behind thick frames.
"Mr. Pryce. Still alive, I see. I assume you're here to tell me that my derivation of entropy was 'cute' but fundamentally flawed?"
"Actually, Professor, I was thinking about invisible resources," I said, leaning against the edge of his desk mostly because I needed the support. "Energy that can be captured but passes through objects.
A parasitic pull that doesn't just take power, but hijacks the data and hidden information within the wave. Making it ours."
Vincy stopped moving. The room felt suddenly colder, or perhaps it was just the Tesla signal reacting to the tension.
"Theft of the Aether," Vincy murmured, his voice dropping an octave. "That's not physics, Mason.
That's alchemy. Or treason. If you could bridge the gap between energy transmission and data encryption in a non-visible spectrum... you wouldn't be a student. You'd be a god. Or a corpse."
"My Tesla project,"
I continued, ignoring the warning.
"The one everyone calls 'junk' in the Vault. It's going to reach that point. It's not a failure anymore, Professor. It's just... hungry."
Vincy stared at me for a long beat, his expression unreadable. For a second, I thought he might call security. Instead, he gave a dry, raspy chuckle.
"Hunger is dangerous, Mr. Pryce. Be careful what you feed that machine. If it starts eating information it wasn't meant to have, the people who 'own' that information will come looking for the bill."
"I'll be sure to keep the receipts,"
I replied, a cold smirk touching my lips.
I turned and walked out before he could ask for details. I had the validation I needed. Vincy wasn't just a teacher; he was a gatekeeper who knew the fence was broken.
But as I reached the corridor, reality hit me in the face specifically, my bank balance. I checked my phone. It was a sea of red numbers.
["Pryce,"]
Eliza chimed in, her avatar appearing as a tiny, judgmental icon on my HUD.
["While your intellectual posturing was quite entertaining, we have a slight 'material' problem. The Tesla Core needs three more high-grade capacitors and a liquid-nitrogen cooling loop. Unless you plan to pay for them with 'vibes' and 'future-knowledge,' we are effectively bankrupt."]
"Bloody hell," I hissed, rubbing my temples. "I need cash. A lot of it. And fast."
In my usual loops, I'd just wait for the 2036 crash and raid the ruins. Or I'd use a lottery number. But this was 2026.
This was the one timeline where I hadn't memorized the winning balls because I was too busy dying in a bunker. My future-knowledge was top-tier in physics, but rubbish for gambling.
["Maybe you could sell your body to science?"]
Eliza suggested helpfully.
["Though, given your current Vitality, you'd probably only get the price of a pint of milk and a packet of crisps."]
"Shut it, Eliza."
I looked out the window at the rainy London street. If I couldn't win the lottery, I'd have to create one.
"There's only one way," I muttered, my mind racing through the schematics I'd memorized from the 'Great Collapse' of 2036.
"I need to sell some 'junk.' Things that are considered scrap in the future but would be 'Black-Market Gold' in 2026.
I have the blueprints for a localized signal-dampener that could shut down a city block. Or a battery cell that lasts ten years on a single charge."
["Selling 2036 'trash' as 2026 'treasures'?"]
Eliza's voice took on a gleeful, wicked edge.
["Oh, Pryce. That's not just brilliant. That's 'Hot Money.' The kind that gets people killed."]
"In London? People get killed for a 'dodgy' look in Brixton," I grunted, pushing off the wall. "If I want to build a system that saves the world, I'm going to have to get my hands very, very dirty."
I headed for the exit, my weak heart fluttering with a mix of exhaustion and adrenaline. The 'Fragile Genius' was about to become the 'Underground Merchant.'
[SYSTEM LOG: TRANSACTION PROTOCOL INITIATED] [OBJECTIVE: LIQUIDATE FUTURE-TECH SCRAP] [TARGET: LONDON UNDERGROUND BLACK MARKET] [MASON STATUS: POOR, TIRED, BUT DANGEROUS]
"Let's go, Eliza. We have some 'trash' to pitch."