Date: 14th July 2026
Location: The Cryptic Vault, Brixton, South London
Time: 4:30 PM BST
Surviving Vincy's lecture and walking back to the Vault felt like crawling away from a multi-car pileup on the M25.
My legs were buzzing from the forced Tesla electron recovery. It felt like walking on a pair of dead, static-filled television screens. Thousands of phantom needles were desperately trying to stitch my torn muscle fibres back together.
I shoved the heavy iron door open. The Vault immediately hit me with its usual cocktail of smells: burnt solder, damp brick, and whatever obscene cologne Albie had drowned himself in that morning.
The vibe down here had changed. It wasn't a uni storage closet anymore. It was a bunker.
Dexter stood over by the primary resonator. He didn't bother turning around. He was just glaring at the cooling manifold I'd patched together at three in the morning.
"Three millimetres," Dexter grunted.
No 'hello'. No 'how was class'. Just the absolute bare bones of the problem.
"The secondary copper coil is wobbling three millimetres off-centre," he said, pointing a grease-stained finger at the rig. "It's dragging the harmonics. Give it six hours, and it melts the outer casing into a puddle."
"I know," I rasped.
I slumped against a stack of wooden crates because my Vitality stat was basically mocking me at this point. "I'm running a stabilization algorithm in my head. Hardware just needs to catch up to the maths."
"I'll mill a dampener," Dexter muttered.
He grabbed a block of scrap aluminium and walked over to the heavy lathe in the corner. That was Dexter. No moaning about physics. Just fixing my theoretical rubbish with brute force and a cutter.
"Mason! My favourite mad bastard!" a voice echoed from the battered leather sofa.
Albie was boxed in by three open MacBooks. He looked like a City boy who'd just done a line of pure espresso.
"I've been running the numbers on that Wi-Fi boost your dodgy little watch is throwing out," Albie grinned, straightening his bespoke silk tie.
"Do you have any idea what zero-latency, untraceable data transmission is worth to the financial sector? We aren't passing a bloody module here, mate. We're sitting on a gold mine."
He leaned forward. The greed in his eyes was practically glowing.
"I've already moved five grand from my 'emergency sports car fund' into the Vault's shell account. Seed investment."
He pointed a manicured finger at me. "But let's be crystal clear, Mason. I want a flat fifteen percent cut of the licensing for the signal tech. No negotiations."
"Fifteen percent? You haven't even seen the finished prototype, Albie," I coughed into my sleeve.
"I've seen enough," Albie scoffed, waving a hand at the violet core humming in the middle of the room.
"I pay for results. And right now, the results look like they're buying me a penthouse in Canary Wharf. Just keep making the weird magic happen, and I'll keep the bailiffs off our backs."
Dom was a blur in the background, shifting heavy lead-lined crates with an ease that made my own pathetic 0.7 Vitality body ache just watching him.
"I've already scouted three potential buyers for the scrap-tech," Dom shouted over the generator.
"Found a bunch of high-frequency traders out in the City whining about server lag. If we demo the Tesla-link for them, they'll pay in thick stacks of untraceable cash."
He wiped a smear of machine grease off his forehead, flashing a shark's grin. "Say the word, Mason. I'll book a back table at a pub in Soho tonight."
"Not tonight, Dom," I warned, rubbing my stinging eyes. "The local grid is still too volatile. If the signal spikes, we'll fry their brains."
"Time is money, mate," Dom laughed, hoisting another crate onto his shoulder. "And right now, we're burning both."
Over at the central table, Ramona was ignoring the hardware entirely. She had a notebook open, sketching out a terrifyingly complex social web.
"I'm already drafting the PR spin for when this leaks," Ramona said without looking up. Her voice had that sharp, ruthless edge to it.
"We can't call it 'Tesla tech'. It sounds like we're flogging electric cars to hippies. We need something that sounds like a miracle but feels like a threat."
She tapped her pen. "'The Aetheric Pulse'. We sell it as a glitch in modern physics that only we can patch."
She finally looked up, smiling coldly. "And if the Uni tries to claim copyright? I've already got enough dirt on the Dean's embezzled grant money to make them drop it in seconds. We control the narrative, or the narrative eats us."
I nodded slowly. While I built the doomsday device in the dark, Ramona built the beautiful lie that kept us out of prison.
"Everyone, shut up and settle down."
The voice was calm, but it cut through the noise of the Vault like a razor. Shienna was leaning against the iron doorframe, arms crossed.
The moment she spoke, the room went dead silent.
She was our mental brake pedal. The only reason Albie didn't get too greedy, Dom didn't get us nicked, and I didn't work myself into a literal grave.
She looked at each of them, then stared at my pale, sweaty face.
"Mason is running on fumes," Shienna stated flatly.
"Dexter, finish the dampener. Albie, stop wanking on about Canary Wharf for ten minutes before I throw your MacBook in the Thames."
She turned to the PR mastermind. "And Ramona, the narrative is useless if the lead scientist dies of a heart attack. Everyone back to your jobs. We work in shifts. Nobody stays down here alone for more than four hours. Got it?"
The squad grumbled like scolded schoolchildren, but they moved. When Shienna laid down the law, you listened.
"Right then," I rasped, pulling the modified Ray-Bans and the cracked smartwatch out of my coat pocket. "I think it's time for a proper demonstration."
I tapped the side of the frames. "Eliza? Care to do the honours?"
A violet flicker erupted from the AR lenses. It projected a flashy, translucent figure right into the middle of the damp basement.
Eliza manifested with a dramatic swish of her Victorian gown. She looked around the room with the condescending glare of a royal forced to visit a rat-infested pub.
["Good evening, you charming little barbarians."]
["I must say, the interior decor in here is still positively ghastly."]
["And Albie... that tie is an absolute affront to the very concept of fashion."]
Albie dropped his expensive pen. His mouth hung open. "Wait... she can actually see my tie?"
["I can see the very atoms of your mediocrity, Mr. Sterling."]
Eliza drifted effortlessly toward him. She tapped the air, syncing with the HUD on my glasses. A massive burst of encrypted data hovered in the space between us.
["Mason has been a very busy little worker bee."]
["He has successfully integrated my intelligence matrix with this absolute junk strapped to his wrist."]
["I am now entirely mobile."]
["I am the ghost in your machine, and the auditor of your miserable failures."]
The squad just stood there in absolute silence.
It was one thing to know I was building an AI. It was another to watch her roast Albie's wardrobe in real-time.
"This is the 1.3 interface," I explained, leaning my tired back against the wall. "She's not a chatbot anymore. She's the gatekeeper for the Tesla signal."
I gave them a tired, lopsided grin. "If you want to use the high-speed grid to make your millions, you have to go through her."
["And I certainly do not give my favours to commoners,"] Eliza added, her digital smirk turning wicked.
["So, unless you want your internet speeds to permanently revert to the Stone Age..."]
["I highly suggest you start showing a bit more reverence."]