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Bonus chapter.
Ethan looked at the crowd of reporters who'd just finished calling for his imprisonment and felt nothing but amusement.
Easily led. Every single one of them.
"Since Mr. Voss is so confident in his claim, he must have evidence to support it."
Adrian didn't hesitate. He'd been waiting for this moment.
"Of course."
An assistant materialized beside him carrying a large presentation case. Adrian opened it with practiced ceremony and began extracting materials.
"Inside this case are selected research documents and development footage spanning over a decade of Voss Industries' work in nuclear fusion."
He held up a binder. Thick. Official-looking. Seals and stamps on every page.
"This represents only a fraction of our total archive. Unfortunately, the majority of our data involves classified proprietary processes and cannot be disclosed publicly. I hope you'll understand the limitation."
He signaled his team, and a technician began projecting documents onto a portable screen while playing video clips. Laboratory footage, dated years ago. Research logs with timestamps. Technical specifications with Voss Industries watermarks. Progress reports signed by teams of researchers.
All of it fabricated. Every frame, every page, every signature. Two months of meticulous forgery by the best document specialists money could buy.
But the audience didn't know that. What they saw was a mountain of evidence, professionally presented, internally consistent, and backed by the institutional weight of a billion-mark defense contractor.
When the presentation concluded, Adrian allowed himself a moment of private satisfaction. He'd poured resources into this performance that would make a film studio jealous. Outside of the two brothers who knew the truth, nobody watching could have identified a single flaw.
He turned the knife.
"Mr. Mercer, Voss Industries has presented its evidence. I'd be very interested to see yours."
This was the trap. Adrian had designed it perfectly.
The only evidence Ethan could produce would be a detailed manufacturing record of the reactor. But doing so would require publicly disclosing the technical specifications of controllable nuclear fusion, which the Bureau of Internal Affairs would never allow. Classified technology couldn't be demonstrated at a press conference.
If Ethan couldn't produce direct evidence, he'd have no choice but to accept defeat at the verification meeting. And once he did, Adrian would magnanimously offer to "recruit" him. Bring the kid into Voss Industries. Spin it as corporate generosity. And behind closed doors, extract every piece of knowledge from his skull.
Perfect plan. No holes. No escape routes.
"Unfortunately," Ethan said, "because the technology behind the reactor is classified, I have no direct evidence to present."
The reporters erupted.
"Still playing games even now!"
"Just admit it! Voss Industries has the receipts. What do you have? Nothing!"
"It takes a real villain to make you appreciate how great a legitimate company is!"
Adrian's shoulders loosened. The tension that had been building since the phone call evaporated. The kid had admitted he couldn't match the evidence. The meeting was over. All that remained was the recruitment pitch and—
"Mr. Voss."
Ethan's voice cut through the noise.
"You just stated that the fusion reactor was the result of your company's full-scale development. Over a decade. All human and material resources devoted to a single project. Is that correct?"
Adrian blinked. The question seemed irrelevant. But contradicting his own narrative would create problems, so he nodded.
"Correct. Over the past decade, Voss Industries invested essentially all of our research capacity into this project."
The statement served double duty: it explained why Voss Industries hadn't produced other major innovations recently (because all the money went to fusion, not because the company was a hollow shell that stole patents from smaller firms), and it reinforced the scale of the "theft."
"Good," Ethan said. "Then that means Voss Industries had no capacity to simultaneously develop a second project at the same level as the reactor. Or higher."
A cold finger traced its way down Adrian's spine.
He couldn't deny it. The entire narrative was built on the premise that fusion had consumed the company's total resources. Admitting spare capacity would undermine that claim. So he said nothing, which was the same as agreement.
"Ladies and gentlemen." Ethan turned to face the crowd. "Please pay very close attention to what you're about to see."
"Because this is the second gift to the world from the 'shameless plagiarist' you've been condemning all morning."
He walked to the center of the testing ground, gripped the black cloth, and pulled.
The fabric slid off in one smooth motion and pooled on the floor.
Every mouth in the room fell open.
A massive circular rig stood in the center of the testing ground, built like a vertical display frame. And locked into its center, suspended at eye level, arms spread, head raised, was a suit of armor.
Red and gold.
The colors caught the overhead lights and threw them back in sharp, metallic gleams. The surface was smooth, contoured, sculpted to follow the lines of a human body with a precision that made it look less like a machine and more like a second skin forged from metal. The chestplate was broad, the limbs articulated, the faceplate angular and expressionless.
It looked like nothing anyone in the room had ever seen.
It looked like it had been built by a civilization that was decades ahead of theirs.
For three full seconds, nobody spoke.
Then everyone spoke at once.
"What... what IS that?"
Adrian Voss stared at the armor, and every instinct in his body screamed that his life had just changed irrevocably.
But the rational part of his mind, the part that had built Voss Industries and survived twenty years of corporate warfare, fought back. He forced his breathing steady. Forced his expression neutral. And looked at the object on the rig with the cold, analytical eye of a man who'd spent his career evaluating technology.
It's a suit. A metal suit. Impressive-looking, sure. But what does it actually DO?
The world's most advanced robots could barely walk without falling over. The most sophisticated powered exoskeletons were clumsy, limited, and consumed energy at rates that made them impractical for anything beyond laboratory demonstrations.
If this was a robot, it was the best-looking one he'd ever seen. But "best-looking" wasn't the same as "functional." And a pretty shell with nothing inside was just sculpture.
His confidence stabilized.
"Impressive presentation, Mr. Mercer." His voice was steady again. "But a fancy paint job doesn't change the facts. Today's meeting is about the reactor, not a costume."
"Why don't you stop stalling and address the actual evidence?"
The reporters, following Adrian's lead, recovered from their shock and piled on.
"Is that supposed to be a robot? What a waste of the reactor's energy!"
"The reactor could power an entire county for a month. And he built it to run a suit of armor? That's like using a nuclear plant to charge a phone!"
"I think Mercer's finally cracked. He sees the case is lost, so he's putting on a show instead of answering the question."
In front of his television, Dr. Edmund Hargrove frowned.
The armor was visually striking. He could see that. But visual impact wasn't the same as scientific substance, and Hargrove hadn't staked his reputation on aesthetics.
Marcus, sitting beside him, spoke with the measured precision of a man delivering a verdict he'd been preparing for three months.
"The world's highest-power robot is the deep-sea autonomous submersible developed by our own Republic's oceanographic institute. It can operate at depths of six thousand meters. Its power requirement is approximately four hundred kilowatts. Even including all auxiliary systems, the total draw wouldn't exceed eight hundred kilowatts."
He turned to his father.
"At that rate, a single fusion reactor could power it for over seventy years."
The implication was clear. If Ethan had built the reactor as a power source for this armor, he'd used an epoch-making energy breakthrough to fuel something the world's existing power systems could handle with a fraction of the output. Like using a firehose to fill a teacup.
"This isn't the best use for that technology," Marcus continued. "Not by a significant margin."
Hargrove said nothing. His eyes were on the screen, on the red and gold shape that his fifty million marks and three months of trust had produced.
Doubt stirred.
What are you doing, kid? Your talent should be far beyond this.
If this is all you have, then you've lost our bet.
Plz throw powerstones.