The next morning Aditya woke up before his alarm.
That itself was unusual.
He lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling. The room was quiet. Outside, the city had already started its routine — distant traffic, faint voices, the ordinary sounds of a world that had no idea what was happening inside this small hotel room.
He sat up slowly, rubbed his face and looked at the table.
Notebook. Laptop. NZT pouch.
Everything in its place.
He freshened up, had breakfast and sat down at the table. He opened his notebook and reviewed his rules as he did every morning. His eyes carefully scanned each line, reinforcing them in his mind before he even thought about taking NZT.
No impulsive trades.No large entries.No repeating patterns.Avoid attention.Never get greedy.
Only after grounding himself in these rules did he take a single tablet and swallow it.
He waited.
The familiar electric sensation spread through his mind. Colors sharpened. Sound became crisp. The world clicked into focus like a lens being adjusted.
He opened his notebook to a fresh page.
'Alright', he thought, 'Let's build.'
He had thought about this the previous night. He knew where to start.
The year was 2011. Smartphones were growing fast. Apps were still a new concept for most people. The App Store had been around for only three years. Most developers were still figuring out what was possible.
'Which means the gaps are enormous', he thought.
He wasn't planning to build something revolutionary on day one. He was too smart for that kind of arrogance. What he needed first was something small, functional and useful. Something that could generate passive income while he focused on bigger goals.
He got dressed and left the hotel.
He had visited the library once before. He knew where it was.
The same calm greeted him as he walked in — the quiet rustle of pages, the faint smell of old books, the soft footsteps of people moving between shelves. Nobody looked up. Nobody cared.
He moved through the aisles purposefully.
Programming section.
His eyes scanned the titles quickly.
C++,Java, Python, Software Engineering Principles, Introduction to Application Development.
He pulled out four books, tucked them under his arm and found the same quiet corner he had used before.
He opened the first book.
And just like that — it began.
The same feeling as before. Concepts that should have taken weeks to grasp unfolded naturally, one connecting to the next without effort. Logic structures, syntax rules, development frameworks — everything flowed in the same way the finance books had. Clean. Obvious. Almost effortless.
He didn't marvel at it this time.
He was used to it now.
He simply read, absorbed and moved forward.
One book became two. Two became four.
At some point he glanced up at the clock.
Five hours had passed.
He closed the last book, returned everything neatly to the shelf and walked out into the evening air without drawing a single glance.
Back in his hotel room, he locked the door and sat down at the table.
He opened his notebook and began sketching the structure of his first project. Nothing flashy. A simple productivity application — a clean, minimal task manager with smart scheduling features that didn't exist yet in most apps available in 2011. Simple enough to build quickly. Useful enough for people to actually pay for it.
Core features. Interface layout. Monetisation model. Timeline.
His pen moved steadily across the page, filling it with diagrams and notes. For the first time since entering this world, he felt something beyond just survival instinct.
He felt genuinely interested.
He picked up the laptop and began writing his first lines of code, working from what he had absorbed at the library. It was rough and incomplete, but the foundation was solid. He tested it, found three bugs, fixed them and leaned back satisfied.
'Not bad for one day', he thought.
He saved everything, closed the laptop and stood up to stretch.
He rolled his neck and looked around the room. Everything felt normal. Sharp, clear, under control.
'No side effects yet', he noted quietly in his mind.
He wasn't surprised. It was still too early. In the movie Eddie had used NZT for weeks before anything serious began showing up. But Aditya wasn't going to wait for problems to arrive before preparing for them.
He walked to the window and looked out at the city.
'I have time', he thought. 'But not unlimited time.'
He turned back to the table.
"Khushi.!"
"Yes, host."
"Start tracking my health stats daily. Log any changes, even small ones."
"Affirmative host. Daily health monitoring activated."
It was just a precaution for now. Nothing more.
He sat back down, pulled his notebook closer and flipped to a fresh page. He wrote at the top —
Problems to solve. In order of urgency.
Capital — need more before approaching Eiben Chemcorp acquisition. Software — first app needs to launch within 2 weeks. Identity — current cover is thin. Needs reinforcing. NZT — monitor and prepare before side effects begin.
He tapped his pen slowly against the page.
'Four problems. Each one connected to the others.'
'If I don't have enough capital I can't buy Eiben. If I can't buy Eiben I can't fix NZT. If I can't fix NZT before the side effects hit, everything slows down.'
He underlined the fourth point once.
Not twice. Not yet.
'Plenty of time', he reminded himself. 'Just don't waste it.'
He was still staring at the page when a sound outside his door broke his focus.
Footsteps.
Not unusual for a hotel corridor. But these were different. They slowed down near his door, paused briefly and then continued.
Aditya didn't move.
He sat perfectly still, listening.
Silence.
He waited another thirty seconds before standing up quietly and moving toward the door. He looked through the peephole.
Empty corridor.
He stayed there for a moment, watching.
Nothing.
He stepped back slowly, his expression unreadable.
'Probably nothing', he thought.
But his instincts, sharpened by NZT, weren't convinced.
He walked back to the table and added a fifth point to his list.
This hotel — don't stay too long.
He looked at the list for a long moment.
Then he closed the notebook and turned off the lamp.
In the darkness he lay on the bed, his mind still moving quietly.
The city hummed outside.
Somewhere out there, Eddie Morra was sitting in his apartment with no NZT, no money and no idea that his entire story had already been redirected.
'Sorry Eddie', he thought. 'You'll get your chance soon enough.'
He closed his eyes.
Tomorrow, he would move faster