Chapter 9 – The Storm Brews
Mumbai – 8:15 AM, Three Days Later
The digital world had started whispering louder.
Forums. Code review sites. Dev clusters across GitHub. Everyone was talking about BrainLine Nexus. Its predictive capability. Its ability to reorganize entire departments' workflows with clinical precision.
But beneath that praise lurked suspicion.
How could one anonymous developer outperform entire Silicon Valley research teams? How was the app adapting to updates faster than enterprise-funded software?
Tech companies were noticing.
And they were preparing to respond.
---
Real World – Arjun's Room
He sat cross-legged on his mattress, fingers flying across the keyboard. His phone buzzed with unread messages.
> "Would you consider licensing the framework?" – QuantumStack Ventures "We'd like to schedule an acquisition discussion." – SynCloud Technologies "Are you a group or an individual?" – ByteForge Senior Editor
He ignored them all.
He had no interest in selling out.
But pressure was building.
So he needed allies.
---
System World – Central Command
Arjun summoned the profiles of two unactivated clones: Reh01 and Kar01's real-world counterparts. It was time to fold them into the vision.
First: Karthik Mehta.
He found him again at the same rundown garage, nursing a soda instead of alcohol this time. Arjun showed him a tablet—schematics of a low-energy mobile processing unit powered by modular AI.
Karthik's bloodshot eyes widened.
"You built this?"
"Some of it. I had help."
Karthik leaned closer. "It's brilliant."
"You want in?"
"I don't have much left to lose."
"Exactly why I'm asking."
---
Second: Rehana Shah
She was already halfway in. After a follow-up meeting where Arjun showed her the full functional stack of BrainLine Nexus, she gave a short nod.
"Just tell me what part I'm building."
"Interface AI. Custom training layer. We're integrating modular memory management next."
She whistled. "That's next-gen."
"I know."
---
System World – 12:00 AM
All three stood in the command deck—Arjun, Kar01 clone running physical simulations, Reh01 executing logic trees, and Nav01 optimizing code flow for dynamic group deployments.
The plan was now global.
Arjun fed new directives:
> Build separate UI for enterprise users Design covert protection protocol for anonymous dev ID Begin economic system simulation to prepare scalable monetization
Each task was dispatched across the world.
BrainLine Omega—a deeper version of Nexus for institutional use—was now under development.
---
Real World – ByteForge Exclusive Leak
A screenshot was leaked. A backend interface from BrainLine showing dev logs tagged Sovereign Core: Lock Layer 3.
It was small. But enough.
A storm hit social media.
> "Is SilentNode working on artificial general intelligence?" "Is this India's first true super-app?" "This log looks like it references a world simulation..."
And that's when tech conglomerates moved.
Several initiated silent black-ops contracting campaigns. One firm allegedly tried reverse-engineering the APK. Another hired freelancers to trace Nexus' download origin.
Arjun stayed one step ahead.
His servers were decentralized. His clones had already predicted this.
But it was clear—he had entered the game's upper tier.
---
System World – Citadel Observation Deck
Arjun looked over a simulated skyline—future cities, connected minds, digital ecosystems.
He wasn't building an app anymore.
He was writing the future.
And then, his system froze.
> [External Alert: Unidentified Access Point Pinged – High-Level Spoof Signature]
The signal wasn't from the government.
It wasn't corporate.
It was a name.
> Vikrant Sharma
End of Chapter 9