Chapter 190: Untouched By The Storm
Bellemere Mansion, Los Angeles.
While the rest of the world was trying to understand the new phenomenon sweeping across every newsfeed and social platform, the architect of that chaos sat quietly in his room, legs crossed on the edge of his bed, watching everything unfold through his Lucid.
Liam’s expression was calm — almost amused — as global networks broadcast the same headline in different languages: "LUCID: The Technology That Shouldn’t Exist."
To him, this was all expected. The frenzy, the disbelief, the corporate panic — it was all part of the equation. What he didn’t expect, however, was the particular twist that came out of Washington.
The United States government had formally classified Lucid as potentially non-terrestrial technology.
That part made him laugh. Actually, burst into laughter. He had to pause the stream because he was laughing too hard to read the subtitles.
"Alien tech," he muttered under his breath, shaking his head in disbelief. "They really said alien tech."
But when the amusement settled, he found himself quietly impressed. From their perspective, it wasn’t an entirely unreasonable conclusion.
To the outside world, Lucid had appeared out of thin air. There was manufacturing leaks. No patents was registered. No press releases. No visible shipping records. The devices simply appeared overnight on reviewers’ doorsteps — silently, invisibly, flawlessly.
There was also no drone shadows or airspace signatures.
Then came the unboxing videos and the shocking livestreams.
If he were sitting on the other side of the equation, he’d probably assume the same thing: something otherworldly had landed.
Alien technology? Maybe not so far-fetched after all.
Still, he couldn’t help smirking. "Well," he murmured, "if they think I’m an alien, at least they won’t try to tax me."
"Lucy," Liam said lazily, "current viewer count?"
"As of five minutes ago, cumulative livestream viewership across all ten reviewers is at 1.62 billion unique viewers."
Liam nodded slowly, a satisfied smile forming.
More than one and a half billion people, all watching the livestreams. It was a pretty neat number and he was pretty satisfied with it.
Currently, what the tech reviewers was doing, after confirming the insane capabilities of the device and the unparalleled quality of the games it, and its contents, was testing the device’s battery.
Though there’s no battery icon to show how much juice the device has left, the tech reviewers feels that it’s impossible for the device to last forever without needing charging.
But they will be left shocked when they hit their daily 12 hours usage limit of the device, and the device still hasn’t ran out of battery, because it can never run out of battery.
On the screens before him, the top tech reviewers were still testing. They were all currently gaming and they have found themselves almost addicted to the games.
The viewers, of course, were obsessed. Comment sections were flooded with debates.
"No way that thing lasts sixteen hours. Nothing that powerful does."
"He’s lying, it’s plugged into something off-camera."
"The hell kind of battery tech is this?"
"Wait— why does it even need a time limit? If I buy it, I should use it whenever I want."
The arguments flared across forums and social media like wildfire. Some praised the limit as "a humane feature" that prevented addiction. Others called it "corporate babysitting."
A few conspiracy threads even claimed the limit was "neural protection" — proof that Lucid’s technology interfered directly with the brain.
Liam read them all with amusement.
"Humans really do love to fight over what they don’t understand," he mused.
Still, he knew how this part of the story would end. When the sixteen-hour mark hit and the devices didn’t die, the shock would ripple through the internet again.
The truth was simple — Lucid didn’t have a battery in the conventional sense. It drew energy directly from a stabilized quantum field, harvesting zero-point energy. Infinite power, zero waste. It could run forever.
If only they knew, but they never will.
He leaned back, hands clasped behind his head.
The first pre-order batch alone had generated more than $670,000 in profit. The number was small compared to his wealth, but it wasn’t about the revenue. It was about momentum.
Each unit sold was a seed planted in the mind of the world. And next month, there would be two thousand more.
Then fewer the following month — just to create scarcity — before doubling production again. A rhythm of desire and denial. He would control the pulse of supply until Lucid became invaluable to everyone.
But there was one problem he couldn’t quite ignore; the deliveries.
The invisible overnight drops had worked perfectly for the tech reviewers — no witnesses, no leaks, no traceable air traffic.
But now? The second phase would include top gamer streamers — personalities with tens of millions of followers. Their entire brands revolved around constant exposure.
And worse, they’d already started posting about it.
"Lucid delivery in 3 days! We’ll stream the whole thing LIVE."
"You guys wanted to see how it arrives? You got it."
"Apparently no courier, no drone, nothing. We’ll see about that."
Liam sighed, rubbing his temple.
"Of course they’ll stream it," he muttered. "That’s what they do."
Now the question was whether to keep the same stealth system or let the world see the drones.
If the drones appeared on live broadcast — shimmering in daylight, emerging from nowhere — it would detonate another round of hysteria.
Every government would scramble again. Every corporation would scream espionage.
Every satellite operator would go insane trying to track what couldn’t be tracked.
For a brief moment, he considered staying hidden — keeping the illusion of magic alive.
But then he smiled, as chaos was far more entertaining. He will go with them making public appearances.
Decision made, he stretched his arms and turned back to the screens. The reviewers were now switching games — from Frontline: Starfall Dominion to Genesis Sandbox. Millions of viewers were losing their minds in the chat.
"This is better than real life."
"How do you even go back to normal gaming after this?"
"Go back? A control pad already feels ancient! This is witchcraft, brother."
He watched the comments scroll endlessly. He knew that in three days, this will double again.
He even toyed with the idea of reducing the daily limit to six hours — just to make people crave more.
It was tempting. But for now, he decided against it.
***
Outside, Los Angeles shimmered under the glow of late evening. The news networks hadn’t stopped talking for a single minute.
Analysts were losing their minds on live TV.
"We’re witnessing a paradigm shift in human-computer interaction."
"This level of neural integration is decades ahead of DARPA."
"If this product actually launches publicly, global tech markets will have to reset their valuation models."
Applē, Gōōgle, Sāmsūng — all down between 2.8 and 3.2 percent. Sōñny had dropped 4.1. Mētā — now the self-proclaimed gatekeeper of virtual reality — was collapsing fastest, sliding past a 5% drop in a single afternoon.
Analysts were already predicting a 20% cumulative sector decline before week’s end and Mētā will suffer the heaviest of blows.
One CNBC anchor nearly shouted into the camera, "If Lucid actually goes public next week, it could wipe a quarter trillion dollars off global tech valuations overnight!"
Liam tilted his head, with a small smile on his face. The chaos outside his walls was growing louder by the minute — but here, inside his quiet room, there was only stillness.