Amazon HQ — Neo-Chicago Tower 1
June 17, 2440 — 9:00 PM CST ( June 18 — 12:00 PM Hiroshima )
The boardroom was half real, half illusion. Only one man sat in a chair of polished steel—Jeff Brotherton, Marmaduke’s liaison—while ten holographic figures hovered around the table, each projected from a different city. It was night in the Americas, midday in Asia, and the world was already watching what it thought was sunset: footage recorded hours earlier over New Caledonia, where the sky had burned gold behind descending shuttles. The same clip now looped across every feed. What viewers didn’t know was that the scene had been staged; the island—Isla Nublar—wasn’t a corporate testing ground at all, but a private Marmaduke Family Trust retreat, hidden behind six shell companies and a century of legal camouflage.
Now, as Asia’s noon markets boiled and the Americas braced for night-cycle volatility, Amazon’s board had gathered to decide whether what their partner had done was brilliance, betrayal, or both.
The holotank in the room’s center pulsed with data: manifests, customs seals, warehouse inventories, corporate currency flows. All green. All impossible.
Vasquez’s Paris projection broke the silence first. “Sixteen governments use incursion on secure channels. Two use invasion. None have gone public—yet.”
Reed’s hologram leaned forward, distortion flickering at his edges. “From orbit it looked like fleets materializing from thin air. Thousands. Customs logged nothing. Allies call it a miracle. Rivals call it trespass.”
Matheson’s Boston projection stood with hands clasped behind its back. “They can call it what they like. Every shipment moved through corporate-citizenship corridors. Every delivery landed inside our jurisdiction. Fast isn’t illegal.”
“Paperwork,” Vasquez said. “A thin shield against sovereignty.”
Castaigne, Legal, appeared in faint silver light. “Not thin—precise. Dormant permissions. Bonded corridors. Marmaduke used his directorship to reopen lanes that still existed on paper. He didn’t break the rules. He remembered them.”
Liu’s Singapore image flickered blue. “And did in hours what usually devours quarters.”
Kapoor, calling from Mumbai, folded spectral hands. “No one moves this fast without consequences.”
Matheson’s expression didn’t change. “And yet every warehouse filled while he did. Fruit in Chicago, silk in Kyoto, spices in Frankfurt, medicine in Mexico City. Scarcity erased overnight.”
Reed growled, “He sent profits after the fact. Dared us to object to abundance.”
Castaigne’s hologram smiled faintly. “Abundance is the one argument no government dares to lose.”
The holotank cycled to global feeds:
Tokyo 8:00 AM JST — anchors holding peaches like sacred relics.
Osaka 8:03 AM — traders bowing toward screens.
Shanghai 7:03 AM CST — officials condemning while prefects quietly lifted import caps.
Mexico City 2:03 AM CST — clinics handing out generics to cheering crowds.
Berlin 1:03 AM CET — ministers congratulating themselves for foresight they never had.
Chicago 3:03 AM CST — a boy bit into mango for the first time and laughed juice down his chin.
Silence followed.
Naresh, dialing from Hyderabad, drew a glowing line through the map. “All within our corridors. No violations. Only illusions of border.”
“Optics are reality,” Vasquez said. “If people believe borders were crossed, they were.”
“Not in court,” Castaigne replied. “And no one will test it. They’ll curse in chambers and smile in markets. Abundance feels like safety.”
Andulu’s Nairobi feed flickered in amber light. “It also feels like betrayal. What do we tell a world that just learned a Freeholder and alien engineers solved what governments couldn’t?”
No one answered.
Then the holotank chimed. A sealed file unfolded, stamped with Marmaduke’s Freehold insignia.
Cleared Goods: 47 billion
Overhead Reduction: 63 percent
Fulfillment Delta: 14 days → 8 hours
Below it glowed a single line:
Gentlemen and ladies—this is what can be done when the game is played to win. Try not to break it.
And a second:
Legal briefs may be routed to Mireille Castaigne. Corridors will mirror what she signs. — M.M.
The holograms froze.
Jeff Brotherton, the only corporeal presence, cleared his throat. “You want to know if he can do this again tomorrow.”
Every translucent head turned toward him.
“The answer,” he said, “is no.”
The word hit like a hammer.
He continued, steady. “What you saw was everything. Every V’ren fabrication unit pressed into service. Every pilot, every mechanic, every spare part. Crews ran hot forty-eight hours straight. Shuttles flew without rest. Stockpiles drained. Maintenance deferred. It was a demonstration—proof of what’s possible. It can’t be repeated tomorrow or the next day.”
Reed’s spectral form leaned closer. “So it was a stunt.”
Brotherton shook his head. “Not a stunt. A message. He showed you the ceiling. Now he’ll build the floor. Sustainable cadence—days, not hours. Throughput, not fireworks.”
Vasquez’s hologram cocked her head. “How long has he been planning this?”
“Since the tenth of June,” Brotherton said. “Eight days.”
Even across continents, disbelief showed.
Liu’s image blinked. “Eight days? He conceived, mapped, and executed this in just over a week?”
Brotherton’s mouth curved in reluctant admiration. “I’m as good or better than anyone you have in logistics. I’ve moved armies’ worth of freight under fire, kept regions alive, rebuilt from nothing. But Matt—Matt sees the big picture so far ahead of me it leaves me in awe. And it should do the same for you.”
He let the silence breathe before adding, “He pulled off the Mexico commitment with eight hours of lead time. Eight. And he spent part of yesterday personally directing the operation—from the beach. That’s who you’re dealing with: a man who can run a planetary network with salt on his skin and no sleep.”
Even the holograms seemed to hesitate, as if light itself took a breath.
Brotherton went on. “He’s already expanding his merchant shuttle fleet, but that has to happen in orbit. You can’t build them down here—the physics fight you. Microgravity tolerances, molecular stress, exotic alloys that warp under weight. I don’t pretend to understand it, and I’m not sure he does either. What he does know is that V’ren fabrication units can assemble components perfectly in vacuum, powered by solar collectors strung where the sun never sets. Infinite light, infinite patience. That’s how the next fleet will come online. But it takes time.”
Naresh nodded, half impressed. “Orbital yards. Solar backbone. Audacious.”
Brotherton smiled faintly. “That’s Matt. He told me to tell you this: the board will not be displeased. But it’s best not to ask questions until it’s over. Because this”—he gestured to the data, the dawn bleeding through the glass—“is his operation.”
Kinsley leaned forward, her projection wavering. “And where is he now?”
“Continuing his honeymoon,” Brotherton said. “Acting in his Freeholder capacity. You’ll receive reports when another operation is necessary. Until then, keep him informed of who lacks what and where the gaps are. He’ll set a realistic delivery cadence. The miracle run is over. The work begins.”
Matheson’s image straightened. “Yesterday was spectacle. Tomorrow is structure. We’ll live with structure.”
Vasquez’s dawn-lit projection turned toward the Seine behind her. “When we’re old, we’ll call this morning the beginning. Others will call it invasion. Truth will depend on who’s writing.”
Brotherton gave a single nod. “History always does.”
One by one, the holograms dissolved—Matheson from Boston, Vasquez from Paris, Liu from Singapore, Kapoor from Mumbai—until only the ghostly after-light remained.
When the last image faded, the room fell silent. The holotank kept humming, numbers rolling like a tide: profit, latency, fulfillment, peace.
Brotherton stared at the lingering text. Try not to break it.
He murmured to the empty air, “We’ll try.”
Outside, the first pale seam of dawn stretched across Lake Michigan. A new message flickered privately onto his tablet, timestamped 8:01 AM Tokyo.
We’ll keep the lanes. You keep the peace.
— M.M.
He read it twice, then let it vanish.
In orbit, a growing fleet floated in solar light, its hulls unfinished and glinting. In Missouri, the Freeholder slept beside his bride. Around them, the world turned toward morning.
By the time the U.S. markets opened, the miracle had already been priced in.
And Amazon—just this once—did nothing.
It let the silence of profit speak for itself.
