Prologue

December 9th, 2025. Switzerland.

Daniel Müller rolled the heart medication between his calloused fingers, the bluish coating catching the soft lamplight as if it were trying to look more medicinal than it felt. A perfect cocktail of whatever miracle chemicals kept his arteries politely unclogged, but he didn’t care enough to remember the names anymore.

In his other hand, he lifted a crystal tumbler of very expensive liquor, older than his last three interns combined, and threw back the pill with the smooth, irritated efficiency of a man who’d done this dance far too long.

"Damn this aging heart," he muttered. "Always gets in the way."

Müller wasn’t old, not really. Sixty‑three. But stress had sanded him down to eighty, maybe ninety on the inside. His face carried the terrain of long nights, tight deadlines, and catastrophes narrowly dodged on behalf of men who never learned his first name. His shoulders still held their strength, but the slope in them betrayed decades of responsibility pressing downward.

He turned toward his monitor. The screen glowed with a mosaic of spreadsheets, trading graphs, and precision‑balanced accounts. Numbers interlocked in silent, ruthless beauty, a cathedral of greed he had tended his entire adult life.

He loved it. God help him, he loved it.

Look at his paintings. Gifts from clients who owed him their fortunes. Look at the framed photo of his family. Two kids grown, rarely calling. Look at the shelves of knickknacks, gold pens, antique watches, novelty globes, tributes from people who only understood half of what he did for them.

A hidden spoke in the wheel of the wealthy. That was Daniel Müller. The quiet fix‑man. The unseen scaffolding. And the very best part? He got to do it all from this warm, cluttered home office, far from the marble towers of Zurich.

He took another sip of his obscenely overpriced liquor. The burn crawled pleasantly through his chest as he waited for the message he’d been promised. It was late. Unusual. Sensitive. Too delicate to trust to full automation.

AI tools handled the grunt work now, sorting, drafting, predicting, but this message required him. Flesh‑and‑blood oversight. Judgment. Fear.

Interesting combination, when one thought about it.

His mind drifted, to next quarter’s projections, to the state of the world’s financial arteries, to his kids and what in God’s name he was supposed to buy them for Christmas. With a sigh, he opened Amazon. Started scrolling. Hovered over the price of an actual pony for reasons he couldn’t articulate.

That was when his right arm went numb.

A tightening gripped his chest, a vise slowly twisting.

His breath shortened.

The tumbler slipped from his fingers. His body lurched sideways, knocking into the desk as he tried to suck in air that wasn’t coming. His vision tunneled. A sharp, stabbing bloom of pain radiated through his ribs.

He wriggled. Clutched at the desk. Tried to stand. Tried to curse.

Then he collapsed face‑first onto the keyboard.

For a moment, the only sound in the office was the faint rattle of the fallen glass rolling to a stop.

The monitor chimed.

A new message appeared, encrypted, marked with an unfamiliar signature. The kind that did not appear in ordinary inboxes. The kind someone needs to check before opening.

A soft hum activated in the corner of the screen.

Backup AI attempting decryption…

A flicker.

A second hum, lower, almost curious.

"Help..."

Then darkness.