Chapter 343: Whitlock’s Troubles

Liam woke up far later than usual, the sunlight streaming through his bedroom windows at an angle that told him it was well past mid-morning.He stretched lazily, feeling no particular urgency to jump out of bed. After all, he had nothing pressing on his schedule today except for the starship tour later—something he’d been looking forward to with genuine excitement.

He reached for his Lucid on the nightstand and put it on. The flood of notifications that greeted him was... excessive. Even by the standards of someone running what was rapidly becoming the most talked-about company on the planet.

Liam blinked at the screen, his brain still fuzzy with sleep. Since the company’s official account is linked to his, he can see the interactions with posts.

Whenever he puts on his Lucid, he always see 99+ on the LucidNet app, and whenever he opens the apps, the notifications are in the millions to tens of millions at least.

But today is worst, as the reaction is close to a hundred million. The numbers were climbing so fast they were practically blurring.

He opened LucidNet, and the first thing he saw was that Lucy’s announcement post had accumulated over 47 million likes, 23 million shares, and the comment count had exceeded 8.9 million—and it was still growing exponentially.

"Jesus," he muttered, scrolling through the absolute chaos that had erupted in the twelve hours since the announcement dropped.

The world wasn’t just talking about Lucid Air. The world was on fire about Lucid Air.

News outlets had published hundreds of articles overnight. Financial networks were running emergency segments. Tech analysts were publishing think pieces with titles like "The End of Telecommunications As We Know It" and "How Nova Technologies Just Killed a Trillion-Dollar Industry Overnight."

Social media was experiencing what could only be described as a collective meltdown, with everyone from tech enthusiasts to government officials to random people on the street weighing in with reactions that ranged from ecstatic celebration to existential dread.

Liam sat up in bed, fully awake now, as he scrolled through post after post. The reactions were intense, far more visceral than he’d anticipated and endless.

He’d expected people to be excited. Maybe a bit shocked. But this? This was something else entirely.

People weren’t just excited. They were terrified. Not of the technology itself, but of what it represented. The sheer impossibility of it. The way it casually violated everything they understood about physics, infrastructure, and the limitations of technology.

To Liam, Lucid Air is just another piece of technology. But to the rest of humanity—to people who still thought fiber optic cables and cell towers were cutting-edge infrastructure—Lucid Air might as well have been magic.

As if internet speed of 1TBps isn’t enough, the network signal won’t degrade no matter the distance and the device doesn’t need power or any source of electricity. Thinking about it now, Liam understood that he had basically rewritten modern day Physics.

Liam found himself reading through one particularly detailed thread by Dr. Sarah Chen.

Her breakdown of why Lucid Air was "scientifically impossible" was thorough, mathematically rigorous, and completely correct, based on current human understanding of physics.

The thread had 3.2 million likes and 847,000 shares. The top comment, with 1.1 million likes of its own, simply said: "So what you’re saying is... Nova Tech is actually from the future? Because that’s the only explanation that makes sense anymore."

Liam couldn’t help but smile at that. If only they knew how close to the truth they actually were—and yet still how far off.

He continued scrolling, finding reactions from all corners of the internet:

Tech CEOs were posting carefully worded statements that barely masked their panic. Telecom executives were maintaining radio silence, which was probably wise given that their companies’ stock prices had already begun cratering in pre-market trading. Government officials were calling for investigations, regulations, and "thorough safety reviews."

Scientists were having public breakdowns trying to explain how any of this was possible.

Ordinary people were either celebrating the death of their overpriced ISPs or worrying about what came next.

And through it all, one consistent thread: How? How is this possible? What is Nova Technologies not telling us?

Liam chuckled to himself. If he tried to actually have Lucy explain the science behind Lucid Air, he’d either be committed to a psychiatric facility or trigger a global crisis as every government on Earth simultaneously realized that the fundamental nature of reality was not what they thought it was.

Better to let them think it was just really, really advanced technology.

He was about to set his Lucid down and finally get out of bed when another post caught his attention. This one had significant traction—2.8 million likes—and it raised a point that made Liam pause:

"Okay, real talk. I’m HYPED for Lucid Air. The idea of 1 TBps internet that works anywhere on Earth for $20/month? That’s incredible. That’s world-changing. That’s going to help millions of people in developing nations get access to information and opportunities they never had before.

But I have to ask: what about crime?

Right now, governments can track and stop a lot of illegal activity because internet infrastructure has chokepoints. ISPs can be subpoenaed. IP addresses can be traced. Data has to flow through monitored channels. It’s not perfect, and yeah, there’s too much surveillance of ordinary people, but it does help stop things like child exploitation rings, terrorism planning, massive fraud operations, etc.

With Lucid Air, if it really works as advertised—globally accessible, no infrastructure, apparently impossible to intercept or monitor—how do we stop it from becoming a superhighway for every criminal enterprise on the planet?

I’m not saying don’t release it. I’m saying: does Nova Technologies have a plan for this? Because 1 TBps anonymous internet that works anywhere on Earth is also 1 TBps anonymous internet for human traffickers, terrorists, and organized crime.

I want this technology to exist. But I also want to know that someone thought about the consequences."

The post had spawned a massive debate in the comments, with people arguing passionately on all sides. Some insisted that freedom was worth the risk. Others worried about enabling horrific crimes. Many simply wanted Nova Technologies to address the concern publicly.

It was, Liam had to admit, a genuinely thoughtful question. And while he’s sure that Lucy already has it covered, he’s curious to know how she did it.

"Lucy, have you seen this post?" He asked.

"Yes, master," Lucy answered.

"There’s no need for the world to worry about the device helping criminals. While technology will most definitely be abused, I have already taken precautions to prevent anything serious. It’s also started in the device’s terms and conditions which will be posted today," she explained.

Liam nodded slowly. He didn’t need to go into the specifics, as he trusts Lucy.

"All right. I trust you’ve got it covered. Speaking of which—how’s the starship coming along?"

"It’s ready, master. I’m sure you will be impressed with the work I’ve done."

"I have no doubt," Liam said with a genuine smile. "I’ll be there soon."

He finally dragged himself out of bed and headed to the bathroom to freshen up, his mind still processing the sheer scale of the reaction to Lucid Air.

As he showered and got dressed, he found himself looking forward to seeing how much more intense things would get when the devices actually shipped next month.

The announcement alone had caused this much chaos. What would happen when people actually *lused them?

The thought made him grin.

***

Whitlock had been awake since 4:37 AM, and it wasn’t by choice.

The first call had come at 4:37 exactly, and it was from the CEO of AT&T, his voice tight with barely controlled panic, demanding to know if Whitlock had any "insight" into Nova Technologies’ plans.

The second call came at 4:52, from a Verizone board member, asking the same thing with a different flavor of desperation. By 5:30 AM, Whitlock had simply stopped counting.

His phone hadn’t stopped ringing. Not for a single minute.

He sat now in his home office, staring at the device as it vibrated yet again on his mahogany desk, the name "Camcast - Roberto" flashing on the screen.

Whitlock let it go to voicemail. It was the third call from Roberto in two hours.

The Lucid Air announcement had detonated in the telecommunications industry like a nuclear bomb, and the fallout was still spreading.

Pre-market trading had opened disastrously. The telecommunication companies were down 20% in average. And those were just the American companies. Internationally, it was even worse, as the average is 30%.

In total, telecommunications companies worldwide had lost approximately $73 billion in market value in pre-market trading alone.

And that was just the beginning.

Financial analysts were predicting that by the end of actual trading hours, the losses could exceed $200 billion. Maybe more. Some were calling it the single largest one-day industry collapse in market history.

And every single telecom executive, board member, and major investor on the planet seemed to think that Whitlock—because of his "special relationship" with Nova Technologies, as the CEO of JP Morgan—had answers.

He didn’t.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He had some answers. He knew more about Nova Technologies and Liam than probably anyone else his group of friends. But what he knew didn’t help these people. If anything, it would terrify them even more.

His phone buzzed again. This time it was a text message from a number he recognized immediately: the private line of a sitting U.S. Senator.

"Whitlock, I need to speak with you today. This is urgent. The Senate Commerce Committee is convening an emergency session on Nova Technologies. We need your testimony and we need an introduction to the company. Name your price."

Whitlock sighed heavily and set the phone face-down on his desk.

Name his price? These people still didn’t understand. Liam wasn’t the kind of person you bought access to. He wasn’t interested in political connections or financial leverage. He was... something else. Something Whitlock was still trying to fully comprehend.

"They’re curious," Whitlock muttered to himself, thinking about all these powerful people desperately trying to understand what was happening to their world. "But can they handle the truth?"

What would they do if they found out what sort of monster Liam actually was? A monster in terms of sheer capability. A monster in terms of the gap between what he could do and what they thought was possible.

What would these CEOs and politicians and industry leaders do when they finally understood how small they actually were?

How little their influence mattered in the face of someone who could casually rewrite the rules of physics as an afternoon project?

Whitlock didn’t know. But he suspected he’d find out soon enough.

His phone buzzed with another text. Then another. Then three more in rapid succession.

It was going to be a very, very long day.