Chapter 7: The Honey Pot

The panoramic view from Mark Sterling’s corner office was supposed to be a testament to his power. The city spread out below him, a concrete and glass kingdom, and he was its king. But for the past two weeks, the view had offered no comfort. It felt less like a kingdom and more like a cage of sterile wealth.

He slammed his tablet down on the polished mahogany desk, the sharp crack echoing in the cavernous, silent room. On the screen was the P&L statement for his automated resale operation. It was bleeding. Not from a single, gaping wound, but from dozens of small, inexplicable cuts. Profits were down thirty percent. Margins on his highest-turnover items—sneakers, watches, bulk electronics—had been slashed to ribbons.

“Run the analysis again,” he barked into his desk phone, not bothering with a greeting.

“Sir,” a tinny voice replied from the other end, “we’ve run it six times. There’s no systemic flaw. The bot is acquiring assets as programmed. It’s just… the final acquisition prices are consistently higher than the projections. It’s like we’re bidding against someone who knows our exact profit margin and is deliberately pushing us right to the edge of it on every single purchase.”

Mark’s jaw tightened, a muscle twitching in his cheek. He had felt it for days. A ghost in his machine. An invisible parasite siphoning the lifeblood from his operation. At first, he’d dismissed it as bad luck, a statistical anomaly. Then came the incident with the box of junk computer parts, a nearly thousand-dollar charge for scrap metal that had made him see red. His programmers had found no glitch, no error. The bot had simply assessed the item based on its keywords and bid to its programmed ceiling against two aggressive, independent bidders. It had performed its function perfectly.

Perfectly wrong.

Someone was out there, toying with him. It wasn't a rival corporation; their methods were crude and obvious. This was subtle, precise, and deeply personal. It felt like someone was inside his head, anticipating his every move, exploiting the very logic that had made him so much money. The arrogance of it was infuriating. The anonymity was maddening. He was KingMidas75, a ruler in his digital domain, and some nobody, some ghost, was making him a fool.

He ended the call, his reflection staring back at him from the darkened window. His perfectly tailored suit and confident smirk felt like a costume. Underneath, paranoia was taking root.

---

Miles away, in a cramped apartment that smelled faintly of leftover pizza and laundry detergent, the ghost was watching the king’s frantic movements through a sea of data.

Leo scrolled through the results of his two-week campaign, a cold, clinical satisfaction settling over him. The System’s interface overlaid his screen, displaying a running tally of the financial damage he had inflicted.

[Total Sabotage Value (14 Days): $12,450.75]

It was a staggering number to him, but he knew it was a pittance to Mark. It wasn't about bankrupting him with these small cuts. It was about conditioning him. It was about making him paranoid, forcing him to second-guess his own flawless system, to tighten his parameters and doubt his own code. Leo was creating the perfect environment of anxiety and frustration, preparing the battlefield for a single, decisive blow.

He had spent his accumulated System Points wisely. He’d upgraded his [Intuition] skill to level 2, allowing him to get a more accurate 'feel' for the bot's hidden bid ceilings. But most importantly, he had unlocked a new branch in his skill tree: [Psychological Warfare]. Its first skill was a passive one.

[Predator's Focus - Lvl 1]: Grants a chance to detect items of high personal or emotional value to a designated target, separate from their standard financial value.

He had been running a background scan for hours, letting the skill sift through the thousands of new listings on Aura Auctions, searching for something that would ping on Mark Sterling’s ego. He was about to give up for the night when a notification chimed in his vision, sharp and urgent.

[High-Value Emotional Target Detected!]

Leo sat bolt upright, his focus snapping to the highlighted auction. The title was bland: "Lot of old corporate files and documents, Silicon Valley, early 2010s." The opening bid was a paltry $50. The photo showed a drab banker's box. It was the kind of listing ninety-nine percent of users would scroll past without a second glance.

He clicked on it, his heart starting a low, heavy drumbeat. He read the description, and a single word made all the air leave his body in a rush.

Archangel.

It was like a key turning a lock on a room in his mind he had sealed shut years ago. The late nights fueled by coffee and ambition. The thrill of creating something truly revolutionary. The clean, elegant lines of his code. Archangel. His project. The soul of his career, which Mark had ripped out and claimed as his own.

His hands began to shake. This couldn't be a coincidence. He activated [Advanced Data Forensics], his stamina bar dipping as he focused the skill on the seller. The trace was quick. The seller was a liquidation company that had just cleared out a storage unit belonging to their old, now-defunct tech firm. It was legitimate. This was the real thing.

The documents were legally worthless, little more than historical curiosities. But Leo understood Mark Sterling better than anyone. Mark wasn't just a thief; he was a revisionist historian. He needed to be the hero of his own story. Owning the original patent drafts, the tangible proof of his genius, wasn't just a desire—it was a psychological necessity. It was the ultimate trophy, the final act of erasing Leo Vance from history.

The System confirmed his chilling thoughts with a cold, blue notification.

[Motivational Analysis: Target’s profile indicates extreme narcissistic and possessive traits. Acquiring this item aligns with psychological need for validation and dominance over past rivals.] [Conclusion: Target will perceive this item as priceless. Standard bid ceilings will not apply. Manual override is 99% probable.]

Mark would see this auction. And once he did, he would stop at nothing to win it. He wouldn't trust his bot for something this important. He would take the wheel himself, driven by his bottomless ego.

A slow, predatory smile touched Leo's lips. The shaking in his hands stopped, replaced by an absolute, icy calm. He had spent weeks acting as a ghost, a nuisance, a parasite. Now, it was time to become a hunter.

This box of old paper was the perfect bait. The honey pot.

He looked at his System Points, his skills, the array of digital weapons he had so carefully cultivated. The Scorpion's Sting had been a clever trick. The war of attrition had been a smart strategy. But this… this would be his masterpiece. He wasn't going to make Mark overpay by a few hundred dollars. He wasn't going to erase his profits.

He was going to make him pay a price that would shatter his entire operation. A price paid in ego, in paranoia, and in a truly catastrophic amount of cash.

The auction had six days left.

The king was coming for his crown jewel. And Leo would be waiting with the bill.