I'm The King of Business & Technology in the Modern World-Chapter 230: Shadows in Motion

December 6, 2025 — 9:45 AM

Sentinel Subic — Internal Audit Office

Carina Velasquez stood at the center of the secured audit room, arms folded, lips pressed into a thin line. On the wall screen in front of her, a timeline of system access logs glowed in shades of red and amber. One entry was circled.

12/05/2025 — 02:12 AM — Access Point 03 (Materials Archive)

Badge ID: Unknown

Duration: 8 minutes 19 seconds

Action: Data scan + attempted extraction (BLOCKED)

Angel sat nearby, leaning forward with her elbows on the table. Her expression was unreadable, but her eyes told the story: tight focus, zero patience.

"Still think it's a contractor leak?" Carina asked.

Angel shook her head. "No. This was surgical. They knew exactly where to go. The materials archive stores our ceramic blade specs and fuel injection diagrams."

"Yeah," Carina said flatly. "Which means the moment we dropped the teaser, someone started pulling strings."

Matthew entered the room with Julian and two security heads in tow.

"Confirmed," he said, tossing a folder on the table. "The access wasn't a brute force hack. It was a cloned ID badge. Someone printed a phantom pass off the internal network and used it physically."

"Inside job?" Carina asked.

Matthew nodded. "Or someone from the outside with help from someone inside."

Angel tapped the badge ID on the wall screen. "What are you thinking?"

Matthew's voice dropped an octave. "Corporate espionage. Someone's either trying to slow us down—or reverse-engineer us before we launch."

A heavy silence filled the room.

Then Carina exhaled through her nose. "So… what now?"

Angel stood.

"Now," she said, "we lock the doors. Double our guards. Sweep every badge, every terminal, every team. Anyone not cleared for Aerus gets pulled out of Subic within twenty-four hours."

Julian hesitated. "Won't that raise flags?"

Angel turned to him, calm and ice-cold.

"I want flags. I want people to know we noticed. I want them scared."

—

December 6, 2025 — 8:15 PM

Rockwell — Matthew and Angel's Apartment

Aurora was asleep early.

Angel stood by the window with a blanket around her shoulders, her phone glowing dimly in one hand. News alerts. Social feeds. Blog posts. Every outlet was now crawling with Aerus takes—praise, confusion, suspicion, mockery.

Matthew emerged from the kitchen with a mug of hot chocolate.

"You need rest," he said gently.

Angel didn't respond.

She was reading a message on an encrypted channel.

It was from one of her former classmates in Tokyo. A quiet nod from her years with the Japan-Philippines Infrastructure Working Group.

"One of the Zaibatsu think tanks sent feelers out to Mitsubishi's defense arm. They're compiling use-case comparisons on mobile turbines. Looks like they're eyeing regional platforms. Your name's being mentioned."

Angel lowered the phone. "They're escalating."

Matthew handed her the mug. "Of course they are. We walked onto the global stage without an invitation."

She sipped, then stared out the window.

"They won't just sabotage. They'll offer partnerships. Licensing deals. Backdoor buyouts disguised as contracts. You know what that means."

"That they're scared?"

"No," she said. "That they want to own us before we prove the model works at scale."

Matthew nodded slowly. "Then we can't wait for March. We move the internal road test forward."

Angel blinked. "You mean live-stream it?"

"Not a demo. A drive—through actual city traffic. One Aerus prototype. One camera crew. One operator."

"Too risky," Angel said. "Too many variables."

"That's why I'll drive it."

She stared at him. "You're not invincible."

"No," Matthew said quietly. "But the idea is."

—

December 9, 2025 — 6:30 AM

Sentinel Subic — Private Hangar D

The hangar was quiet, sealed from all exterior access. Only a dozen team members stood inside—engineers, comms crew, and two trusted drivers.

On the lift sat Aerus Prototype Unit 05, now finished in its road-ready composite shell. Matte silver paint. Low-profile tires. A polished, camera-ready cockpit.

Angel walked in with a hardcase containing encrypted drive relays.

Carina met her at the lift.

"We stripped out the telemetry uplink, rerouted the data into a closed loop. Nothing's going online that we don't approve."

Angel nodded. "Where's the route?"

Carina handed her a printed map. "Olongapo City loop. Fifteen kilometers. Mixed traffic. Early hours. Drone overhead, comm van shadowing. Controlled intersections."

Matthew arrived moments later, helmet in hand.

Angel handed him the route sheet.

"Stay within 80kph in the narrow sections," she said. "Avoid drawing heat."

He smiled. "I'll be invisible."

"No. Just undeniable."

They sealed the doors behind them.

—

December 9, 2025 — 7:02 AM

Olongapo City — Main Street

Fog still clung to the buildings as the Aerus glided out of the hangar and onto public road for the first time.

The city was just beginning to wake.

Jeepneys. Bicycles. Motorcycles weaving through traffic.

And then—her.

A car with no grille. No engine growl. No exhaust pipe.

Just motion.

Smooth. Clean. Whisper-quiet.

Matthew held the wheel steady as the Aerus slid around its first curve. The turbine purred beneath the hood, invisible to the world.

From the comm van, Angel watched the feed in real-time. Her knuckles were white.

"Drone overhead," Carina said. "Clear skies."

"Telemetry stable," Jonas added.

Onscreen, a tricycle pulled alongside the Aerus at a stoplight. The driver peeked inside, confused.

Matthew nodded politely.

The light turned green.

The Aerus took off.

Quietly.

And the tricycle stalled in its own awe.

—

December 9, 2025 — 9:00 AM

Back in Subic — Media Upload Room

Angel uploaded the edited cut of the drive straight to Sentinel's main channel.

No music. No voiceover.

Just the streets of the Philippines—and something gliding through them that wasn't supposed to exist yet.

By noon, it had two million views.

By evening, ten.

No captions.

Just three words, white text over black screen.

"She's already here."

By midnight, the world had seen it.

A car with no roar, no smoke, no compromise.

Not a concept.

Not a prototype.

A presence.

And across boardrooms from Tokyo to Detroit, conversations turned cold and quiet—because the future hadn't knocked politely.

It had already walked in.