The sun poured into the Ritz-Carlton suite like liquid gold, slicing across the mahogany desk where James sat. A letter lay unopened before him, bearing the insignia of his brokerage firm.
He sliced it open with a paper knife, unfolded the pages, and began reading.
Trade Confirmation – August 9, 1995
Sale of 35,714 shares @ $100 per share = $3.571 million
Loan repayment (margin): $800,000
Net proceeds: $2.771 million
Less original investment ($200,000)
: Profit: $2.571 million
James's eyes flicked lower.
Capital Gains Tax (20%): $514,200
After-Tax Profit: $2.0568 million
He leaned back, exhaling sharply through his nose.Over half a million, vaporized into the maw of the IRS.
"Five hundred fourteen thousand two hundred dollars," he muttered, tapping the paper against the desk. "That's... twenty Teslas, if they existed yet."
He scribbled imaginary numbers on the notepad: $514,200 = 1 private island? 2 small jets? 7 medium-sized yachts? Then, in mock-despair, he dropped the pen dramatically and leaned back, hand over his forehead.
"Robbery. Armed robbery — legalized!"
A knock at the door interrupted his mourning.
"Come in," he called.
The door opened, and his sister, Lillian Calloway, strode in, balancing a thick stack of papers against her hip and grinning like she'd won the lottery.
"Well," she said, tossing the stack onto the coffee table. "Stop crying over taxes, you big baby. I have good news."
James smiled thinly. "Please tell me the government collapsed overnight and canceled all income taxes."
"Close," she teased. "I got you the office you wanted."
That caught his full attention. He sat forward, elbows on knees. "Where?"
"Downtown. Wall Street. Small five-person suite on Liberty Street. The investment firm went under last year. The place has been sitting half-empty since. I signed a three-month lease, and if you like it, we can buy the whole floor cheap."
James whistled softly, studying the photo she handed him — a twelve-story art deco building, a little faded but sturdy.
"How soon can I move in?"
"They need two days to clean it up. Four days for furniture and appliances. I ordered basic desks, chairs, phones — no fancy stuff yet."
James chuckled. "Basic is fine. I'm not planning tea parties."
Lillian laughed, then slapped the thick stack on the table again. "These are the résumés from the headhunters. They pulled everyone available in the city who matches your description."
James arched an eyebrow. "That's a lot of paper."
"You said you wanted candidates fast," Lillian said. "Here they are. Executive assistants, accountants, researchers, and legal consultants. Pick whoever you want."
James leaned back, hands steepled, and his brain fired into high gear.
He flipped open the first résumé. Then the second. Then the third.
His fingers moved with mechanical precision — flip, glance, judge, discard.
Experience irrelevant. Skills too theoretical. Too much ego in the cover letter.
He wasn't even reading words at this point; he was scanning patterns — hunting for execution over ambition, pragmatism over philosophy.
Three minutes later, he had four résumés in his hand.
He held them out to Lillian.
She stared at him, incredulous. "That's it? Four?"
James smiled.
"Efficiency," he said simply.
Lillian shook her head and took the papers. "Okay, genius. Who are we calling?"
James stood and crossed to the minibar, pouring himself a glass of water.
"Emma Thomas for personal assistant. Jason Lee for legal consultant. Lily Zhang for research analyst. Max Carter for bookkeeping and accounting."
He turned back to her, glass in hand.
"Schedule them for interviews tomorrow morning. Back-to-back."
Lillian glanced down at the names.
"Mind telling me why these four?"
James smiled coolly.
"They have real-world experience. They know how to execute orders without overthinking. They're used to working in fast-paced, high-pressure environments. And most importantly —" he tapped the side of his head "— they don't need to advise me."
Lillian frowned. "You don't want advisors?"
"No," James said, voice hardening. "I am the advisor. I am the strategist. I just need hands. Swift, precise, and loyal."
She didn't argue. She simply nodded.
James finished his water and tossed the glass back onto the counter.
"Good. Once they're hired, we build the core of ChronoEdge Analytics, LLC."
Lillian scribbled notes furiously.
"Oh," she added, remembering. "I assume this company is just doing investment analytics, right? That's why you're building a Market Research department?"
James nodded slowly. "Partly."
"Then why—" she flipped through the budget sheet, frowning "—are you allocating the same budget to an Engineering Team as Market Research? What do you need more than two or three IT guys for? You planning to launch a video game on the side?"
James burst out laughing, shaking his head. "No, Lily. My Engineering Team won't be fixing printers. They'll be the heartbeat of ChronoEdge."
Lillian raised an eyebrow. "Really? How so?"
He leaned in, voice low. "Because they're not tech support. They're machine builders. Code architects. They'll be building the tools that let us see what others can't. Anticipate. Predict. Exploit."
She paused, mouth slightly open, then nodded slowly. "Okay. You know better."
"I do," James said with a small smirk. "Trust me."
Lillian gathered the documents and left to begin executing the orders. As the door closed behind her, James stood and walked over to the large computer setup he had delivered to the suite earlier that day.
He sat down, fingers gliding over the keyboard, eyes sharp.
And then, he activated it.
His power.
Neural Coding Interface: Active.
James's consciousness linked with the machine, and the familiar tunnel vision of deep focus wrapped around him like an old friend.
Lines of code spilled onto the screen.
In his previous life, James wasn't a Wall Street shark. He wasn't a hedge fund genius, or a market analyst, or an economist.
He was a builder. A founder. A technologist.
And his first empire wasn't in finance — it was software.
His company, Hotesk, started small. In 2011, it was just a booking widget for independent hotels. By 2015, it powered over 40,000 properties across the U.S.
But speed and scale came with risk: fraud, spam, data overload. So in 2018, he partnered with a small machine learning startup from Toronto. Brilliant engineers. Barely known. But their contextual filtering, sentiment parsing, and adaptive recommendations were ahead of their time.
And James — a lifelong fan of AI — knew what he was seeing: the beginning of true machine intelligence.
He studied their models. Paid for white-labeled access. Signed NDAs. Learned it from the ground up.
By 2020, James was rewriting their algorithms personally. Injecting tagging logic, behavior detection layers, building neural nets that could read context, not just data.
The startup called him a "machine whisperer."
They had no idea.
Then came the end.
The accident. The reset. The second chance.
Now, it was 1995.
Hotesk didn't exist. Neither did the Toronto startup. The tools and algorithms he had helped refine weren't even conceived yet.
But he remembered.
Every input vector. Every kernel trick. Every dropout pattern. Every Sunday night hackjob tweak that made his system smarter than human users.
And this time, he wouldn't use it to recommend pillow softness.
He would use it to see the world. Predict the crashes. Catch the wind before the storm.
The machine learning engine that once asked: "What's your check-in date?" would soon answer:
"Buy gold. Sell ruble. Russia defaults in 90 days."
James's fingers danced across the keyboard, beginning the codebase for what would become the soul of ChronoEdge.
His first real employee.
Not a man.
A machine.