The meeting between Eddie and Preet happened on a Tuesday morning in a small conference room Aditya had rented for the day in a shared office building in Midtown.
Neutral ground. Professional setting. Nothing that connected to either of them directly.
Aditya arrived first, as he always did. Set up the room — two chairs across a small table, water, nothing else. He didn't want it to feel comfortable enough to encourage unnecessary conversation. Just functional enough to get work done.
Preet arrived next. She came in with a leather folder, sat down and looked at the empty chair across from her.
"So who is this person I'm meeting?", she asked.
"Someone with direct experience of the compound", Aditya said.
She looked at him.
"Direct experience meaning they took it", she said.
"Yes."
A brief pause.
"How many times?", she asked.
"Enough to have useful data", he said.
She opened her folder without further comment. Preet was good at accepting the boundaries of what she was being told. It was one of the reasons he had hired her.
Eddie arrived seven minutes late.
He looked considerably better than the apartment visit — clean, present, the NZT doing what it did. He walked in, clocked Preet immediately and sat down with the easy alertness of someone operating at full capacity.
Preet looked at him the way she looked at everything — carefully, without revealing what she was thinking.
"You're the subject", she said.
"I prefer participant", Eddie said.
The corner of Preet's mouth moved very slightly.
"Fair enough", she said.
Aditya sat back and let them find their rhythm.
It took about ten minutes. Eddie's experience with the compound was first hand and detailed — he could describe the effects with a precision that no clinical study could have generated. Preet asked questions in the focused methodical way of someone who knew exactly what information she needed and how to get it efficiently.
By the end of the first hour they were deep in a technical conversation that Aditya could follow on NZT but would have struggled to keep pace with on his natural baseline.
He didn't need to contribute. He just needed to make sure it was happening.
He watched them work and felt the quiet satisfaction of pieces fitting together correctly.
'Good', he thought. 'This is going to work.'
Patricia called at noon.
"We've hit the threshold", she said without preamble. "Your combined holdings across the three accounts have crossed five percent of Eiben's outstanding shares. SEC disclosure required within ten days."
"Which means the quiet phase is over", Aditya said.
"Correct", she said. "Once we file the disclosure Eiben's board will know someone is accumulating their stock. They'll want to know who and why."
"What do you recommend?", he asked.
"Move quickly", she said. "File the disclosure and simultaneously make a formal acquisition offer to the principal shareholders before they have time to organise a defence. The offer needs to be attractive enough that the path of least resistance is saying yes."
"What number are we talking?", he asked.
She gave him a figure.
He looked at his bank balance.
The number was within reach — just. He would need to leverage some of the trading capital and structure the remainder as a financing arrangement through Daniel. Tight but manageable.
"Do it", he said.
"I'll have the paperwork ready by Thursday", she said. "And I'll reach out to Carl Van Loon's office separately. He's the easiest domino. If he moves the others will follow."
"Good", Aditya said. "Let me know when Van Loon responds."
Van Loon responded within twenty four hours.
Not personally — through his office, which was exactly what Aditya had expected. A brief and businesslike response. Van Loon's stake in Eiben was minor and the offer was above market value. His focus was elsewhere — the larger merger that occupied most of his attention at this point in the film's timeline was far more significant than a small pharmaceutical company that had never performed particularly impressively.
His people confirmed he would sell.
Aditya read Patricia's message twice and set his phone down.
'First domino', he thought.
Patricia had been right. Van Loon's agreement to sell changed the atmosphere around the acquisition immediately. Two of the minor institutional investors followed within forty eight hours — the offer was clean, the price was fair and none of them had strong reasons to resist.
That left the two principal shareholders.
They were more resistant — as expected. Their company, their creation, their reluctance was understandable. But Patricia had structured the offer carefully and the financing was solid and the alternative was a protracted and expensive defence of a company that had never quite fulfilled its early promise.
By the end of the week both had agreed to enter formal negotiations.
Aditya noted it in his notebook without ceremony.
Eiben — formal acquisition process begun. Van Loon out. Institutional investors out. Principal shareholders in negotiation. Patricia managing. Timeline — two to three weeks to completion.
Two to three weeks.
He had what he needed to finish what he had come here to do.
The Krav Maga sessions with Oren had continued three times a week without interruption.
The difference from the first session was measurable now — not just in technique but in instinct. The movements that had required conscious thought in week one were becoming automatic in week three. Oren had moved him from foundational to intermediate work — combinations, ground defence, multiple attacker scenarios.
"You're unusual", Oren said after one session, handing him a towel.
"How so?", Aditya asked.
"Most people learn the technique and forget the principle", Oren said. "You learn the principle and the technique follows. It's backwards from how most people work."
Aditya thought about that.
'NZT changes how you learn', he thought. 'Not just how fast.'
He booked the next three sessions before leaving.
The gym work with Marcus had continued alongside the Krav Maga. His body was responding — not dramatically, not in the way of movie montages, but in the steady incremental way of genuine physical development. He was running seven kilometres now without stopping. His lifting numbers had climbed consistently. The excess weight was coming off slowly but visibly.
He was beginning to look like someone who trained regularly. Which was exactly what he was.
The trading had crossed ten million on a Wednesday afternoon.
He was at his desk working through Preet's latest research notes when Daniel texted him the figure.
He read it once.
Put his phone down.
Picked up his chai.
Took a sip.
'Ten million', he thought.
He had started this world with ten thousand dollars of stolen cash and a pouch of stolen tablets.
Ten weeks later — ten million dollars, a registered company, a trust structure, a team of three, a pharmaceutical acquisition in progress, a relationship with the main character of the story and a skill set that bore almost no resemblance to the person who had arrived.
He allowed himself exactly thirty seconds of quiet satisfaction.
Then he opened Preet's notes and kept working.
Lindy came over that evening.
She had filed a piece that morning that her editor had called the best thing she had written since joining the publication. She arrived at his apartment with takeaway and the particular energy of someone who had done good work and was still feeling it.
They ate on the couch. She talked about the piece — what had worked, what she had almost cut, the quote from a source that had tied the whole thing together. He listened properly, asked real questions, was genuinely pleased for her.
At some point she put her container down and looked at him.
"Something's different with you lately", she said.
He looked at her.
"Different how?", he asked.
"More focused", she said. "Which I didn't think was possible because you were already the most focused person I'd ever met." She tilted her head slightly. "Something's happening with your work isn't it."
It wasn't quite a question.
"Things are moving", he said carefully. "The pharmaceutical side. It's at a critical stage."
She looked at him for a moment.
"Is it going well?", she asked.
"Yes", he said honestly.
She nodded and picked her container back up.
"Good", she said simply.
She didn't push further. That was Lindy — she knew when to ask and when to leave things where they were. It was one of the things he genuinely appreciated about her.
He looked at her for a moment.
She was good company. She had been good company from the beginning. And he was going to leave her world in a few weeks without being able to explain any of it.
He felt something about that — not guilt exactly. Something quieter. The mild discomfort of knowing that the ending of this chapter was already written and she had no idea.
He filed it away and finished his dinner.
That evening he checked his stats.
"Khushi."
"Yes, host."
"Show me my current stats."
[Host : Aditya]
[Species : Human]
[Gender : Male]
[Age : 22]
[Stats]
[Health : 9] (Normal person : 10)
[Energy : 0]
[Strength : 10] (Normal person : 10)
[Speed : 10] (Normal person : 10)
[Endurance : 10] (Normal person : 10)
[Intelligence : 14] (Normal person : 10)
[Attributes : 0]
[Skills : Driving (level 2), Swimming (level 2), Coding (level 4), Hacking (level 3), Krav Maga (level 2), Tamil (level 2), Telugu (level 2), Malayalam (level 2), Mandarin (level 2)]
[Equipment : Nil]
[Points : 2840]
He looked at the numbers quietly.
Speed had reached normal level. All three physical stats now at baseline. Skills across the board had levelled up — coding pushing to level four, hacking to three, Krav Maga to two, languages all consolidating at level two.
Health still at nine. Energy still at zero.
Those two remained.
He would deal with them when the NZT formula was perfected.
He wrote his end of day notes.
Bank — $10,247,380.
Eiben — acquisition process formal and moving. Two to three weeks to completion.
Eddie and Preet — working.
Early but promising. Krav Maga — level 2. Body consolidating.
Lindy — noticed I'm more focused. Didn't push. Good. NZT remaining in learning schedule — four tablets. Using carefully.
He paused and added one line.
Everything is converging. Stay sharp.
He closed the notebook and turned off the light.
Two to three weeks.
Then Eiben would be his.
Then the real work could begin