Friday morning. Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Jason stepped into the Sloan café, the air buzzing with chatter, laptops, and the scent of overpriced espresso. He scanned the room and spotted her immediately.
Amy Rodriguez looked exactly as he remembered—tight ponytail, wire-rimmed glasses, hoodie with MIT stitched in red, and a sharp gaze that missed nothing.
She looked up from her laptop. "You're late."
Jason smirked. "Traffic. And fate."
She didn't smile. "Sit."
He pulled out a chair and slid into it, laying a slim folder on the table. "Proof."
Amy glanced at it. "You better hope it's good. I skipped a quantum systems lecture for this."
She opened the folder and her eyes narrowed.
Inside: a printout of Amazon's projected quarterly earnings—three months before release. A spreadsheet forecasting the dot-com crash timeline down to the sector. And one page showing Bitcoin—not yet invented—with a description and mining roadmap.
"This is fake," she said flatly.
"It's not. You know it isn't."
She stared at him. "If you're right about even half of this… the market's about to go through hell."
Jason leaned in. "And we're going to be the devils walking through the fire in fireproof boots."
Amy studied him, lips pressed tight. She was calculating now—running numbers in her head, testing probabilities.
"What's your goal?"
"Empire," he said simply. "I want to own the future. I want to fund the ideas before they happen. Build the platforms before there's demand. And I want you to help me architect it."
She tapped the Bitcoin page. "This one's insane."
"It's real. Trust me. In a few years, it'll be worth billions. All code. No banks."
Amy leaned back. "You're either a time traveler or a savant with god-tier instincts."
Jason gave a half-smile. "Can't it be both?"
She closed the folder. "One condition."
"I'm listening."
"I get full control over the tech. No corporate BS. If I build it, I own how it works."
Jason nodded. "Deal."
She held out her hand. "Then let's build something that outlives both of us."
Their hands met.
In that moment, the first true alliance of The King Dynasty was born.