When Ludo saw the notification from Blue that a suspicious person had tried to enter his office, as well as seemed to be staking it out for a few hours beforehand, he was extremely concerned.
This was exactly what he was worried about, wasn't it?
But his worries quickly disappeared when he read the rest of Blue's report.
Instead of some professional gangster, thief, hitman or whatever — Blue found that it was just some ordinary Private investigator with some renown in the PI community, and that he had been hired by one of the more powerful executives, Rowan Mavik, to dig into Ludo's background.
Upon realising that it was just some harmless attempt at finding some more information, he completely relaxed, and even found it a little funny.
He thought that after the incident with Jerald Krane, the executives would hold back.
But he failed to consider that only those with dirty secrets were the most deterred by such actions. For those who genuinely had nothing to hide, they were still worry free.
Like Rowan Mavik (the CEO of ChatCGT, the current leader in the AI market).
Ludo was surprised when Blue turned up with nothing dirty on the guy, which meant that he had enough power to even wipe the internet clean of his secrets, or he just genuinely had nothing to hide.
He felt the latter was more likely to be true, as everything he did find on the man build a clear image of him — a pure businessman through and through.
The man cared nothing more than working on his own business and pushing the development of AI technology further and further. He didn't derive any pleasure from committing disgusting and illegal acts like many other of his compatriots did when they felt like they'd tasted all that money and making money had to offer — which set him apart.
Ludo could understand why he was the only one bold enough to still go after Ludo's information even after the stark warning.
He didn't care to learn anything he could use for leverage or blackmail, all he cared about was that he was the one who got his hands on the technology in the end.
Which also seemed to reflect in the offers that had been made in the bidding war.
"$500,000,000… That's almost 100 million more than the runner up offered."
Yes, Rowan was the highest bidder by a long shot, with a staggering offer of half a billion dollars. The runner up was still impressive, and unsurprisingly Rowan's biggest competitor in the market.
Even Ludo, despite coming into contact with alien technology and knowing about whole advanced civilisations out there, felt a little overwhelmed at this figure. He was still a human living on Earth, it was the dream of every man and woman on the planet to be rich, and he was no different.
It's just that while seeing this amount of money would be other people's end goal, it was just the starting line for Ludo.
However, despite all that, Ludo didn't immediately accept the offer.
30 minutes still remained until the 24 hour deadline he'd imposed, but that was just a minor reason why he hesitated.
All of the executives were desperate to get their hands on Blue 1.0, but Rowan seemed the most desperate.
And while Ludo seemed to find his attempt at hiring a Private Investigator humorous, he wasn't the least bit pleased when that PI tried to break into his office.
Even though he'd failed, and didn't resort to any destructive methods, the simple fact that he'd tried angered Ludo.
Still unable to decide whether he should concede the technology to someone who potentially tried to steal it from him, he decided to just hear from the man himself.
He opened up his newly purchased laptop — he couldn't keep using the one his old company provided him after all; he needed to return that in a few days — and called Rowan.
He would have used his phone for the job, but he didn't have any of the right cables to connect it to Blue's server, so had to use his laptop.
The call had to be secure after all, and there was nothing more secure than a Super AI monitoring it.
It rang for a few dozen seconds before it was picked up. Rowan wasn't exactly expecting a call from Ludo, after all.
"Mr Rowan, I'm sure you already know who I am. I'm not one for formalities, so I'll just cut to the chase and tell you. You are the highest bidder for Blue 1.0."
Rowan's face ballooned with happiness when he heard that, though he didn't realise that Ludo also saw that reaction.
It was a voice call, but it was easier than breathing for Ludo to have Blue show Rowan's webcam.
Rowan composed himself.
"That's excellent. When should we make the exchange? In fact, do you have a contract draw—"
Ludo interrupted him.
"Let me stop you right there, Mr Rowan. While you might be the highest bidder, that doesn't mean you've won just yet."
Confusion and displeasure displayed itself openly on Rowan's face.
"What do you mean by this, Mr Ludo?"
It was clear that he was a man that wasn't used to hearing someone disagree with him, or mock him.
"What I mean is, why should I sell this technology to you? I'm sure Mike's already given his report to you, so let's cut the bullshit. Why should I sell my technology to a thief?"
This was Ludo's plan.
Rowan's reaction in the following moments would be the deciding factor of who won the bid.
Ludo outright accusing him of trying to steal the very technology he was selling to him was meant to get a reaction out of him.
Blue had concluded that Rowan was a businessman who played by the book, never resorting to methods outside of the law to get what he wanted. But seeing how desperate he was to get his hands on Blue 1.0 first, Ludo knew that he could have thrown that moral code out of the window.
"What!? A thief?? I'll have you know Mr Ludo that I've never resorted to such cheap methods in my life, and I'll stick to that in the future no matter how people try to spin it against me. I don't know where you get your information from Mr Ludo, and while I'm aware how eerily accurate it usually is, you are wrong this time."
Rowan's face was bright red at this point.
"Oh, is that the case?"
Ludo simply opened up a video file, which also appeared on Rowan's screen, and played it.
Mike was seen very clearly in the video trying to pick the locks on all of the doors leading into Ludo's office, to no avail.
The more Rowan watched, the more expletives left his mouth. It came to a point where so much profanities were being said that Ludo had to mute him until he calmed down.
"How do you explain this, then?"
Ludo spoke.
"I never ordered Mike to do such a thing. In fact, I ordered him NOT to do something as stupid as that. The fact he did so anyway… I'll make sure he won't be able to work another job as a private investigator again!"
Ludo smirked.
"I was already 90% sure he did this of his own volition, likely looking to obtain more information to ask a higher bargain, but I made this call to test that last 10%, Mr Rowan, and you've satisfied me."
Ludo paused to let him catch his breath and process that information.
"Congratulations, Mr Rowan. Your company is going to monopolise the market for the next 5-10 years."