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Ryan was on the phone before the SUV cleared the town limits.
"Dad, the prosthetics team is on board. They'll pivot to neural-controlled prosthetics. I handle the neural interface technology, they handle everything else: limb design, drive systems, power, structural engineering. Their lab needs to be set up in the town near my facility."
Tom took it all in stride. He'd been waiting for the call.
"Got it. I'll reach out to Mason Reed today and start negotiating terms. But if we're doing this properly, we need to register a company. You have a name in mind?"
Ryan thought about it. Half the tech startups in the country were called Something-Star or Star-Something. The other half were abstract Greek words with "Labs" bolted on.
"Prism Sciences."
"Prism Sciences," Tom repeated. "I like it. Sharp. Clean."
"For the logo, call Chloe. She's a better designer than anyone we'd hire, and she'll know what I'm going for without me having to explain it."
"Will do. Anything else?"
"That's it for now. Handle the business side. I'll handle the tech."
Ryan hung up and watched the coastline slide past the window. Two security personnel in the front seats, one driving, one riding shotgun. He'd gotten used to the escort detail without noticing when it started.
Back at the facility, he went straight to Patricia's office.
"I need to discuss something," he said, sitting down on the couch. "I want to take the neural link technology from Scrapper, strip it down, and commercialize a limited version for prosthetic limbs."
Patricia set down her pen. "Commercialize. Neural link technology."
"A downgraded version. The full neural link reads motor signals across the entire body with perfect fidelity. The prosthetics version would only decode the specific motor neuron pathways relevant to limb movement. Limited scope, limited capability, no overlap with the classified applications."
He handed her a specification document he'd prepared. "These are the performance parameters for the downgraded system. Signal acquisition limited to motor cortex outputs for upper or lower extremity function. No cognitive signal access. No memory pathway interaction. No drift capability. It's a one-way, single-purpose neural decoder."
Patricia read through the document carefully. "And the security implications?"
"The downgraded system shares basic principles with the full neural link, but the architecture is fundamentally different. The commercial version uses a simplified sensor array that can't be reverse-engineered back to the military-grade system. It would be like trying to build a jet engine from a lawn mower motor. Same thermodynamic principles, completely different machines."
Patricia nodded slowly. "I'll send this up. What's the business case?"
"First mover advantage. Every major research institution in the world is working on brain-controlled prosthetics. They're all years away from a viable product. If we launch a working neural prosthetic before any of them reach market, we establish the standard. Every competitor who comes after us has to either license our approach or compete against an installed base."
"And the strategic benefit to Aegis?"
"If the commercial version demonstrates that neural interface technology is safe, reliable, and transformable into consumer products, it builds public and institutional confidence in the broader technology platform. That makes future funding requests for classified applications easier to justify."
Patricia put the document in her secure folder. "I'll have an answer within forty-eight hours."
-----
The answer came in two days: approved.
Aegis had two conditions. First, the finished product would be submitted for a security review before market release. Second, they recommended that Tom's new company acquire an existing shell corporation with at least one year of operating history. This would fast-track the application for advanced technology enterprise certification, which carried significant tax advantages.
Ryan passed both conditions to his father without objection. Tom started looking for suitable acquisition targets.
The search didn't take long. Through his network of industry contacts, Tom found a candidate almost immediately.
Marlin Technologies.
-----
The former offices of Marlin Technologies occupied a commercial suite in a business park that had once felt prestigious and now felt like a mausoleum.
The owner stood in the empty reception area and looked at what was left. Which was nothing. The mahogany desk was gone, sold for a fraction of its value. The wine cabinet was gone. The designer chairs, the conference table, the artwork, the branded signage in the lobby. All sold. All gone. The proceeds hadn't covered half the outstanding debts.
Six months ago, this space had been full of energy. Employees at every desk. Investors in the conference room. A social media team running campaigns. Revenue projections on the whiteboard.
Then a fourteen-year-old had proven that his robot was real, and the internet had turned on Marlin Technologies with the concentrated fury of a mob that had been lied to. The blog post accusing Ryan Mercer of fraud became the most infamous corporate misstep of the year. The social media accounts had been deleted. The PR manager had been fired. Partnerships had evaporated. Clients had walked.
The owner had tried to pivot. Tried to rebrand. Tried to find new investors. Nobody would touch him. The Marlin name was poison. You couldn't Google it without finding memes.
He'd laid off the last employee three weeks ago. The rent was four months overdue. He was carrying the company's branded wooden sign under his arm, trying to calculate whether the wood was worth enough to cover the back rent if he stripped off the lettering.
His phone rang.
"I've got a buyer for your company. Shell purchase. They want an entity with at least a year of operating history and a clean registration. Yours has four years on the books."
"How much?"
"Fifty thousand. You absorb any existing debts. But given your current situation, fifty thousand cash is better than what you're looking at otherwise."
The owner took a breath. Fifty thousand dollars for a company he'd built from nothing and watched collapse in a matter of weeks. For the brand he'd spent years establishing. For the name that now meant "the company that called a genius a fraud and got destroyed for it."
"I'll take it," he said.
He hung up, tucked the wooden sign more firmly under his arm, and walked out.
He didn't ask who the buyer was.
He didn't want to know.
-----