"Thank you," Vivian murmured, casting a remarkably shy smile in his direction.
Nick locked his eyes onto hers, maintaining a completely flat, deadpan expression. "Thank me for what exactly? Did I ever state that this asset was a gift for you?"
"Oh, please. If it's not for me, then who? Some hidden girlfriend? Let's be real—with your stone-cold, engineering-brained personality, it would literally take a theological miracle for you to lock down a girlfriend," Vivian shot back, running a highly critical, annoyed sweep over his suit.
Nick shook his head, momentarily rendered speechless by her pushback. "Hey, do not misinterpret the strategic alignment here. I simply ran the numbers on the lot, realized the asset was high-grade, and determined the price point was highly optimized for my budget. Besides, every single executive processed with a purple VIP pass is legally mandated to drop capital on a lot tonight to demonstrate their institutional sincerity to the chamber. I just calculated that this specific piece was a clean fit for my ledger."
"So it's genuinely not a gift for me?" Vivian pressed, her playful demeanor completely evaporating as her face shifted into an intensely serious stare.
Nick let a faint, evasive smile touch his lips. "What does your telemetry tell you?"
"Whatever. If you're going to be that cheap about it, keep it. It's not like my family trust can't source jade," Vivian muttered, sharply snapping her head away to break line-of-sight.
Watching her sudden pivot, Nick let out a quiet, amused chuckle. "Come on, why are you throwing a temper tantrum like a toddler over a basic joke?"
"Stay out of my operational parameters!" Vivian hissed, glaring back at him over her shoulder with a sharp sniffle. Her large, expressive eyes were suddenly glistening, looking as if they were actively about to overflow with tears.
Nick froze, his internal processors hitting a critical error. No way, right? I was literally just running a standard sarcasm script. Is her emotional volatility actually redlining this hard over a joke? Relenting to the pressure, he leaned slightly closer into her perimeter. "Alright, look, I was just messing with you to test your guard. Drop the defensive protocol."
"Are you serious right now?" Vivian asked, her head whipping back around as she stared down his expression.
Nick gave a definitive nod. "The asset is officially yours."
"Hehe, awesome! Thank you!" Vivian's face instantly cleared of all distress, replacing the tears with a highly victorious, incredibly smug smile.
Nick just stared at her, utterly defeated. You absolute psycho-operator, he muttered internally. Left completely speechless by her tier-one acting skills, Nick could only face forward again and refocus his attention on the active auction block.
"Moving on to our next lot," the auctioneer announced, tapping the podium to reset the room's focus. "This premium asset comes directly from the desk of CEO Nick of Militech Technology. Now, while Nick's executive profile might still be relatively fresh to a few of our legacy industrial sectors, I am highly confident that every single enterprise in this room is already intimately familiar with the hyper-growth smart voice assistant his developers have deployed across the market. And tonight, the lot Nick has contributed to our fundraising target is exceptionally unique, primarily because the asset possesses zero physical form."
The auctioneer executed a calculated, professional pause, allowing the semantic weight of the pitch to settle over the audience.
"Wait, what did you actually submit?" Vivian asked, completely overriding their previous friction as she nudged his elbow, her face radiating pure curiosity.
"Run the analytics when the screen flashes," Nick chuckled softly.
"Fine, keep your technical secrets," Vivian pouted, shifting her posture to stare intently at the center stage, completely ignoring him again.
"Ladies and gentlemen, if you'll direct your attention to our primary high-definition displays," the auctioneer boomed, gesturing toward the digital screens. "The asset CEO Nick has authorized for bidding is a fully customized, top-tier digital service contract. As you may recall from our Q3 market reports, Militech Technology successfully deployed a celebrity voice crowdfunding initiative. Any public figure or influencer whose crowdsourced funding capital cleared the ten-million-dollar threshold was awarded an exclusive, proprietary voice profile developed directly inside Militech's AI synthesis labs.
Tonight, CEO Nick is putting that exact enterprise-grade voice customization contract directly onto the block. Whichever venture capital partner or executive secures this lot will walk away with an exclusive, highly personalized digital voice package synthesized personally under Nick's oversight.
Furthermore, once your customized voice package is finalized, Militech will officially host your profile inside our smart assistant's virtual marketplace for paid consumer downloads—and you, as the asset owner, will permanently retain a direct royalty percentage of the gross download revenue."
Whoosh!
The moment the auctioneer closed the pitch, a massive wave of intense chatter swept across the lower rows. Executives and venture capitalists immediately leaned across their tables, furiously debating the raw commercial utility of a personalized, high-yield digital voice asset.
"What a dangerously brilliant little operator," Hanmaru murmured from his seat adjacent to his daughter, a look of profound paternal and professional concern crossing his face as he analyzed Nick's move.
In stark contrast, Frank, sitting right next to the fund manager, let a wide, intensely interested smile take over his face. "Now that is a phenomenal piece of corporate theater."
"You are a straight-up pirate. A total, unadulterated white-collar pirate," Vivian whispered fiercely next to his ear, her voice dripping with mock accusation.
Nick caught the feedback and let out a relaxed laugh. "Hey, watch the terminology. I am demonstrating peak institutional sincerity here. Have you scanned a single other asset in tonight's catalog that matches the raw commercial valuation of my lot?"
"Hmph!" Vivian threw him a highly disdainful, unimpressed look, crossing her arms. "The ultimate market valuation of a piece of software isn't exactly yours to dictate, is it? Besides, how much capital can an intangible asset truly be worth on a paper ledger?
Furthermore, you are blatantly weaponizing a charity stage to run a prime-time commercial advertisement for your software ecosystem. How is this strategy any different from that old-school telecom executive who 'donated' a premium corporate phone number to the gala five years ago?"
"Nonsense. My asset possesses infinitely higher technical complexity and market leverage than a legacy phone string."
"Please—same hustle, different fiscal decade!"
"Alright, ladies and gentlemen," the auctioneer called out, cutting through the background noise. "We are opening the floor for this exclusive, personalized digital voice asset at a baseline opening bid of 300,000 dollars, with bidding increments locked at 10,000 dollars. Premium paddles in the air, please."
"300,000! 310,000! We have 350,000 in the center... now 400,000!"
"Paddle number 37 holds the floor at 400,000. Do I hear... 410,000! 420,000! 450,000! We are at 500,000 dollars!"
The exact second the track opened, a massive percentage of the audience looked as if they had just been hit with a high-voltage stimulant, aggressively hoisted their paddles to battle for the contract.
Taking in the chaotic bidding frenzy, Vivian leaned over to mock the room. "Why are these legacy executives acting so completely brain-dead? They clearly recognize that this entire asset is a beautifully wrapped liquidity trap you engineered, yet they are literally tripping over each other to dive face-first into it."
Nick shook his head, his eyes tracking the paddle velocity. "Those operators aren't brain-dead at all, Vivian. On the contrary, their macroeconomic instincts are incredibly sharp."
"Care to break down the thesis?"
Nick flashed a subtle, knowing smile. "Every single individual occupying these front rows is a seasoned veteran in the private equity and real estate sectors. Do you honestly believe their analysts wouldn't read right through the PR layer?
The fundamental reason they are scrambling to secure the lot is because they accurately calculate the extreme scarcity value of my contribution.
Don't mount a counter-argument just yet; let me drop a cold operational reality on you: our engineering roadmaps physically cannot support opening up customized voice synthesis contracts to the general commercial public. The infrastructure demands are too intense. And these executives completely realize that limitation.
Because the asset is mathematically scarce, the baseline valuation of this specific custom package is going to skyrocket the second it clears the block. Setting aside the long-term royalty revenue, if an executive in this room properly weaponizes this contract for a corporate rebrand, or simply flips the rights to a major Hollywood agency or a tier-one pop star who needs the synthesis tech, the net arbitrage profit will be exponentially higher than whatever number the gavel hits tonight."
Processing Nick's structural breakdown, Vivian's expression slowly shifted into a quiet, deeply analytical look. After running the math through her head for a long moment, she finally snapped back and rolled her eyes at him. "Fine, the logic holds—but no matter how you slice the revenue splits, your firm is still the entity extracting the maximum amount of structural leverage at the end of the day."
Nick shrugged his shoulders, completely unbothered. "Of course we are. That's the baseline privilege of owning the underlying intellectual property."
"God, you have the absolute face of a tech monopoly billionaire," Vivian muttered, shaking her head.
"Heh, look, one party is entirely willing to deploy the capital, and the other party is entirely willing to execute the contract. It's a clean, mutually consensual transaction between sophisticated market actors; there's zero coercion or fraudulent misrepresentation occurring on this floor, so how exactly am I a pirate?" Nick laughed. He subtly shifted his posture closer into her perimeter, a playful glint in his eye. "Tell you what... why don't you talk to your fund reps and put a bid on the board yourself?"
"Go straight to hell!" This time around, Vivian benched the verbal warnings, reaching out to directly pinch a highly sensitive section of muscle right at Nick's waistline—twisting her fingers with enough force to make the tech CEO instantly wince in genuine pain.
"Jesus—my lady hero, call off the tactical strike!"
"Negative! Tonight, I am officially executing an antitrust enforcement action for the good of the consumers!"
"We have 1,800,000! The gentleman holding paddle number 7 is commanding the floor at one million eight hundred thousand dollars! Do I hear a counter from the front rows?"
"Two million!" Frank, anchoring his position next to Hanmaru, hoisted his premium paddle high and bellowed his bid directly across the acoustic space of the ballroom.
"Two million dollars! Chairman Frank of the Fairtree Development Group enters the arena at an even two million!"
"Two million, going once... two million, going twi—"
"Two million and ten thousand! The gentleman holding paddle number 7 answers immediately at two million ten!"
Frank shot a quick glance over at the middle-aged real estate executive clutching paddle number 7, a highly competitive smile flaring on his face as he thrust his own placard back into the air without missing a beat. "Two million one hundred thousand!"
Across the aisle, the executive holding paddle number 7 didn't display a single shred of tactical panic under the aggressive re-raise. Instead, he slowly, fluidly lifted his paddle back up to match the pace.
"Frank just escalated the bid again. Those two titans are genuinely transforming this track into a bloodbath," Nick observed, tracking the body language of the two whales.
"Isn't that the optimal outcome for your ledger? It mathematically means your charity contribution is generating a massive capital return," Vivian noted, looking confused by his tone.
Nick shook his head, his corporate mask slipping back into place. "Executing an aggressive bidding war is perfectly standard protocol, but letting personal friction and raw pride dictate your capital allocations is an incredibly dangerous play—especially when you're running that playbook in a high-profile public setting like this gala."