SILICONE HEARTSTRING: A TALE OF LOVE AND DISRUPTION

ed the sky as the light faded-a very different palette from the cold blue of my smartwatch. Twenty hours of coding had left me disheveled-my usua

y tie into a frenzy. I whirled, squinting against the wind, and watched as Marcus

oise of the engine. "The board's going

sed meals, and ruthless drive coalesced into one moment. VegaTech was about to beco

over me. The world titled and for a moment I felt like I

as at my side in an instan

the dizziness. "Yeah, j

range feeling of loneliness washed over me. All those lights,

"Let's get you inside before you fall off your own buil

the elevator went its way down, my mi

speration: I was hunched over, lines of code reflected back in my glasses off a secondhand laptop. The fl

door yanked me out of the zon

ying over the keyboard.

ng a piece of paper. "Enough is enough, kid. You're

on notice from his hand. This couldn't be h

ing the desperation in my voice. "I jus

spat, "I need rent money, not pipe dreams. You've g

whiteboards scribbled with equations, at stacks of books on programming, at the futon where I'd

ll going to

m and Dad were right. Maybe this was stupid. I could go

h. I couldn't quit. Not now, when I was so close to

it with a fire anew. I had 48

led me into the main conference room, where the board o

ody yelled under stress. "What we are going to show you right now will chan

at I detailed the intricacies of our new system, the wider their eyes seem

transparent, corruption-free system for record keeping and transactions. Just think

ur board's oldest members, Mr. Chen, clutching at his chest.

e as he slumped forward in his c

elt myself get pushed aside and could do nothing but st

. "Just a minor heart episode. We'll take hi

I caught his eye. And to my

heezed. "You've done it, my b

at was happening struck me. The power we'd just loose

se migh

ourselves for our global launch. I watched from a VIP box in the New York Stock Exchange as VegaTech's blockch

ng our technology at this incredible rate. I'd get on to the global map every night and just watch the

village in rural Africa-a place I knew well from my gap year before college. I spent months h

ecure microloans, with its transparent governance on our blockchain. Tears prickled at my eyes as

ot for the money or the fame, but this chanc

ch suddenly buzzed. An encrypted message, routed throu

from my father-the man who had vanished without a tra

e message. Seven word

ng for you. T

reeled. Coming? Who? Why? And afte

lized: the vertigo that had overwhelmed me on that roof

he world. Now, it seemed, s