Chapter 2 : Ten Thousand Times

"Mr. Hart, let's be real here." The loan officer straightened his tie and pushed the paperwork back across the desk. "You've already got a mortgage, a car loan, and two open credit lines. Now you're asking for a third secured loan against your entire investment portfolio, plus a business line of credit for a company that-from what I can tell-doesn't even exist."

"It will," Leo replied.

"For what, exactly?"

To buy up every drop of clean water before the world drowns.

"Wholesale import," Leo said instead. "Food and bottled goods. The margins are great."

The officer stared at him. Leo didn't blink. He just sat there, hands folded, face completely blank. In his previous life, he would have started sweating, smiling nervously and over-explaining everything until the guy took pity on him. But that version of Leo was gone. He'd been eaten.

The silence dragged on. The officer finally looked down, shuffled the papers, and let out a sigh.

"Your credit score is perfect. I'll push it through."

"Thanks." Leo stood up. "I'll need the funds today."

"Today?"

Leo didn't say anything. He just waited.

The officer picked up the phone.

---

By noon, Leo had three new accounts and a balance in his banking app that would make any sane person have a heart attack.

But he wasn't nervous. He felt the way a guy feels when he pushes all his chips into the center of the table because he's already seen the dealer's cards.

Debts don't matter in forty-five days. The banks will be underwater. So will everyone they lent money to.

He took a taxi to the east side of the city, landing in a gray maze of storage yards and loading docks that smelled like diesel and damp cardboard. A faded sign overhead read: WEBB WHOLESALE LOGISTICS.

Marcus Webb met him at the gate. He was a broad-shouldered man in his fifties with a gray crewcut and the squint of someone who had spent his entire career counting boxes.

"Leo Hart!" Marcus grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. "Kid, I've been meaning to call you. Still owe you for that customs seizure mess."

"You can pay me back today."

Marcus's smile dipped at the cold tone. "Sure. What do you need?"

"Bottled water. Everything you've got in stock." Leo walked past him into the warehouse. "Canned food. Instant noodles. Rice. Anything with a shelf life over two years. I'll pay full market price, cash transfer, right now."

Marcus followed him, scratching his neck. "All of it? Kid, I've got six hundred pallets of water alone. What are you doing, building a doomsday bunker?"

Leo stopped. He turned and looked at Marcus for two seconds.

"Something like that," he said.

Marcus started to laugh, but he stopped when he realized Leo wasn't joking.

"Right," Marcus said. "Let me get the manifest."

---

The deal took ninety minutes.

Leo didn't waste time haggling over pennies. He haggled for speed, for delivery, and for priority access to Marcus's other contacts: a canned goods importer, a rice distributor, and a guy who sold steel by the ton. By the time he walked out of the warehouse, he owned four hundred and fifty pallets of water, six hundred cases of food, and a promise of more.

And he owned one more thing: a single pallet of purified water bottles (500ml), wrapped in clear plastic, waiting for him in the back of a rented van.

He climbed into the passenger seat. He didn't take the whole pallet yet. He just pressed his palm against the plastic.

Store.

The pallet vanished.

Inside his mind, a dark pocket opened. A neat block of water bottles floated in the stillness: one hundred bottles that Leo had separated from the rest. Exactly fifty liters of water.

He checked the timer.

(Multiplier cooldown: 00:00:07...)

Leo leaned back and listened to the diesel engine rattle along the highway. He let himself breathe.

Six.

Five.

Four.

His fingers curled against his knee.

Three. Two. One.

(Ding! The 10,000x Multiplier is ready.)

(Please select a stack.)

Leo's heart hammered once, hard, in his throat.

He chose the hundred bottles.

(Multiplying: Purified Water (500ml) x100 → x1,000,000.)

(Confirm?)

Confirm.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then the dark space in his mind roared.

Bottles poured into existence. Not slowly, but in a silent flood of clear plastic, filling the void from the center out, stacking and tumbling into perfect lines. Row after row, wall after wall of crystal-clear water until half of the Stasis Space was gleaming blue-white.

(Multiplication complete. Purified Water (500ml): 1,000,000 bottles.)

(Stasis Space capacity: 50% occupied.)

(Multiplier cooldown reset: 23:59:59.)

Leo opened his eyes.

His hand was shaking. He pressed it flat against his thigh until it stopped.

One million bottles. Half a million liters.

He remembered the first week of the flood in his old life. A man had offered his wedding ring for half a bottle of water. A woman had offered something even more desperate. Neither of them got it, because the owner of the bottle had already drunk it himself.

Half a million liters. From just one hundred bottles.

Leo started laughing.

It wasn't a loud laugh. It was quiet, ragged, and sounded a bit wrong-like a lock turning in the wrong key. The delivery driver glanced over, frowned, and decided it wasn't his business.

When he finished, Leo wiped his eyes and sat still.

(Host Note: Stasis Space capacity is currently 1,000 cubic meters. Additional capacity requires Evolution Cores.)

He looked at the half-filled space and frowned.

Half full already. And I've only just started.

The problem was obvious, and so was the solution. He couldn't store everything in the space yet. He would need to stage the bulk goods in a separate location-a warehouse he controlled-and only bring in the highest-value items to multiply.

The multiplier doesn't care where the original stack is. It only cares that I'm touching it.

His mind was already racing.

Buy the stock. Stage it. Touch it. Multiply it. Move it.

Water first. Then food. Then metal.

His phone buzzed.

Sienna 💕: Babe, you've been so quiet today!! Mia says the villa has a private infinity pool, you're going to LOVE it!! Don't forget to transfer the deposit by Friday, okay?? 😘😘

Leo read the message once. He didn't reply.

Instead, he opened the notepad app and typed:

Sienna: deposit by Friday. Ignore.

Trent: ask about the "investment" he owes me.

He underlined the second line twice.

Outside, the sun was setting over the city in orange and gold, perfectly peaceful. The delivery driver hummed along with the radio. A child on a bicycle rode past the van, laughing.

Leo watched the child until he vanished around a corner.

Forty-four days.

"Drive faster," he said.

The driver looked at him. "Where to?"

Leo pulled up a map on his phone and zoomed in on a cluster of abandoned industrial parks on the northern edge of the city.

"Somewhere with a lot of empty space," he said. "And no questions."