The city of Solmere was less a home and more a painting of smoke and regret. The vast, iron-wrought arch of the Solmere Bridge seemed to stretch toward a future Cassian Varell would never see.
He sat on the cold, mossy edge, letting the chill soak into his worn, threadbare clothes. Below him, the river—deep, dark, and sluggish—pulled the last of the day's violent sunset into its current. It looked like spilled oil mixed with fire.
Small, brass-piped steam-magitech fishing boats and massive merchant ships chugged past, their engines powered by glowing Aetherium cores. Their chimneys didn't just spit black smoke; they exhaled thick, oily plumes tinted with the pale blue of refined mana. The constant noise of the industrial city, the rhythmic thump-hiss of steam carriages and the sharper whine of steam-motorcycles behind him, was a relentless, dull roar.
Everything here ran on power, on value. Cassian, however, was bankrupt in both.
He watched the sun finally disappear beneath the horizon, bathing the old, rustic buildings in a raw, fading orange. One by one, the mechanical gas lamps and house lights flickered on—little squares of borrowed warmth and industry.
He closed his eyes, picturing the single, simple family crest of the Varells. He had failed the legacy, failed the secret art of Aether forging, failed to be the son they needed.
He forced a small, tired smile, a gesture of surrender.
"I'm sorry, father. Mother. I couldn't rebuild the Market. I couldn't preserve your name."
He didn't wait for the last ray of light to vanish. Without another word, he pushed off the stone railing. The sudden, brutal rush of cold air was the last sensation of his life as he dropped toward the dark water, closing his eyes against the inevitable impact.
Onlookers rushed to the bridge railing, their startled cries thin and useless against the evening wind.
—————————————————————-
Meanwhile, on East Boston, Massachusetts. Year 2024.
The smoke hit Adrian Jacob Vale like a physical blow. It was dry, chemical, and scorching hot.
He didn't bother slamming the car door; he just bolted. His heart was a panicked drum against his ribs. His familiar warehouse, the place he'd built his universal dream, was a roaring, smoking hell of twisted metal and molten plastic.
"No, no, no," Adrian choked out, snatching his phone.
He called 911, screaming the address into the chaos. "175 William F McClellan Highway! My warehouse is on fire! Please be quick!"
"Sir, the fire department will be with you in seven minutes."
Seven minutes. The flames needed seven seconds.
Adrian pulled open the main steel door. The air inside was an inferno. Fire already consumed the storage racks, and his main office, a small glass enclosure, was a furnace. Worse, one of the three critical server rooms—where EchelonTrade lived—was glowing orange from the intense heat within.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!" he roared, coughing against the thickening smoke.
He sprinted, hugging the concrete floor. He used his heavy winter coat as a makeshift shield, batting back a patch of fire near the hallway, and burst into the office.
He grabbed the two things that mattered: a large external hard drive and his laptop, which lay strangely untouched on his desk. He scrambled toward the still-standing server room and jammed both devices into the central console.
Sweat poured off his forehead, sizzling as it hit the hot metal. His fingers flew across the keyboard. Panic surged, raw and desperate.
Adrian Jacob Vale was a brilliant but obsessive innovator. Born to modest parents, he had always chased the ultimate equation. He left college early, inspired by the tech giants, driven by one single thought: "Everything has value. Humanity just sucks at measuring it."
His AI, the Echelon Market System, wasn't about profit. It was the universal market model, designed to quantify fairness and the flow of value across all potential markets—from commodities to human creativity. It was his life's work, and his rivals, the ones who only saw greed, had sent their final, devastating message.
"Please, I don't know what to do without you!" he muttered to the blinking screen.
He looked at the progress bar for the local transfer: 334 GB. 9 minutes remaining.
"An HDD, seriously? F-ck!" He killed the transfer instantly. There was no time for hard drives. "The cloud. Upload to the cloud!"
He initiated the urgent cloud upload. The process began, tiny percentages ticking up. Then he looked up. The fire was right there, chewing through the thick cabling near the main power control panel. If the power failed before the upload finished, the AI's core training data was vaporized.
Adrian threw the laptop aside, trusting the process. He grabbed a fire extinguisher and a stray piece of twisted metal, fighting back the flames inch by burning inch. He had to buy it seconds.
A high-pitched grinding sound echoed from the ceiling. A huge iron support beam, glowing an angry red, cracked and crashed down. It clipped his shoulder, the impact shattering his world. He stumbled, sent reeling and dizzy. Warm, sticky blood immediately travelled down his cheek.
He fell hard to his knees, his vision tunneling. The fire was already licking the ceiling above the server rack. He looked down at the glowing laptop, now silent, now useless—but the tiny upload icon was still spinning, feeding his creation into the digital ether.
He smiled, a bitter, bloody mess of a smile. He was dying, but his life's work might survive. It had to.
"Preserve... everything," he whispered.
Then, the world went cold and silent.
In the cold, deep water of the Solmere River, Cassian Varell's body was heavy and still.
Suddenly, a presence—not of water or mind, but of pure, cold data—screamed into the silence of the void, an invasive computational force overriding reality.
[ Market Detected: Innovator Soul Signature – Transfer Candidate Approved. ]
The System, an intelligence designed to quantify existence, found a perfect vessel: a match in bloodline, and a vacant soul.
[ Echelon Market System initializing cross-reality transfer… ]
Adrian's essence, the obsessive mind that measured all potential, crossed the gulf of space and time with a painful, blinding flash.
[ Target Host: Cassian Varell – Innovator Bloodline Match: 99.8% ]
[ Cross-Reality Host Compatibility Found ]
[ Soul Signature Match: 98.7% ]
[ Transaction Confirmed — Innovation for Survival ]
Adrian's soul slammed into Cassian's waiting body deep in the river. It was an overwhelming shock—the sudden cold, the darkness, the crushing weight of the water, and the metallic tang of regret.
Welcome, Merchant. The Market Remembers You.
Adrian—now Cassian—didn't drown. He gasped, his lungs violently rejecting the water. His eyes snapped open. He was alive. He was Cassian Varell, and he was sinking.