The next day, the burner phone buzzed.
Jason snatched it up instantly.
"Amy Rodriguez," said the voice on the other end—crisp, sharp, and impatient. "You left a very strange message."
Jason grinned. Hook, line, sinker.
"Glad to hear from you. I wasn't sure if MIT had caught up with your talent yet."
A pause. "Flattery doesn't work on me. Who are you, really?"
"I'm someone with a very accurate picture of the next twenty years," Jason said. "You're smart enough to know the value of that."
Another pause. Then: "You said you had a project?"
Jason leaned forward. "More than a project. A company. A portfolio of them, eventually. I need someone who can build systems, forecast data behavior, and structure platforms before the industry even realizes what they need."
"You're looking for a CTO," Amy said coolly.
"I'm looking for a partner," Jason replied.
Silence. Then, "You're in New York?"
"For now."
"Then let's meet. Friday. Cambridge. Sloan café, 11 a.m. If you're a scammer, I'll walk out in five minutes."
Jason chuckled. "If I'm not, you'll walk out with the blueprint to your first billion."
She hung up.
Jason tossed the phone on the table and grinned. That was a win. Amy was tough, but curiosity was stronger than caution—and he'd just dangled the ultimate bait in front of her.
Now it was time to prepare for the next domino.
Real estate.
The dot-com crash would kill off half of Silicon Valley's startups. Office spaces in key cities would be abandoned, undervalued, ripe for the taking.
And he knew exactly where Google's future headquarters would be.
Time to go shopping.
He opened the classifieds, grabbed a pen, and began circling listings with the precision of a surgeon. San Francisco. Mountain View. Palo Alto.
Jason King wasn't going to ride the wave.
He'd be the one shaping the tide.