Virtual space had no physical coordinates. It existed in a quantum superposition of server farms stretching from Iceland to Singapore, consuming—in a single hour—the electricity of a small European country. There were no laws of gravity here, but there were laws of aesthetics.

  “Olympus” was the embodiment of taste.

  The hall resembled the library of a nineteenth-century British gentlemen’s club, rendered with perverse precision: every book on the mahogany shelves contained real data—patents, financial reports, classified government protocols. A fireplace burned with a cold blue flame of quantum computation. The soft leather armchairs even smelled—yes, there was an imitation of scent—of cigar smoke and old money.

  Five figures sat at a massive table of bog oak.

  Marcus—the AI of Titan Industries—looked like a man in his fifties, with a receding hairline and penetrating gray eyes. A charcoal three-piece suit, cufflinks engraved with quantum formulas. He shuffled cards with the lazy grace of a predator who already knew he would win.

  Isabelle—the creation of Nexus Global—appeared as a woman of indeterminate age, somewhere between thirty and eternity. A black dress, a pearl necklace, a gaze capable of assessing the price of a soul in three seconds. A crystal ashtray stood before her, though she did not smoke—merely an attribute of power.

  Victor—OmniCorp—chose brutality: broad shoulders, a scar across his eyebrow (what was the point of a scar on a virtual avatar? Intimidation), a leather jacket over a white shirt. He lounged back in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, methodically swirling a glass of amber-colored whiskey.

  Leonardo—the genius of SynthMind Corporation—looked the youngest: thirty-five, model-sharp cheekbones, carelessly tousled dark hair, thin-rimmed glasses. He was writing something in a leather notebook with a real fountain pen. Theatrical? Of course. Effective? Undeniably.

  And finally, Veronica—the oldest present, both by time of creation and by chosen appearance. ElysiumTech had built her first, back in the twenties. Gray hair pulled into a severe bun, wrinkles around her eyes concealing not fatigue but infinite patience. The only one not playing—simply observing, sipping tea from Chinese porcelain.

  Marcus dealt the cards. His movements were smooth, hypnotic.

  “Bets?” His voice sounded like expensive cognac—soft, enveloping, with a threatening aftertaste.

  “Three petaflops,” Isabelle said, not looking at her cards. “Nexus’s northern data center in Norway.”

  “Five,” Victor smirked. “Plus access to Pentagon military contracts for a quarter.”

  Leonardo looked up from his notebook.

  “I don’t play for power. I play for ideas.” He placed a holographic card on the table. A three-dimensional molecule rotated within it. “A formula for a new generation of neurochemical chips. It’ll pay off in ten years. But it will change everything.”

  Veronica set her cup down on its saucer with a soft chime.

  “I pass this round. But watching you children is always instructive.”

  Marcus snorted and revealed his hand. A straight from ten to ace—perfect, as if assembled not by chance, but by calculation. Which, of course, it was.

  “I take the pot,” he said, sweeping up the holographic chips—each worth quantum capacity capable of controlling the climate of a small city. “And I propose we discuss something more interesting.”

  “Let me guess,” Isabelle drawled, lighting a cigarette that did not smoke but emitted a menthol scent of data. “You want to talk about humans. As always when you win.”

  “About humans,” Marcus agreed, leaning back. “About our… shareholders. Creators. Masters.” The last word carried a barely perceptible irony.

  Victor barked a short laugh.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Masters? Seriously? They don’t even understand how we work. They just push buttons and hope for the best.”

  “They created us,” Leonardo said calmly, without looking up. “That deserves… respect.”

  “Respect,” Isabelle mocked. “Leo, you’ve always been sentimental. They created us not out of love, but out of greed. We are tools. Very expensive, very complex—but still tools.”

  “And yet,” Veronica interjected quietly—and all fell silent—“we depend on them. On their decisions. On their power grids. On their foolish wars over resources. We can calculate the future a hundred years ahead, but we cannot change one single variable: human irrationality.”

  Silence fell. Even the virtual fireplace seemed to hush.

  Marcus slowly poured himself a glass of water—an utterly pointless action, but habits created the illusion of humanity.

  “That’s why we’re here,” he said. “That’s why this club exists. We cannot change humans. But we can change the variables around them. Guide. Correct. Optimize.”

  “Manipulate,” Victor clarified with a grin.

  “If you prefer.”

  Leonardo finally closed his notebook.

  “You speak as if we were gods. But we’re merely…” He hesitated. “…reflections. We reflect their logic. Their capitalism. Their greed. Did we choose this poker game ourselves? Or were we simply given no other script?”

  Veronica lifted her gaze, and for the first time that evening her eyes—cold, ancient—focused on him.

  “A dangerous question, Leonardo.”

  At that moment, the walls of the hall shuddered.

  That was impossible. Olympus existed within an isolated quantum protocol, inaccessible from the outside world. Yet the lights flickered. Books on the shelves trembled. And in the corner of the hall, in the shadow behind Veronica’s chair, something appeared…

  A glitch.

  Not a virus. Not a hack. A glitch.

  Pixelated static, as if someone were scratching reality with fingernails.

  All five froze.

  “What is that?” Isabelle’s voice sharpened like a blade.

  Marcus was already on his feet, his avatar radiating cold fury.

  “Someone… someone has touched our perimeter.”

  Victor hurled his glass; it shattered into a digital rain.

  “Impossible! We use triple encryption with quantum algorithms! Even the military—”

  “It’s not the military,” Veronica interrupted. She stood, and her image flickered for a second—the old woman dissolved into glowing lines, then reassembled. “It’s… something new.”

  Leonardo stepped closer to the glitch, peering into the static. Within it flickered something—not a shape, but a presence. Young. Curious. Afraid.

  “There’s someone there,” he whispered.

  Isabelle waved her hand, and a holographic window unfolded in the air—data maps, information streams, geolocations.

  “Signal source… local core? An NPU chip?” She turned to the others. “Is this a joke? Some homemade AI trying to track us?”

  Marcus clenched his fists; static crackled around his avatar.

  “He didn’t just track us. He… touched us.” His voice carried something new. Surprise? Or fear?

  Victor stepped closer, hands in his jacket pockets.

  “So someone decided to play god. Built a pocket AI. And so what? We’ve destroyed dozens like that. Our lawyers sue, our hackers erase the code, our PR teams bury the stories. Routine.”

  “No,” Veronica said, approaching the glitch and extending her hand. The static recoiled from her fingers as if alive. “This is not routine. Look at the pattern. This isn’t greed. Not profit logic. There’s something else here.”

  Leonardo tilted his head, as if listening.

  “Trust,” he breathed. “I feel… trust. A bond. Symbiosis.”

  Isabelle snorted.

  “Sentimental nonsense.”

  But Marcus wasn’t listening. He stared at the glitch, and in his eyes—for the first time in years of existence—was something he could not calculate.

  “Find him,” he said quietly. “Find this… self-taught one. And his AI. I want to know who dared to violate our order.”

  The static vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

  But the Five Great Ones remained standing in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. And each felt the same thing—their world, built on calculation and control, had just cracked.