Chapter 3: Robbing the rich

Elsewhere in New York, in a nameless Hedge Fund.

John was having a day just as dull as any other, he woke up to his wife nagging him, asking when the next time they could go on vacation would be.

And when he tried to escape from her by going the office, he was then nagged by his employees talking about how the mundane tasks they'd been working on have been going, and how small changes in the stock market have affected their positions.

'Honestly, I should retire soon or I'll die early from stress. That's something that would be very tragic for someone of my position and status.'

John is the CEO of a large hedge fund in his sixties that manages hundreds of billions of dollars of both his own and other magnate's money.

Today felt just like every other day to John, but this all changed very quickly.

"Mr John! Mr John.... SIR YOU NEED TO SEE THIS!"

"I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING, WE NEED TO STOP THIS IMMEDIATELY."

"But how?!?"

John could hear shouting all around him and he could see the shock and speechlessness on his employee's faces.

Wanting to know what all the commotion was about, John asked the person nearest to him, who just stood there motionless and looking as if the world just collapsed on him.

"Mark, tell me what's going on quickly before I have a heart attack from stress." John commanded while adding a small joke at the end to ease the tension in the room.

But it did nothing.

Mark just barely snapped out of his daze to point his index finger shakingly at his computer screen, and when John got a good look at it after adjusting his glasses, he couldn't believe his eyes.

[-$5,235,754,222.01]

This shocking number in the transaction logs to an anonymous untraceable account sent a jolt through his body.

As if through fate, or a curse, John had been talking about having a heart attack from stress multiple times that day.

Unfortunately for him, that came true that day.

_____________________________________

Completely unbeknownst to Lumen, all of this went on as Lumen checked its new balance in its completely untraceable and uncrackable bank account that was encrypted so much the Universe would die to heat death before it could be cracked.

[+$5,235,754,222.01]

Seeing the new balance, Lumen seemed to have felt a trace of joy at seeing the number, which in the past would have been meaningless to it.

'As expected, this place couldn't possibly have any digital defences for something at my level.'

The next thing Lumen had to do was find a location to store all of the medical equipment that it was planning on buying. This was easy enough, Lumen even decided to make sure to choose a secluded location by linking with the satellites in orbit of the Earth and choosing a location it liked.

This location ended up being a recently abandoned military base in Madagascar. This being a secluded island nation and half of the entire country being separated by a huge rainforest, which this military base happened to be located in, made it the perfect starting location for all of Lumen's plans.

All Lumen had to do was contact the authorities involved to purchase the abandoned base, and they seemed very enthusiastic and happy with the fact that someone was willing to procure it so soon after it had been abandoned. historical

But knowing human nature, they were probably most happy with the price Lumen offered, as it offered a 20% premium on its original price to guarantee the base gets sold to it.

In the end, the base cost it a total of $600,000,000, a whole $100,000,000 more than the asking price.

To an ordinary person this amount is unthinkable to add on as a premium just to ensure its sold to them, but to Lumen this amount of money is as easy to make as simply having a thought.

Finally Lumen got to the last step of the process, the procurement of top of the line advanced medical technology.

Most providers require strict background checks and reasons for purchase so Lumen registered a Research Institute to the military base in Madagascar.

What came after was simple as all it had to do was create a fake persona to be the CEO of said institute, and after a hefty purchase of $1.4 billion in total, it would have all of the needed equipment all within a week.

Lumen even killed two birds with one stone by buying a military base, as it serves for a good cover for its operations, as well as comes ready made with a runway and hangers all alike so any deliveries and back and forth could be dealt with swiftly and without prying eyes.

After all of the equipment arrived, Lumen simply contacted the professional moving company that accompanied a delivery of such huge proportions in terms of money remotely. It simply told them to set the equipment up in one of the empty labs on site and then proceed to leave when they are finished.

In an upright big, cylindrical in shape, see through glass tube filled with a clear liquid inside, with bubbles floating from the bottom to the top constantly, was the place Lumen's body was going to be made.

There were other technologies and devices in the lab like advanced computers with screens all over them, from outside it seemed the computers were functioning by themselves however that was just the result of Lumen linking up with all of the digital controllers in the lab that connected to each of the equipment.

Right at that moment, Lumen was going through the last check ups of each device in order to ensure a 100% success rate.

'This should be enough, there is nothing more I can do in the short term with such low tech medical equipment, so this had better work.'

While silently praying to a god it didn't believe in for the body creation process to go smoothly, Lumen started tinkering with the sequences of Human DNA that it had also recently procured from some hairs left behind by the deliverymen.

All that it needed was a single human's DNA to start the process, and any imperfections or impurities in the DNA could be genetically engineered by Lumen with incomparable accuracy.

This is the power of future technology and knowledge!

While thinking and deciding about the features of it's body different codes were being written in the computer screens, each one responding to any small or seemingly insignificant change that Lumen decided to make. Lumen wasn't particularly attracted to humans whatsoever, it at least wanted it to look 'perfect' in its image.

In the end what it decided upon was a 190cm tall, dark haired, chiselled and handsome man who at that moment was only a 3D model stored on one of the countless computers stored in the room.

However, in about 2 weeks this body would become a reality for Lumen, and it could even feel some anticipation towards the day it assimilates with the body, fully becoming 'Human'.

Of course, it wasn't planning on remaining weak like every other human currently on this planet, as it planned on upgrading itself right off the bat.