CHAPTER 47: CHAPTER 47

The $1,480 felt different from any other money Ace had ever held. It wasn’t like the desperate handful of cash he got from begging, a nerve-wracking win from a risky stock gamble, or even the dirty payment from a corrupt official. This money was a calculated return on work he had actually delivered. As he had told Evelyn, it was like their own venture capital. The envelope sat on the workbench between them, representing both a promise for the future and a challenge to build something new.

Evelyn finished counting the money for the third time with a satisfied smirk on her face. "It’s one thousand, four hundred, and eighty dollars," she said. "That’s every single cent Ramos owed you for exposing Lenoid Petrovich and Kovac. I bet Marcus was absolutely furious after you confronted him."

"He wasn’t happy," Ace admitted, with a faint smile touching his own lips. The memory of the enforcer’s grudging respect felt like a trophy that was almost as valuable as the cash. "But the important thing is that he paid." He then split the stack of money precisely in half and pushed $740 toward Evelyn. "This half goes into the business account to serve as our operating fund," he explained. He then tapped the remaining cash. "The other half is for buying our first real inventory."

Evelyn was already turning her laptop screen toward him. "Speaking of inventory, that auction for the lot of twenty broken tablets ended ten minutes ago, and we won it," she announced.

"How much did it cost us?" he asked.

"Two hundred and ten dollars and that includes shipping," she said, her voice brimming with professional pride. She explained that no one else was bidding because the tablets were listed as being for parts, not working, and were considered total junk, which made them perfect for the two of them.

Ace nodded as their plan became even more solid in his mind. "Then buy them," he said. "Use the business account to pay for it." This purchase was the first tangible step away from their operation just being a front for blackmail. It was the moment Aegis Solutions truly went into the tech refurbishment business.

________

Three days after they were ordered, a pile of worn-out cardboard boxes finally arrived. They carried the smell of dust and faraway storage rooms. Silva helped carry them into the workshop, called B-17, and his excitement was clear. "It feels like Christmas, but for people who love technology!" he said as he picked up a box cutter.

The tablets inside were in very poor condition. They looked like a collection of forgotten technology that had been thrown away. The screens were covered in a web of fine cracks, and the outer casings were scratched and dented from being dropped many times. Some even had buttons missing. These were the discarded old devices from countless people who had upgraded to newer, shinier models.

Silva’s excitement faded as he held up one tablet whose screen was more crack than glass. "Wow," he said. "These look completely broken. Can you actually fix them?"

"That’s the plan," Ace replied. He picked out one that seemed the least damaged. It was an older model with a chipped bazel. He found a micro USB cable and plugged it into a power strip. Nothing happened. There was no light, no sound, no sign of life. "Let’s see what we’re dealing with," he said.

Ace sat on a stool, holding the cold, silent device. He closed his eyes and concentrated, the way he had learned to do. He was not trying to force the tablet to work through sheer willpower. Instead, he was like a doctor trying to find out what was wrong. He took a slow breath and let the Nanite Swarm flow from his core, down his arm, and into the tablet. He felt a faint warmth spread through his fingertips, a sensation he was learning to control. He did not command the energy to "fix it." Instead, he asked it a question: "Show me what’s wrong."

In his mind, he sensed a hazy image of the tablet’s insides, not like a clear picture but more like a feeling. He could feel the problem areas the way a doctor feels for aches in a body. In this tablet, he found a tiny, hairline crack in the connection between the battery and the main board—a break too small to see. He also found a single, microscopic capacitor near the charging port that had burned out.

He focused his will with great precision on just those two spots. He thought, "Mend the connection. Replace the capacitor."

The warmth in his hand grew stronger, concentrating on those two specific points deep inside the tablet. There was a very soft zing sound, like a tiny spark jumping a gap, and the faint smell of ozone. Then the warmth faded away, its task complete.

Ace opened his eyes. The tablet’s screen was still a cracked and dark mess. He pressed the power button.

Nothing happened.

Silva’s hopeful look began to fade. "Oh," he said. "Maybe the next one will—"

He was cut off as a soft, glowing logo suddenly appeared on the shattered screen, its light shining through the cracks. The device vibrated gently in Ace’s hand as it started up. The operating system loaded a little slowly, and icons appeared on the damaged display. The tablet’s brain was alive and working; its body was just badly bruised.

Evelyn leaned in to look, her eyes wide with the curiosity of a researcher. "You did it," she said. "You actually did it. The diagnostics are reading normal. It’s fully functional."

"It’s not pretty," Ace said, a rush of triumph flooding through him that was far more satisfying than any System reward. This was his work. "But it works. That’s what matters."

For the next several hours, the three of them worked together like a small assembly line, bringing old electronics back to life. Ace was the most important part of their operation. He sat with a tablet, completely focused as he used his growing skill to guide tiny machines called nanites inside each device. He learned to identify different problems by feel, like the dull ache of a dead battery or the sharp, broken feeling of a cut wire. He ignored any scratches or dents on the outside because the nanites sometimes polished things too much, which was a risk he couldn’t take. His only goal was to make the devices work again. A tablet with a cracked screen was still incredibly valuable if it functioned.

Evelyn acted as his assistant and tester. She would hand him the next broken device from their junk pile. Then she would take the ones he had fixed, connect them to her laptop, and run tests to check the processor, memory, Wi-Fi, and touchscreen. She would say, "This one’s good," and put it in the "Done" pile, or she might say, "This one’s graphics chip flickers when it works hard; try fixing it again."

Silva wanted to help, so he appointed himself as the team’s head of security, logistics, and morale. His job mostly involved occasionally jumping up to stare intently at the security monitor. "A van just went by!... It’s just a delivery... Everything is fine, team!" He also decided to "stress test" one of the repaired tablets by downloading a simple puzzle game. "The touchscreen works great!" he announced, though he quickly got his character stuck and had to restart the tablet.

The accident happened during one of Silva’s overly excited "security sweeps." He was hurrying to check the monitor because he thought a shadow looked suspicious, and he tripped over the power strip cord. His arms flailed as he lost his balance, and he crashed into the side of their shaky workbench. The whole bench shook violently, causing two repaired tablets and three that were waiting to be fixed to slide toward the edge.

Ace’s hand shot out and grabbed one. Evelyn quickly snatched another. But the third tablet, a sleek new model that was their most promising device, teetered on the edge and fell toward the hard concrete floor.

Without even thinking, driven by pure instinct and panic over losing their valuable investment, Ace focused. He didn’t send a command to the nanites inside the tablet. Instead, he pushed his energy outward in a desperate, protective shout, mentally yelling, "Stop! Shield it!"

The nanites responded to his raw command. A shimmering, barely visible wave of silver flickered over the surface of the falling tablet for a fraction of a second—a protective, reactive shell. The device hit the floor with a solid, unnerving thunk, not the sickening plastic cracking sound he dreaded. It skidded a few inches and lay there, inert. The silver shimmer vanished as quickly as it appeared.

The workshop fell completely silent. Silva was on the floor, looking horrified. Evelyn was frozen, holding a tablet in each hand and staring at the one on the floor. Ace was breathing heavily, his heart pounding. He hadn’t known he could do that. He hadn’t even known to try.

"Wow," Silva whispered from the floor, breaking the silence. "That was... really good luck. It must be a tough little device."

Evelyn slowly looked up from the undamaged tablet on the floor and met Ace’s eyes. Her expression made it clear that she knew it wasn’t luck. It was the same knowing look she had given him after the incident with the chrome TV. She didn’t say anything about what she saw. She just carefully placed the tablets she had saved back on the bench and said, "Be more careful, Silva. We can’t afford to replace our inventory." Her voice was unusually tense.

Ace walked over and picked up the fallen tablet. He pressed the power button, and it lit up immediately, working perfectly fine, without a new scratch or glitch. He felt a mix of fear that his secret was exposed and the thrilling excitement of discovering a new, defensive aspect of his power.

By the end of the day, they had sixteen fully functional tablets laid out on the bench. They had only spent about $13 on each one, which meant their total investment was $210. Even with cracked screens, Evelyn estimated they could sell each device online for eighty or ninety dollars. This meant they had just turned their small investment into nearly $1,300 worth of sellable inventory. Four other tablets were too damaged to fix, so they would be kept for spare parts.

Ace looked at the pile of resurrected devices, then at Evelyn. She was already busy researching screen replacement kits and the best online marketplaces to use. He also looked at Silva, who was carefully wiping his fingerprints off the camera lenses he had almost ruined.