"Spending To The Max"

The contract had been simple: My money, Max's mind. No limits, no oversight—at least, that's how I'd framed it when we signed a formal contract just last week. The truth was more... structured. But Max didn't need to know that. 

The key turned smoothly in the lock of Max's new apartment door. Not that I needed it - Max had given me full access days ago - but there was something satisfying about the physical act of entry. A reminder that all barriers between me and what I wanted were merely formalities now.

I stepped inside and immediately had to sidestep a pile of discarded energy drink cans. The stale smell of caffeine and solder hung in the air, mixing with the faint ozone tang of overworked electronics.

Someone's been burning the midnight oil.

"Max?" I called out, nudging a prototype drone out of the way with my foot. No response. Just the constant hum of cooling fans and the occasional chirp from Markov 2.0 as it darted between workstations.

I found him exactly where I expected, hunched over his primary terminal, fingers flying across three different keyboards simultaneously. The blue glow of his displays reflected in his glasses, hiding his eyes. Dark circles underneath suggested he hadn't slept since our last meeting.

Perfect.

"You know," I said, leaning against the doorframe, "most people take breaks between world-changing inventions."

Max's fingers didn't slow. "Sleep is inefficient when progress is being made."

I chuckled, pushing off the wall to examine his latest creations. The lab had transformed even further since my last visit. Where there had once been a bed now stood a towering server rack, its status lights blinking rhythmically like a mechanical heartbeat. The desk to my left held an array of prototypes - some recognizable, others utterly alien in design.

My fingers brushed against what looked like a simple wristband. "Is this the new biometric tracker?"

"Version seven," Max corrected without looking up. "Monitors stress levels, adrenaline output, and can predict panic attacks thirty seconds before they occur."

Interesting. I slipped it onto my wrist, watching as the display immediately lit up with my vitals. "Predict or induce?"

That got his attention. His hands froze mid-keystroke. Slowly, he turned in his chair, regarding me with that unreadable expression of his.

"Theoretically," he said after a beat, "the same neural feedback on th vein could be reversed engineered to trigger rather than prevent stress responses."

Now it's that something. "Hypothetically speaking, of course.", I said, keeping my face carefully neutral. 

"Of course."

The silence stretched between us, thick with unspoken possibilities. Markov chose that moment to buzz between us, projecting a holographic to-do list that scrolled endlessly upward.

I whistled low. "That's an ambitious schedule."

Max adjusted his glasses. "The flute rotator is complete. Combat lenses are in beta. The neural interface..."

"Let me guess - giving you trouble?"

His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "The synaptic lag is unacceptable at current bandwidths."

I moved to stand behind him, looking over his shoulder at the lines of code scrolling across his main display. To me, it was a window into Max's mind - orderly, precise, and brimming with untapped potential. Although I didn''t know what was going on in the screen displayed I could always offer the wisdom of a wise mentor.

"You could be approaching it backwards," I said, reaching past him to highlight a section of code with notes on top titled 'artificial intellect' "Try not to force the brain to communicate like a machine. Why not teach the machine to think like a brain instead?"

Max went very still. I could practically hear the gears turning in his head.

"That would require..." he started, then trailed off, fingers already moving to open new files.

Hmph, that was simple enough, although his Markov robot seemed intelligent it surprisingly wasn''t ai like had thought originally. It was another one of max's miracle making process at work.

I patted his shoulder and stepped back, giving him space to work. "Take your time. Genius can't be rushed."

While he disappeared down the rabbit hole of new possibilities, I took the opportunity to explore the rest of his lab. The virtual world simulation I'd seen last time had expanded dramatically even the people at school know about the strategy game he's created. Where before there had been a single city, now entire continents sprawled across the AR holographic display, each with distinct cultures, economies, and political systems.

I reached out and touched a glowing metropolis. Instantly, statistics flooded the air around it - population density, crime rates, economic growth projections.

"Impressive," I murmured. "You've scaled up."

Max's voice came from behind me, closer than I expected. "The algorithms proved more adaptable than anticipated."

I turned to find him standing just a few feet away, his usual detached expression when working replaced by something approaching excitement. "Watch this."

He input a series of commands, and the simulation accelerated. Years flashed by in seconds. I watched as civilizations rose and fell, as technologies developed along divergent paths, as wars were fought and treaties signed - all governed by the rules Max had programmed.

"It's more than a game now, isn't it?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

The holographic Paris shimmered above Max's workstation, its digital streets pulsing with thousands of tiny lights. Each one represented a person - their movements, their needs, their wasted potential.

"Watch this," Max said, his fingers dancing across the controls. The simulation zoomed in on a struggling arrondissement. I saw a single mother hesitating before a grocery store, her wallet thin. A notification pinged in her digital profile: Discount grocer 200m east - 40% off staples today.

Next, a homeless veteran. The system flagged an unused shelter bed and a job opening at a nearby warehouse that matched his military experience.

"Real-time?" I asked, tilting my head.

"No but it could be."

The fervor in his voice was new. This wasn't just technical enthusiasm - this was conviction. Belief.

Exactly what I'd been waiting for.

Max adjusting his glasses, reached into a drawer and produced what looked like a sleek, modern hearing aid. "Version four of the guidance device."

I let the silence stretch, watching the holographic world turn beneath us. "You really think you can fix society?"

"Not fix," Max corrected immediately. "Optimize. Remove the inefficiencies. The unnecessary suffering." He turned to me, and for the first time, I saw the full depth of his ambition. "Imagine a world where every decision is made with perfect information. Where no one starves because a distribution algorithm failed. Where no one dies because a first responder took a wrong turn."

His words hung in the air between us, charged with possibility.

I smiled - slow, knowing. "You're talking about rewriting the rules of civilization."

Max didn't flinch. "Someone has to, I came up with this after creating the combat lenses you asked for."

There it was. The moment I'd been engineering since our first conversation. The spark that would ignite everything.

I reached into my jacket and pulled out a sleek metal case. "Then you're going to need better hardware."

Max took the case, opening it to reveal a next-generation quantum processing chip - military grade, impossible to acquire through normal channels. His eyes widened slightly behind his glasses.

"This is..."

"Just the beginning," I finished for him. "Keep thinking of what you could now do with a full lab. funding. and no limits."

He looked from the chip to me, and I saw the exact moment his analytical mind processed the implications. The cost. The commitment.

"What do you want in return?"

I tilted my head, considering. "Honestly? I want to see how far you can go."

It wasn't a lie. Not entirely. The truth was more complicated, of course. Max's genius was a tool, and tools existed to be used. But the best craftsmen took pride in their tools, cared for them, honed them to perfection.

Max studied me for a long moment, then nodded once, decisively. He turned back to his terminal, already slotting the new chip into an open port.

As I watched him work, Markov hovering at his shoulder like a digital familiar, a single thought echoed in my mind:

Checkmate.

The game was underway now. And Max didn't even realize he was playing.