The Fire Spreads East

Date: March 21, 2010Time: 10:30 AM GMTLocation: London, United Kingdom – Corporate Headquarters of Albion Interactive Entertainment

The sunlight filtered through the glass façade of Albion Interactive's sleek headquarters, casting thin shadows across the polished marble floors. The gaming giant had dominated Europe's gaming market for nearly two decades, their franchises cemented in the halls of gaming history. But today, the atmosphere was far from celebratory.

Inside the executive conference room, the air was thick with frustration. A massive 4K screen mounted at the far end of the room showed WarFall's Omnilink dashboard—live player and viewer counts ticking up every second like some apocalyptic countdown.

Live Players: 572,430Live Viewers: 283,593,120

The numbers were obscene. No game in history—not even Legends of Avalon or BattleStrike Global Siege, Albion's two crown jewels—had ever commanded this kind of attention. And it wasn't even a PC or console game. It was a mobile game, something they had written off as a casual novelty.

Seated at the head of the table was Graham Whitaker, Albion's CEO. His knuckles were white against the armrest of his leather chair, veins standing out along his wrist as he clenched his fists in silence.

Across from him, Simon Reese, their lead developer, was pale under the harsh overhead lights. His collar was slightly undone, sweat glistening at his temples as he tried to explain the impossible.

"This can't be real," Simon muttered, his voice cracking. "The graphical fidelity, the physics system, the… the real-time environmental AI—it's not possible on a mobile device. Even our most optimized engines can't pull this off."

A younger executive leaned forward, his tie slightly askew. "It's not just possible, Simon. It's happening." He tapped the screen. "That British kid—SpudTacular—he's trending above every major esports player combined. He's getting sponsorship offers mid-stream, directly through Omnilink."

"Because of a phone game," Graham growled, finally speaking, his voice low and cold. "Not even from one of the established studios. Not from Albion. Not from Asahi Interactive. Not from Activus."

There was a dangerous pause, every executive in the room knowing exactly what that meant.

It had come from India.A country they hadn't considered a serious player in global gaming.A country they had dismissed as a "market for knock-off MMOs and farming sims."

"Do we even know who made this?" Simon asked, his voice desperate. "Which studio? Which engine?"

There was silence. Then a younger analyst, Rachel, spoke hesitantly. "It's… from Aegis Gaming, sir."

"Aegis?" Graham's brow furrowed. "That tiny Indian company that launched last year? They made this?"

Rachel swallowed. "They're not tiny anymore, sir."

She pulled up a secondary report, flashing Aegis Gaming's financials across the screen. What had once been a fledgling subsidiary under Echelon Holdings had, in under six months, become one of the highest-valued private gaming companies in Asia.

Albion's executives stared at the data in stunned silence.But it was Graham who put the pieces together first.

"Echelon Holdings… isn't that the same parent company behind Nova Electronics?" His voice was soft, dangerous.

Rachel nodded, lips pressed thin. "Yes, sir. They're all under Echelon Holdings' umbrella. Nova. Aegis Gaming. Titan Telecom."

Graham leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking under the weight of the revelation.

"Nova," he said softly. "That damned Nova Prime."

Simon's eyes widened. "Wait… so the game was designed specifically for Nova Prime and Pulse? It's not even available for other devices?"

"Exactly," Rachel confirmed. "It's a closed ecosystem. You need a Nova Prime or Pulse to play WarFall. That's why the player count is still under 600,000."

Simon's voice was a strangled whisper. "But there are over 280 million people watching it."

Graham stood, pacing toward the window, looking out over London's skyline. His reflection in the glass showed the tightening of his jaw and the flicker of raw fury in his eyes.

"They didn't make a game," he said quietly. "They made a spectacle. They made the players the content, and the game the stage."

Simon shook his head, still struggling to process. "We can copy it. We can throw a team at it, reverse-engineer the mechanics, and push something out within six months."

Graham turned, his expression carved from stone.

"Can we?" His voice was razor-sharp. "Because unless you've secretly invented a mobile chip that can render open-world 3D landscapes, dynamic weather, advanced spell physics, and haptic feedback at 120 frames per second, we're fucked."

Simon paled.

Because Graham was right.

Albion's engine couldn't handle even half of WarFall's technical demands. Their mobile division had nothing remotely capable of running a game like that. Not even on flagship hardware.

And Nova Prime? It was a closed system. Aegis had no obligation to share any of its tech.

"Start reaching out to third-party devs," Graham ordered, his voice clipped. "Offer them contracts to develop something—anything—that can mimic the basic mechanics. Squad-based battle royale, high fantasy, magic system. I don't care if it's a cheap knockoff, we need something on the market before they solidify their monopoly."

Simon nodded hastily, scribbling notes. "I'll mobilize the external partnerships team."

Graham's gaze darkened. "And get our legal department looking into them. There has to be something—some patent loophole, some regulatory violation. If we can't beat them in innovation, we'll bury them in paperwork."

Rachel's hesitation was barely audible. "Sir… Echelon Holdings' legal team is already… formidable."

Graham's lip curled in disgust. "Everyone has a weakness. Find it."

He turned back to the window, watching London's horizon.

"It doesn't matter if they're first," he muttered. "If we control the distribution networks, the app stores, the global publisher relationships—we can still starve them out."

But even as he said it, there was a flicker of doubt in his voice.

Because WarFall wasn't just a game.It was an ecosystem, and Albion wasn't even standing on the edge of it.

They were standing outside the gates, watching a new empire rise.

Date: March 21, 2010Time: 4:15 AM PSTLocation: Menlo Park, California – Boardroom of Sentinel Interactive Studios

The muted glow of recessed lighting spilled over the long oak conference table, where half-empty cups of Starbucks coffee sat forgotten, the steam long since faded. The twelve faces surrounding the table reflected varying degrees of exhaustion, disbelief, and in some cases, barely-concealed panic.

At the head of the table, Brandon Kellerman, CEO of Sentinel Interactive Studios, kept his eyes locked on the enormous screen mounted at the end of the room. The live broadcast from Omnilink Global, showing Jamie's viral WarFall stream, had been running for hours. Brandon had barely spoken since the emergency meeting was called, his fingers pressed so tightly together that the knuckles were pale white.

Beside him, Jessica Tan, the VP of Global Strategy, finally broke the silence. "This isn't a game launch," she said softly. "It's a goddamn tech coup."

One of the senior engineers, a heavyset man named Marco Ramirez, rubbed his face with both hands. "The terrain rendering alone—how the hell are they running that on a phone? We're pushing our top-tier PC engines to the edge to get half that fidelity."

"It's not just graphics," Jessica added. "The entire infrastructure is self-contained. They don't even need us. No App Store. No Play Store. No carrier contracts. Every player is directly plugged into Omnilink, and from there into Nova's 5G satellite network."

Brandon's jaw clenched at the mention of Nova's satellites—the same satellites that American telecom executives had smugly dismissed months ago as science fiction.

"How the hell did we miss this?" His voice was low, dangerous.

"Because we assumed," Jessica said bitterly, "that no Indian company could build something like this."

The silence that followed was suffocating.

"Alright," Brandon said, his voice forced calm. "Options. Let's hear them."

Jessica exhaled sharply. "There are no easy ones."

"Try me."

She gestured toward the screen. "We have no hardware capable of running WarFall. None of our partner OEMs can match Nova Prime's hardware integration. Even if we cloned the game, there's no platform powerful enough to run it at that scale. And—" She glanced at the legal advisor, who had the decency to look uncomfortable. "—Nova's patented half their pipeline already. The rest is buried under so much proprietary architecture that even reverse engineering would take years."

Brandon stood, pacing to the window overlooking Sentinel's campus. Rows of parking lots sat empty at this hour, reflecting the cold pre-dawn glow of streetlights.

"Then we kill it at the source," he said softly. "Pressure India's regulatory bodies. Force them to open Nova's ecosystem. Force compatibility with global app stores. We cut off their supply chain."

Jessica shook her head. "We've already been down that road. Their entire hardware pipeline is internal now. They don't need Qualcomm, they don't need Broadcom, they don't need Intel or ARM. Every component in Nova Prime is manufactured directly in their Newtown facility—and they control every piece of tooling from lithography to final assembly."

Marco leaned forward. "We're locked out."

Brandon's fists clenched by his sides. "Then we go after Omnilink. They can't own the entire pipeline."

Jessica shifted uncomfortably. "Omnilink is integrated directly into Nova's firmware. It's not a third-party app—it's the operating environment itself. No one can block it. Not even Google."

"And the data centers?"

Jessica's hesitation was telling.

"They built their own," she said quietly. "Distributed. Satellite-linked. Quantum-encrypted. Not a single node on American soil."

For the first time, Brandon's mask of calm cracked. His palm slapped the windowpane, the sharp crack echoing in the silent room.

"We're talking about a foreign monopoly on global gaming infrastructure," he growled. "They own the platform. They own the hardware. They own the network. And they own the most-watched game on the planet."

Marco hesitated, then added, "And they didn't launch it here. They launched it in Europe. Omnilink bypassed the US entirely. By the time we even noticed, it was already viral."

Jessica glanced at her phone. The internal memo from their strategic intelligence division had just updated.

Live Viewers (Global): 294,671,205Live Players: 573,862Top Game Stream: SpudTacular – 316,000 concurrent viewers

Brandon sank back into his chair, rubbing his temples.

"How did we lose this fast?"

No one answered.

Because they hadn't just lost the game—they'd lost the entire platform war before they even knew they were playing.

Location: Confidential Executive Lounge – Midtown Manhattan – Private Telecom Consortium MeetingTime: 7:30 AM EST

The room reeked of aged mahogany, Cuban cigars, and quiet desperation. Seated around the circular table were the CEOs of America's Big Three telecom giants, along with the heads of two major infrastructure firms and a senior lobbyist from the FCC.

The flat-screen TV at the center of the room was muted, but the scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen told the story.

WarFall's First Global Event – 300 Million Viewers in 24 Hours – Mobile Gaming Revolution

The telecom executives—men who had built their careers around controlling the physical pipes of the internet—looked like they'd seen a ghost.

"Two satellites," one of them muttered, shaking his head. "Two fucking satellites, and they're bypassing every cell tower we own."

"We thought it was impossible," another whispered. "We thought it was science fiction."

"And now," said the man from the FCC, "they control global communications infrastructure from space. And not just any infrastructure. Infrastructure that delivers faster speeds than our top-tier fiber, without touching a single cable."

The room fell into a heavy silence.

"What do we do?" one executive finally asked.

The FCC man's smile was thin, humorless. "Pray."

"Can we block them in the US?" another asked.

"No," the lobbyist said. "The satellites are international. The moment you block it here, users will route through Canada, Mexico, or anywhere with open skies."

"What if we ban Nova devices?" someone suggested.

The FCC man laughed. "You want to tell 300 million people they can't buy the phone that runs the only game they care about?"

"Then what do we do?"

The lobbyist's smile faded.

"We wait. And we hope like hell they make a mistake."

"But if they don't?" someone whispered.

The lobbyist stood, shrugging on his coat. "Then the future belongs to them."

Date: March 22, 2010Time: 8:45 AM CSTLocation: Zhongnanhai, Beijing – Internal Ministry Briefing Room

The air inside the tightly sealed conference room was heavy with cigarette smoke, the long mahogany table covered in folders, printed news clippings, and stills from Omnilink Global's livestream. The muted audio from a nearby TV carried the unmistakable roar of protest chants, bleeding in through the walls.

Twelve senior officials sat in stiff-backed chairs, their expressions ranging from deep scowls to barely-restrained panic. At the head of the table, Vice Minister Wang Lei, head of the Cyberspace Administration of China, tapped his knuckles on the table for silence.

"Explain," he said curtly, his voice flat.

A younger official, no older than thirty-five, stood awkwardly near the projector, flipping through slides with trembling fingers. "WarFall: Dominion… is… a mobile game," he began cautiously. "It launched only three days ago, but it's already shattered global viewership records. More than 300 million people tuned in yesterday to watch the first squad war event."

Wang's eyes narrowed. "We know that much. Explain why our streets are filled with screaming students demanding a phone they cannot buy."

The young official swallowed hard, advancing to the next slide — a photo taken from outside Peking University, where thousands of students had gathered, hoisting signs with hand-drawn images of the Nova Prime phone and the WarFall logo. Some of the banners were crude, but their message was clear.

"We Want Nova Prime.""Open the Gates to the Future.""China Deserves WarFall."

"The youth believe we are intentionally blocking technological progress," the official continued. "They see Nova Prime as a symbol of innovation, and its exclusion from the Chinese market is being framed as—"

"Framed as what?" Wang's voice was sharp, cutting through the smoke.

"—as proof that the Party is afraid of outside technology," the official admitted, his face pale.

An older man, Director Cheng, head of the State Information Bureau, exhaled a plume of smoke, his voice heavy with disdain. "And they're correct."

All eyes turned to him, but Cheng only shrugged.

"We made the decision to ban Nova because we assumed it was a Trojan Horse—another tool for foreign surveillance. But now?" Cheng gestured at the chaotic photos from the protest. "Now it's become something worse. A symbol of what they cannot have."

The Vice Minister's knuckles tapped the table again. "Can we clone the device?"

A nervous cough from the technology advisor at the far end of the table. "Not within five years. Nova's manufacturing chain is fully proprietary. Even the components are custom-designed. We don't have the blueprints, the machines, or the materials."

"Then what do you suggest?" Wang demanded.

The room fell into silence, broken only by the muffled roar of the crowd outside.

The technology advisor spoke softly. "We either reverse the ban… or we prepare for this unrest to escalate."

Wang's jaw tightened. "And give a foreign company control over China's digital infrastructure? Impossible."

"We don't need to give them control," Cheng said, leaning forward. "We only need to license the game itself. Keep the devices out, but allow WarFall to run on our own controlled platforms."

"And the 5G network?" Wang asked.

"Fake it," Cheng said bluntly. "Adapt our existing networks to handle lower-resolution versions. Make it seem like we're giving them WarFall — they don't need to know it's not the real version."

The Vice Minister said nothing, fingers tapping a steady rhythm on the table.

Outside, the chants grew louder.

Location: Seoul, South Korea – Daehan Media TowerTime: 9:30 AM KST

The executive boardroom of HanTech Mobile, South Korea's second-largest smartphone manufacturer, was in full meltdown. Charts filled every screen, most showing catastrophic drops in pre-orders for their flagship model, the HanTech Galaxy S5.

"Our launch event is in two weeks," the CEO, Min Joon-suk, said through clenched teeth. "And we've already lost more than 40% of our pre-orders."

A junior analyst stood up, nervously adjusting his glasses. "The data suggests that most of those cancellations are directly tied to Nova Prime and WarFall. Customers are abandoning planned upgrades and waiting for import options."

Min's knuckles turned white. "Nova Prime isn't even officially available here."

The analyst swallowed hard. "That hasn't stopped the black market."

A map flickered onto the central screen, showing clusters of illicit Nova Prime imports filtering through Hong Kong, Taiwan, and even rural fishing ports along the southern coast. Despite customs crackdowns, thousands of devices were already circulating underground.

"Find a way to stop them," Min ordered. "If Nova Prime gets a foothold here, we're finished."

The head of product development cleared his throat hesitantly. "There is… one option."

Min's glare softened just slightly. "Speak."

"We could attempt to license WarFall for HanTech devices," the developer said cautiously. "Even if we can't match Nova Prime's hardware, our flagship phones might be able to run a downgraded version."

"And if Nova refuses?"

The developer's silence was answer enough.

Min's fists slammed onto the table. "Then build me a copy! We're not going down without a fight."

Location: Aritra's Villa – JadavpurTime: 6:15 PM IST

The villa's living room was quiet, sunlight pooling across the floorboards. Aritra sat cross-legged on the carpet, his Nova Prime propped up against a stack of books, watching a silent stream of internal reports flow across his tablet.

Katherine was out — visiting a café with some of her classmates — leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Lumen's voice hummed softly in his ear.

"Protests detected in twelve Chinese cities. Anti-regulatory sentiment trending at 214% increase."

Aritra barely reacted. "Expected."

"South Korean telecom firms are discussing illegal reverse engineering attempts."

He smirked. "They'll fail."

"Sentinel Interactive has convened a third emergency strategy session," Lumen continued. "They are discussing legal action."

Aritra shook his head. "There's nothing to sue."

"American telecom executives have requested a closed-door meeting with the Department of Commerce."

"Let them panic."

The reports kept coming — desperate attempts to stop what couldn't be stopped.

His fingers hovered over his phone's screen, opening a live feed from the WarFall Global Dashboard. Viewer counts were climbing again. Player counts remained limited, thanks to Nova Prime's exclusivity — but that was fine. The illusion of scarcity was more powerful than any marketing campaign.

He leaned back against the couch, the faint scent of jasmine drifting in from the open window.

The world was trying to put out a fire it hadn't even seen coming.

And Aritra?

He was already setting the next one.