CHAPTER FOURTEEN: SHADOWED GAVEL

Berlin, that age-old city of whispered history and enduring ironwork, wore a curious face that morning. The sky hung low and grey, like wet wool drawn taut across the heavens. Cobblestones glistened from a pre-dawn drizzle, and the breath of the city rose in slow, curling vapors. Taxis rolled quietly past shuttered cafes, and trams creaked along tracks like reluctant old men roused from slumber.

In the very heart of the metropolis, nestled behind a row of unassuming brownstones and hidden beneath a canopied garden alley lined with overgrown ivy, stood the auction venue—Haus der Schatten, the House of Shadows. It wasn't marked on any official registry. No signs. No website. Its location passed on only in encrypted messages and whispered names among those who dealt in things the world wasn't quite ready to understand.

Dr. James Garfield, sharp as ever and impossibly punctual, had been up long before the streetlamps blinked out. His morning unfolded in a haze of security measures—protective casings, biometric locks, and a tense quarrel with a customs officer who had no inkling he was delaying the creator of the world's first functioning memory reader. The device now lay nestled in a sleek carbon-fiber case, polished to a mirror sheen and guarded like the crown jewels of a forgotten kingdom.

"You're really doing this, huh?" Jake Kirby asked, peering through the tinted window as they rolled silently through the back entrance of the Haus der Schatten.

"Selling it off like an old violin," Garfield murmured, eyes fixed on the shadowed archway ahead.

"But you could run an empire with this thing. Hire a team. Launch a start-up. Hell, you wouldn't even need to lift a finger."

"That's precisely the problem, Jake." Garfield offered a sideways glance, his lips quirking. "I'd rather lift fingers in a laboratory than in a boardroom."

Mr. Frederick Sullivan, brushing invisible lint from his charcoal blazer, interjected from the passenger seat, "Start-ups only work when the founder bleeds into them. Otherwise, it's just a fancy grave with stock options."

Jake scoffed. "Still doesn't explain why he's throwing it to the wolves."

"Didn't you do the same with your screenplay?" Sullivan replied with a shrug. "Sold it instead of producing it yourself."

"That's different."

"Is it though?" Sullivan chuckled. "Assets are assets. You wrote your world; he built his. Both of you handed over the torch before the fire could burn you."

Jake went quiet, a half-smirk tugging at his cheek. There was truth there, and he hated how easily Sullivan saw through him.

Dr. Garfield cracked his knuckles, stretching. "If I went up against the conglomerates, they'd eat me alive. Too much blood in that water. I'd rather sell the shark the bait and walk away."

"A noble surrender," Jake muttered with a theatrical bow.

The interior of the Haus der Schatten was everything its name promised—dim, dramatic, and cloaked in velvet shadows. The private hall smelled of aged wood, old cigars, and rose incense. Thick velvet curtains draped the walls like silent sentinels. Tall stained-glass windows filtered what little daylight there was into fractured streams of color. Wrought-iron chandeliers floated above like ghostly halos, their light soft and somber.

Thirty minutes before the gavel fell, Jake and Sullivan took their seats—front row, left corner. The energy in the room was peculiar, taut and expectant, like air just before a lightning strike.

Then came a voice—sharp, honeyed, and unmistakably mocking. "Well, if it isn't Frederick Sullivan. The great seer of stocks and the heartbreak of Wall Street."

Sullivan turned, unfazed. "Peterson. Still preening like a peacock at funerals, I see."

Kyle Peterson stood a few rows back, tall and broad-shouldered, his silvering hair combed back with the arrogance of a younger man who had never quite learned humility. His bespoke suit looked cut from the shadows themselves.

"You know, life might've been a touch sweeter if I didn't hear about you at every cocktail party from Zurich to Tokyo," Peterson drawled. "Even my son quotes you now."

"That's not really my fault, is it?"

"It is. You cheated during the Zairo bid."

"I've said my piece on that."

"And I'm saying mine again. If you're in Berlin for another shady deal, I promise you—I'll be watching."

He brushed past, his shoulder slamming into Sullivan's with the petty force of a grudge that never healed.

Jake leaned over. "What the hell was that about?"

"History," Sullivan muttered. "He was like a brother once. Until Zairo."

"That investment thing?"

"His son started a company—brilliant kid, idealistic. Wanted nothing to do with his father's legacy. Peterson saw the bid as his last shot at reconciliation. He begged me to stay out of it... but I didn't."

"You got the bid?"

"Connections. The auctioneer favored me. Kyle's never forgiven me. Thought I stole his one chance to fix things."

Jake shook his head. "Family scars run deeper than we think. I can't relate—I was too busy matchmaking my dad and my stepmom."

The lights dimmed.

A portly man in a navy tailcoat strode to the podium, clearing his throat with theatrical gravity.

"Ladies and gentlemen of unparalleled taste and vision," he boomed, "welcome to the discreet hall of marvels. Today, we auction not a car, not a painting, but the bridge between thought and reality—Dr. James Garfield's Memory Reader."

A collective murmur spread through the room. Chairs shifted. Breath was held.

"We begin at twenty-five million euros."

Almost immediately, a hand rose. "Twenty-five," confirmed the auctioneer.

"Twenty-six," another voice chimed from the shadows.

"Thirty million."

"Thirty-three."

The tempo quickened. The hall vibrated with tension, each bid a loaded whisper from the obscenely powerful. From the glassed-in booths to the velvet chairs, the players danced their silent war.

A Saudi biotech mogul grinned as he lifted his paddle. "Forty-five million."

Then came a voice like a slow-rolling thunderstorm: "Fifty million."

The room froze. Eyes turned. Kyle Peterson.

He didn't smirk. He didn't even blink. Just leaned back, fingers steepled beneath his chin.

Peterson's assistant leaned toward Sullivan. "Mr. Peterson wants to know what you're up to."

"Tell him," Sullivan said without looking, "I'm just here to show my friend how shadows dance."

The message relayed. Peterson squinted across the room, then relaxed. A subtle nod. The duel resumed.

"Fifty-five," came a clipped voice.

Heads turned again.

"Mendel Groz," someone whispered. "Of course."

Groz, the Hungarian pharmaceuticals magnate—ruthless, eccentric, and utterly unpredictable. A man who once offered a rare Picasso as a wedding gift to a CEO's daughter simply to derail a merger.

The bids volleyed. Fifty-eight. Sixty. Sixty-two.

Then, with all the calm of a man ordering dessert: "Sixty-five million euros," Peterson said.

Silence.

Groz didn't counter.

The auctioneer let the pause stretch a breath too long before bringing down the gavel with a definitive crack. "Sold! To Mr. Kyle Peterson."

Applause followed, polite and measured. No one clapped too hard. The air was too thick with envy and speculation.

Dr. Garfield stood and gave a courteous bow, his smile tinged with fatigue. "Thank you. We now invite you to our adjoining hall for lunch and further discourse."

As the crowd filtered out, champagne was poured, and conversation blossomed like orchids in the shadowed light.

"Freddie!" came a voice. An old investor buddy. "Still sinking fortunes for fun?"

"This must be the prodigal writer," another said, clapping Jake on the back. "Heard about your latest twist in Cannes. Dark stuff."

Jake just smiled, the social energy washing over him. He'd come for the invention, but found himself navigating a web of whispers and power plays instead.

Garfield and Peterson disappeared into a side room with the carbon-fiber case. That conversation, Jake thought, would be one for the memory banks—pun very much intended.

Later, as the crowd mellowed over pastries and slow jazz from a hidden quartet, Jake leaned toward Sullivan.

"So... what do you think he'll do with it?"

Sullivan swirled the last of his wine, watching Peterson across the room. "Peterson? Hopefully not weaponize it. But with men like him... you never really know."

Jake nodded slowly. Beyond the grandeur and gilded manners, something ancient pulsed in this place—a hunger that predated technology. The hunger for control.

He had come to see a marvel of science.

What he witnessed was the architecture of power.

Built not on machines, but on secrets.

And whispered names behind velvet curtains.

The side room was smaller than expected—dimly lit, with oak paneling and a single arched window that framed Berlin's steel-grey sky. A leather sofa and two deep armchairs faced each other across a marble coffee table. A tray of untouched hors d'oeuvres sat nearby, but neither man paid it any attention.

Peterson closed the door behind him with a deliberate slowness, locking it with an old iron key.

Garfield stood beside the case, his hands resting lightly on it. His fingers tapped the carbon fiber shell—once, twice—then stopped.

"So," he said, "the great Kyle Peterson reclaims his crown through science now. How poetic."

Peterson chuckled. "Spare me the poetry, James. We're too old for that."

"We're too old for a lot of things. Like empire-building."

"I didn't buy it to build an empire," Peterson said, stepping forward. "I bought it to control the ashes."

Garfield raised an eyebrow.

Peterson took the armchair slowly, almost reverently, and leaned back. "You know, when I first heard about your work, I thought, 'This can't be real.' The memory machine? It sounded like another fever dream from a TED Talk addict. But then I read the details. The scans. The neural signatures. It terrified me."

"You're welcome," Garfield said, settling into the opposite chair.

"Tell me something, doctor—how do you sleep? Knowing you've built something that could turn truth into a commodity."

"I sleep just fine. Truth already is a commodity. I've just made the market honest."

Peterson gave a hollow laugh. "Honest. You think this will make the world more honest?"

"No. But it'll force us to stop pretending memory is sacred and untouched. Every court, every government, every intelligence agency—they'll all have to confront what they've tried to manipulate for decades."

"You say that like a man who still believes in systems."

"I believe in inevitability. Same as you."

There was a pause. The air grew heavier.

Peterson leaned forward, elbows on his knees. His eyes gleamed with something colder than ambition.

"You know why I really bought it?"

Garfield didn't answer.

Peterson continued. "Not to own it. Not to license it. I bought it to bury it."

"Bury it?" Garfield narrowed his eyes.

"I have a vault in Liechtenstein. Climate-sealed. No signals. Lead-lined. That machine's going into that vault, and it's never coming out again."

"You paid sixty-five million euros to lock it away?"

"Sixty-five million to protect what little peace we have left. Imagine what would happen if this got into the wrong hands. The Chinese. The Pentagon. Hell, the tabloids. Every scandal, every personal trauma, every classified operation—it's all fair game. You've created a god, Alaric. And I won't let men worship it."

Garfield sat back, silent for a long moment.

Then he said, almost softly, "You think locking it up will stop the idea? You really believe I didn't leave breadcrumbs for others to follow?"

Peterson's mouth twitched. "You didn't."

"You're certain?"

The silence stretched again.

Then Peterson spoke, and this time there was no bluster, no arrogance—just a tired edge to his voice. "I lost my son. Not to war, or cancer, or anything that makes a man weep with dignity. I lost him to ambition. Mine. If he'd had this machine... he would've seen the truth. He would've known how much I tried. How many things I wanted to say but didn't. How many apologies I buried under pride."

Garfield's expression softened, only slightly.

"But he didn't," Peterson continued. "He saw me as a monster. A man who saw people as numbers. And when he jumped from that bridge, the only message he left was a quote from Camus."

He reached into his pocket and slid a slip of yellowed paper across the table. Garfield glanced down. The handwriting was delicate and steady.

"To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others."

"I won't let the world rewrite memory," Peterson said. "Not because I don't believe in truth, but because truth without context is just another weapon."

He stood. Adjusted his cufflinks.

"You'll get your money. And your fame. But the machine? It dies with me."

Garfield nodded slowly, like a man watching a chessboard shift before him.

"And if someone else builds it again?"

"Then God help us all."

He turned to leave.

But at the door, he paused, hand on the old iron key.

"You're still a brilliant bastard, James. But brilliance is no substitute for restraint."

The door closed with a soft, final click.

Garfield sat alone, staring at the carbon-fiber case, fingers steepled beneath his chin.

He whispered, more to himself than anyone else:

"You can bury a machine... but you can't bury a future."