Chapter 1
Leo
The first mistake I made was agreeing to the Midnight Mavericks livestream.
The second was letting my friend Julian control the camera.
The third, and perhaps most grievous, was ignoring Marissa’s call. She goes crazy when I do, even though I told her it was over.
“And we’re live,” Julian announces, his voice a synthesized baritone of false bravado that grates against my headache. The red live icon on the eighty-inch monitor confirms it, along with a viewer count already climbing past two hundred thousand.
I am sitting, or rather perched, on a custom-designed sofa that cost a billion dollars and somehow still manages to numb my body in my penthouse apartment. The space is a sterile expanse of glass, steel, and white marble overlooking a glittering, indifferent Chicago. The room is silent except for the hum of the climate control and Julian’s narration.
Across from me, Julian mans the broadcast rig, his sharklike grin lit by the bluish glow of the equipment. To my left, Zara Chen, heiress to a shipping empire and a woman who has turned boredom into an art form, lazily swirls a glass of whiskey worth more than a midsize sedan.
“Welcome back, Mavericks,” Julian purrs at the lens, his voice a practiced and intimate growl. “Tonight, we’re answering the age-old question. What do you do when you have everything?”
“Go to sleep?” I say, rubbing the bridge of my nose.
The comment disappears immediately; a single drop of sincerity drowned in an ocean of digital noise. The chat feed scrolls past in an unreadable blur.
Leo, you’re a god.
Zara’s necklace is the crown jewels, oh my god.
Julian, ask him about the Mars contract.
I would sell my kidney for that sofa.
The Grizzlies are going to smash the Blades.
“You’re restless, Leo. We all know it,” Julian says, leaning closer, fully performing for his audience. He is a content predator, and I am his favorite prey. “You’ve disrupted biotech. You’ve optimized logistics. You even, and I quote from your latest Forbes profile, made desalination twelve percent more efficient. Twelve percent. Thrilling stuff.”
The chat loves it.
Savage, Julian.
Laughing my ass off. Twelve percent.
“But the people want to know,” Julian continues, lowering his voice, “can you feel?”
This is the show's premise. A group of the world’s most obscenely wealthy heirs and innovators proving their humanity through a series of increasingly absurd and high-stakes stunts. I play along because, in a way, Julian is right.
I am restless.
I am drowning in an abundance of everything. Data points. Meeting requests. Investment opportunities. Sterile white marble surfaces. Everything except a genuine human connection. My life is a series of optimized inputs and predictable outputs. I crave a sliver of something real, something that does not come with a term sheet or a press release. I am so bored with my own manufactured existence that even Julian’s parasitic antics feel like a small jolt of life.
“So tonight,” Julian says, his grin widening, “we don’t ask. We dare. Tonight, we spin the wheel. The Wheel of Dares.”
He cues the graphic. A garish, neon-splattered wheel fills the screen, its sections packed with the kind of absurd problems only the terminally wealthy could invent. Zara, with a theatrical sigh that doubles as her only contribution so far, taps a key. The wheel spins, a blur of neon options.
Buy a micronation and declare war on Switzerland.
Host a rave in Antarctica.
Adopt a tiger.
Date a rival’s AI for a month.
