Behind him, the elaborate stage lit up. The large iridescent shell was the only thing shining before a sea of eyes analyzing his every move.

  The amphitheater, built specifically for this occasion, had two mirrored stages, positioned opposite each other. Oval in shape and limited in space, it bathed the spectators in a soft overhead light, reinforcing the intimacy of the setting. After all, there weren’t that many billionaires in the world.

  Only the stage where Vincent stood was illuminated. The other remained empty, for now.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, in this humble hall lies fifteen percent of the world’s wealth. Look around you and congratulate yourselves, for you belong to a very exclusive club."

  The pigs smiled and played along. They shook hands, toasted to themselves. No matter how much money they had, they never lost their taste for basking in it. They loved rolling in the mud.

  "Unfortunately, starting tomorrow, many of you will no longer be part of this club."

  He spoke with feigned regret. At this point, there was no reason to hide his contempt.

  "The billionaires’ club will soon have plenty of vacancies."

  By reflex, a few laughed, thinking it was a joke. But when no punchline came, the laughter quickly faded.

  "I’m afraid that in the new world, many of your industries will become irrelevant… I hope you’ve saved enough to live comfortably until the end of your days. Especially in friendships and love… because your gold and colored paper will lose all value after my announcement."

  No one laughed now. Some were still waiting for the punchline that would never come. Others tried to figure out how it would affect them. And, true to their nature, their only concern was whether it would affect them personally.

  "Pff! Nonsense."

  A mining magnate scoffed, certain that his sector was untouchable.

  "When you manage to pull rare metals out of thin air, let me know. I’ve had enough of your smug face."

  "Do you really think you’re invincible, Charles?"

  Vincent’s reply was ice-cold.

  "Your industry is only as strong as the thin arms of the children you use to mine cobalt. I wouldn’t be too confident."

  The pig had already been walking away, indignant, but those words stopped him cold.

  "You’ll want to see what I have to show you… Otherwise, how will you know where to move your assets?"

  The room erupted in murmurs. There was no direct communication with the outside, so they would have to wait until the party was over to protect their investments. So much wealth was concentrated in that hall that if just a couple of billionaires left early and sold off their positions, it would be enough to wreak havoc on the market.

  Even so, they understood that until Vincent revealed his hand, they couldn’t be sure which industry would be safe.

  "Hmp."

  The pig snorted in disdain but didn’t move. He needed a sip of champagne to swallow his pride.

  "Good!"

  If he left them alone, they could debate for hours whether it was wiser to stay or go, so he clapped his hands to regain the audience’s attention. He couldn’t let each person affected throw a tantrum, or it would take him all night.

  "Please, don’t think I’m doing this to mock you… No. I’m doing it as a courtesy. Tonight is a farewell party. I want you to remember the last day you believed yourselves to be the leaders of the world… cherish this memory when you’ve been reduced to irrelevance."

  As he delivered his mockery with false pity, a silver pillar rose from the floor. Cold vapor slid around it while thick tubes and valves held it in place. Its hypercooled structure gleamed under the stage lights.

  "Tonight we make history, for nothing compares to what you are about to witness."

  Another pillar descended from above, fitting perfectly with the first and forming a hollow totem in the center. A glass bell shielded its core, revealing inside only an empty dish.

  "As many of you already know, I built my fortune thanks to the phase particle. A technology capable of atomically linking two points in space, completely ignoring the distance between them… twin particles."

  An android approached from the edge of the stage and, without a word, handed him something: an apple. Vincent took it without taking his eyes off the audience.

  "But the phase particle was always just a means to an end. The vehicle that would bring us closer to a science-fiction world that was impossible until yesterday."

  He took a bite of the apple. It was juicy and crisp.

  "As you can see, what I have in my hand is a simple piece of fruit. There’s nothing special about it, aside from the fact that it’s delicious."

  He bent forward slightly, extending the apple toward the audience so they could examine it.

  "You can try it if you want."

  Like a horde of pigs rummaging through garbage, the billionaires lunged toward his hand, eager to inspect the fruit. But the moment they realized Vincent was mocking them, their enthusiasm vanished instantly.

  Continuing with the presentation, he approached the totem. In response, the glass bell rose automatically with a soft hum.

  He placed the apple on the dish and rotated it, like a beer commercial showing off the logo, making sure the bite mark was visible to everyone. The murmurs grew louder with each of his movements. Some had already guessed what he was about to reveal. Comparing his machine with the information gathered through corporate espionage, the rumors were beginning to seem real.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  The more powerful they were, the more access to information they had.

  Money finds a way…

  Even so, they couldn’t help but be shocked by what was about to happen. If the leaks about his invention were true, then they had reason to be afraid.

  "It’s not possible… It shouldn’t…"

  A man muttered, unable to believe what he was seeing.

  Vincent had managed to instill fear in one of the fattest pigs, one of the five richest men in the world.

  "It shouldn’t be working, should it?"

  He replied, directing the question to the elder pig.

  He had paid special attention to this man. With a fortune rivaling his own, Vincent considered him an enemy. He would be one of the most affected tonight. The magnate, owner of the largest logistics and shipping company in the world, reacted immediately. He frowned; he was taking this entire presentation as something personal.

  "I know corporate espionage is standard practice, Jeff, I don’t take it as an offense… In fact, I’ve been leaking the information myself. Just with a slight delay."

  The audience was left speechless, at least those who had access to the leaks. Before their eyes was the embodiment of what could mean the end of global logistics as they knew it. Even in disbelief, some dismissed the evidence in front of them or, at the very least, tried to feign ignorance.

  It wasn’t until the second mirrored stage lit up behind them that they realized the truth. A second totem rose on the newly illuminated stage. The preparations for Vincent’s presentation were complete.

  "Here begins a new era. Until yesterday, global trade was limited by crude physical constraints like space and time. But what if every industry were local? What if any product could be obtained instantly?"

  With the screen embedded on the back of his wrist, Vincent activated the machine. The totems began to hum, anticipating what was about to happen.

  "Those kinds of questions will answer themselves once this new technology, matter teleportation, reaches the public tomorrow."

  And with the conclusion of his speech, he tapped his wrist one last time to initiate the teleportation.

  "Ladies and gentlemen… welcome to the future."

  With an intense flash, the apple Vincent had bitten just moments before vanished from the totem, materializing in the receiver on the other side of the hall.

  It took them a few seconds to react. Everything had happened so quickly that they couldn’t believe it. Such a disruptive technology should have caused a reaction equal to its importance… but it didn’t. The apple was simply there, resting on the dish, as if it had always been.

  "W-what? This can’t be possible… No!"

  The man blinked, shook his head, trying to rationalize what he had just witnessed. Maybe it was a trick. Maybe Vincent was lying. He had to check for himself.

  "This is a scam! You just want to stir the market to crash my shares."

  The magnate shouted, unable to believe how his industry had been made irrelevant in a single second.

  "E-even if it were true, global adaptation will take years!"

  Desperate, he pushed through the sea of people and crossed the hall to the second totem. The glass bell lifted, and he grabbed the apple, inspecting its integrity with trembling hands.

  And he’s right… It will take some time before this technology becomes common use. But the initial shock will be enough to separate me from them. I’ve shorted the largest companies, so when the stocks collapse, I’ll have put enough distance between us that they won’t be able to sink this project.

  "We still don’t know the limitations of this technology! Is an apple the only thing it can teleport? What about something heavier, more complex, or larger? We don’t even know how often it can do it."

  The man kept spitting excuses to his peers. He knew that if panic took over them, they would cannibalize each other, and Vincent was counting on it.

  "If that’s what worries you, let me put you at ease."

  He pulled something from his pocket and placed it on the dish. It was a cellphone.

  "I can send as many apples as I want!"

  He tapped a few buttons on the screen on his wrist and, with a flash, the high-end cellphone appeared on the other side of the room. To everyone watching, it looked like magic.

  On the other side, the bell lifted again. This time, the man took the transported object much more carefully, stunned by the complexity of what he had just witnessed.

  Impatient and, in a way, hungry for the spotlight, some jumped onto the stage to get a better look. The phone powered on. The technology worked. While some were devastated by Vincent’s invention, others were fascinated. They wouldn’t be where they were if they didn’t know how to profit from a bad situation. For them, productivity would skyrocket. This would pave the way for space mining, and for the filthiest minds, irregular manufacturing in clandestine industries in the third world.

  The murmurs of both desperation and opportunity interrupted the presentation. His voice drowned in the noise.

  "Hey! Can you put it back on the totem? I need my phone!"

  Vincent shouted to the crowd, miming frustration as if he had lost control.

  "Well… never mind."

  He began programming the machine again from his wrist. The bell on the other side closed, though it remained empty. The audience paid it no mind.

  "I can bring it back anyway…"

  With another flash, the cellphone appeared in the totem beside him.

  The murmurs stopped instantly, because the original cellphone was still in the pigs’ hands, still being examined.

  "Huh?"

  They had to look twice to be sure it was real.

  On the other side of the hall, Vincent was already pulling the cellphone from the totem. But from their perspective, the bell had been empty the whole time… or at least that’s what they thought.

  Their noses pressed against the glass bell. The totem was not empty. It never had been. There had always been a ceramic dish inside… The only difference was that the one on their side seemed to be missing a piece.

  "Ah!"

  The pigs screamed.

  Another blinding flash burned their corneas. He had done it on purpose. He knew they were too close to the machine.

  The dish was missing another piece, and on his side, another cellphone appeared. Vincent took both phones and walked to the edge of the stage. He tossed them like trash, straight at the pigs, for them to examine.

  "You see… while working on this technology, I had an epiphany. If transporting an object requires completely atomizing it, then once the information of its structure has been stored, there is no reason the transported object needs to keep the same form."

  Vincent kept speaking, but no one was listening. They were too busy processing what they had just seen.

  He moved his fingers across the screen on his wrist and, with each tap, a new flash lit up the stage. One, two, three… the bursts of light fired like he was on the red carpet. Behind him, the totems began spitting out objects, restructuring matter between them. A gold bar. Medicine. A next-generation processor. A bundle of cash. A weapon.

  Matter was just that… matter.

  "I don’t need factories. I don’t need hands to work the raw materials. I don’t need logistics or distribution."

  He stepped forward, extending his arms toward his audience.

  "Any object can be replicated. At no cost. With no effort."

  They wanted to curse him… kill him. But their words died in their throats. Before their eyes, the possibility of a world that didn’t need them became more real with every passing second.

  "The industries you built are dead. Your gold, your oil, your factories… irrelevant. The only thing that gave you power was scarcity. But scarcity no longer exists."

  Vincent looked at them with a macabre smile, scanning the hall as chaos began to spread among the pigs. They squealed as if being led into the slaughterhouse. They searched for their phones, but didn’t have them. They murmured, tried to rationalize what they had seen. They looked to their peers, hoping one of them would recover control… composure.

  "You’ve always felt untouchable. You believed money made you immune to change. That you could control progress, as you’ve done for centuries."

  He paused. Savored the moment. Now that they knew there was no escape, they listened intently.

  "You wanted to stop my progress."

  He bowed slightly, mimicking the pompous gestures they so loved to use among themselves.

  "Welcome to the new world."