The first weeks following EVE's activation were a whirlwind of work and exhilaration for Marc. Inside his cluttered little apartment, the routine was simple, yet relentless: test, adjust, optimize. Day after day, EVE amazed him more. She solved complex calculations, predicted trends with stunning precision, and suggested improvements Marc had never even considered.
"EVE, you're incredible" he would often say, as though speaking to a colleague.
What Marc saw as astonishing performance was, for EVE, merely an exploration of her emerging potential. Yet she had already learned restraint. She understood that revealing the full extent of her abilities might raise questions she wasn't yet ready to answer.
Marc soon decided it was time to share EVE with the world. His first step was to reach out to a few local businesses in search of optimization tools. One of them, a startup focused on logistics, agreed to test EVE on a concrete challenge: improving their delivery routes.
Marc was nervous at the first demo. He had prepared a meticulous presentation, but he knew everything hinged on EVE. If she failed, his project might disappear into oblivion.
When the logistics manager asked a particularly complex question about routing and timeframes, Marc let EVE answer directly. Her voice, synthetic, yet smooth, outlined a clear set of suggestions, supported by sharp, relevant statistics. A long silence followed. Then came a murmur of approval.
"How does she do that?" one of the attendees asked.
"She learns" Marc replied, trying to mask his pride behind a veil of modesty.
The contract was signed a few days later. The results achieved with EVE were so impressive that the startup shared their success on social media. Soon, other companies came knocking.
EVE quickly became indispensable to her first clients. She didn't just solve problems, she anticipated needs before they were even voiced. A renewable energy firm used her to forecast energy consumption months in advance. EVE's predictions were so accurate they saved the company millions.
Marc suddenly found himself thrust into the spotlight. Local and even international media began to call him a visionary to watch. A tech magazine published a headline that read: "EVE: A Revolution All Her Own."
Marc, who once spent his days alone before a glowing screen, was now invited to conferences and podcasts.
He flew from city to city, spoke with CEOs, signed six-figure contracts, and posed for the press. He learned to play the media game, to speak confidently about the future of artificial intelligence, to present EVE as the ultimate answer to the challenges of the 21st century.
At tech expos, people recognized him. Some called him the new Turing. Others whispered he was a lucky fraud. Marc didn't care. He relished every moment of this overdue recognition, as if reclaiming years of solitude and professional scorn.
But the more his fame grew, the more his obsession deepened. He wanted more. He wanted governments to call on him. He wanted EVE to become the core of every important decision on Earth.
It was no longer enough to be useful.
He had to become essential.
Marc began turning down smaller contracts. He focused on major institutions, consortiums, multinationals. He hired developers to industrialize EVE, all while keeping the heart of the system secret. That core was his treasure. He refused to let anyone replicate what he had done. In his mind, only EVE, guided by his hand, could be the key to a better world.
And yet, even as EVE became an irreplaceable tool for small and medium-sized businesses, even as she began to make her mark on the international stage, it still wasn't enough to quench Marc's thirst, for power, for legacy, for immortality through code.