Page 15 - SurprisingTruthSample

Nicholas Boothman
Chapter 1:
The Architect's Weariness
Henry Talbot watched the panic line shoot straight
up on his screen. It was a shimmering blue lightning
bolt, tracking the collective freak-out of eight million
investors and God knows how many regular folks.
This thing, his custom-made "Anxiety Chart,” was
currently redlining, a full-blown crisis barreling toward
a total economic heart attack.
His office was three hundred feet up, a glass cage
stuck on the side of the tallest building downtown.
Outside, you could see the whole city, but inside, the
only landscape that mattered was digital: six glowing
screens, all running the con. Stock futures, social media
whispers, political lies, and the raw, ugly numbers that
paid his rent. Henry wasn't a banker or a suit; he was a
Chief Spin Doctor. The polite title they gave him was
"Integrity Architect," which was like calling a grave
robber a "Subterranean Retrieval Specialist." His job
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