Chapter 783

When they were just a few blocks away from PrimeStar Technologies, Charlene asked Thorne to pull over so she could get out early.

The moment she stepped onto the sidewalk, Thorne's car merged back into traffic and sped off.

Watching from a distance, Raleigh tracked their departing directions. He sat in his parked car for a long time before finally driving away.

The collaboration between PrimeStar and Axiom Flux Technologies had been running seamlessly.

After arriving at the office and running a brief morning meeting, Charlene headed straight to Axiom's headquarters.

That very afternoon, incredible news broke from Axiom: their multimodal fusion project had achieved a massive, revolutionary breakthrough.

The moment the announcement went live, the media erupted. The news sent shockwaves through the global Al community, catching the attention of experts worldwide.

Since Neural Nexus Tech was also developing autonomous driving systems, Leah Spencer and her team caught wind of Axiom's success almost immediately. They rushed to deliver the crushing news to Vesta.

When Vesta and the rest of the Hawkins and Spencer families saw the headlines, their expressions darkened.

Neural Nexus Tech had been built on the foundational framework and initial capital Thorne had provided, but the research was a financial black hole. The competition was cutthroat, and the path to profitability was murky at best. Over the past year, Vesta and her relatives had poured millions of dollars into the venture, yet they had absolutely nothing to show for it.

For the last few months, their anxiety had been mounting as rival companies steadily unveiled new advancements.

Now, with Axiom securing such a monumental technological victory, Neural Nexus's chances of survival looked bleaker than ever.

But their despair didn't end there. Shortly after the initial panic, Axiom's General Manager gave a live interview, publicly attributing their astonishing success in multimodal fusion directly to Charlene Ross.

He spared no expense in his praise, practically glowing as he spoke of her brilliance to the press.

Reading the quotes on her screen, Vesta's fingers curled into tight fists. The faces of the Hawkins and Spencer relatives contorted with a mixture of envy and panic.

Leah ground her teeth together. "Her again?! Why is it always her?! Is she really that capable?"

"Absolutely not," Rhoda scoffed, her face pale with frustration. "It has to be the work of PrimeStar's engineering team. It's not like this is the first time she's stolen all the credit for herself."

Leah sneered. "True. Shameless!"

Vesta sat quietly, refusing to chime in, but her mind was spinning, completely blanking out from the shock.

"Vesta?" Maureen Spencer noticed her daughter's dazed expression and called out a few times before Vesta finally blinked back to reality.

Assuming Vesta was just stressed about Neural Nexus's future, Maureen offered a comforting pat.

"This industry is a marathon," she said. "There are still countless technical bottlenecks to overcome. Axiom hasn't won the war yet. Don't panic."

The rest of the family eagerly nodded in agreement.

Vesta's worries, of course, extended far beyond the fate of the company.

But she kept her deeper fears hidden, forcing a tight, unconvincing smile.

However...

Not wanting to ruin the mood, Leah nervously brought up the elephant in the room. "But, Vesta... we're practically out of money, right?"

Even though Leah wasn't heavily involved in the day-to-day operations of Neural Nexus or Hawkins

Technology, she knew her familmet?

had been scraping together every spare cent just to keep the

developers paid and the servers running.

But the reality was that autonomous driving research burned through cash at a terrifying rate. The future payouts, were theoretically massive but there would be no immediate return on investment, so...

They were essentially broke.

Yes, Thorne had been financially backing them.

But-

It wasn't enough.

It wasn't even close to being enough.

The projects they were currently funding were two bottomless pits of money.

The worst part was that they had crossed the point of no return. Even if they wanted to pull the plug, they couldn't, because every single asset they owned was already tied up in the code.