The Hôtel Métropole’s bar in Geneva was made for secrets. Its lights glowed low amber, the tables polished like piano lids, the air heavy with the unspoken fact that everyone here was on someone else’s expense account. Raj adjusted the cuff of his charcoal jacket, the wool tailored to fall just so over his wristwatch. He never wore anything that glittered, nothing that screamed for attention. His presence drew eyes because he carried it lightly, not because he demanded it.

She was already there. Marianne Lenoir, Swiss-French, mid-forties, compliance officer for one of the discreet banks that still clung to Geneva’s reputation. She had a silver streak in her hair that she wore like an ornament, not a flaw. Raj liked that. It meant she knew who she was, and didn’t care to erase it.

“Mr. Kapoor,” she said as he slid into the booth opposite her. Not too warm, not too cold. She wanted him to prove himself.

“Madame Lenoir.” He let the words ride a soft smile. Polite, deferential in tone—but his eyes stayed steady on hers.

They ordered without ceremony. He a club soda with lime, she a glass of white wine. The ritual mattered less than the performance.

“You wanted to explain this… experiment?” she said.

Raj took his time, lifting the glass to his lips. In these rooms, hesitation was power. “Not explain. Share. There’s little to explain in Pegged. The rules are simple.”

Her brow arched. “So I’ve heard. A lottery dressed up as finance. And without… safeguards.”

He leaned in a fraction, enough to make the words private. “Without masters. That is the safeguard.”

She gave a laugh that cut. “You sound like a revolutionary. But my clients are not in the business of gambling.”

“Neither am I,” Raj said softly. “And neither is Pegged. It redistributes what already exists. Stablecoins, not promises. Randomness in place of power.”

Marianne swirled her wine, considering. “And if someone loses everything because of a scam? Because they send money to the wrong address? Where is the reversal, the support desk, the man to call?”

Raj let the silence linger. Then he placed the glass down with precision. “There is no man to call. That is the point. If there were, then whoever answered the call would already control the system. And what would stop them from listening only to those who pay?”

Her eyes narrowed. She was used to people bargaining, pleading, offering percentages. Not this. Not philosophy wrapped in velvet.

“Then tell me,” she pressed, “who is in charge? Who sets the rules?”

Raj smiled, the smile of a man who had walked through boardrooms and back channels, through Davos panels and desert fundraisers, and found the same question waiting at every table. He lowered his voice, as if he were letting her in on a secret.

“Chance sets the rules. Nothing else. No committee. No boardroom. Once it launches, it is untouchable. The only way to win is to play. The only way to lose is to believe you could control it.”

She tilted her head. There was an elegance to her skepticism; she was playing too. “So you’re telling me you bring me a system that cannot be amended, cannot be governed, cannot be reversed. And you expect people to trust it?”

“I don’t expect anything.” Raj leaned closer. He let his voice carry the seduction of inevitability. “But some will. They always do. And once they do, the system needs nothing else. Trust accumulates, word by word, winner by winner. That is the only legitimacy that cannot be bought.”

The waiter came and went, unnoticed.

Marianne’s fingers tapped the stem of her glass. She glanced sideways, to make sure no one was listening, then leaned in herself. The air between them tightened. “Suppose,” she said carefully, “that someone wanted to… help it along. Smooth the launch. Rig a draw or two, in favor of the right people. Wouldn’t that make it stronger? More… sustainable?”

Raj’s smile sharpened. Half invitation, half warning. “Madame, if I could do that, Pegged would already be worthless. And if I tried, I would already be dead. The system does not forgive cheats. Not me, not you, not anyone.”

Her lips parted, not quite a smile, not quite a frown. The ambiguity was the answer.

Raj eased back against the booth. His tone softened again, almost teasing. “Besides, what would be the point? People do not believe in fairness because someone tells them to. They believe when they see a neighbor win. When they hear the story passed on. That is the wheel that keeps turning—not my hand, not yours.”

She exhaled, a short laugh through her nose. He had not convinced her, but he had not yielded either. And that, in these rooms, was the only kind of victory.

They finished in silence. Her wine glass emptied, his soda barely touched. She stood first. “You are… persuasive, Mr. Kapoor.”

He rose, offering nothing more than a small bow. “I prefer inevitable.”

When she walked away, he let the mask fall for a moment. His reflection in the polished glass of the bar looked older, more tired, than he felt inside. Seduction was easy; conviction was not.

He stepped into the night. Geneva was cold, the lake black and unreadable. Raj buttoned his jacket and let the silence of the street wash over him. He hated that it had to be him—the bridge between the clean brutality of Alias’s idea and the mess of the human world. But who else could make irrevocability sound like desire?

He thought of Amara, somewhere far south, making the impossible practical. And he thought, not for the first time, that Pegged would break them all.

Yet still, he walked on.