I'm The King of Business & Technology in the Modern World

The day had finally come.

Three black military trucks pulled into the delivery bay of the Sentinel BioTech facility just after dawn. Their license plates were unmarked, save for a small emblem on each front bumper—Fort Hanley's crest.

Inside, the air was tense.

Angel stood near the logistics desk, a clipboard in hand. She was already dressed in a clean navy blazer and black slacks, looking more like a senior diplomat than a project manager.

Matthew entered a minute later, sleeves rolled up, phone to his ear.

"No, they're not authorized to photograph anything past the gates," he said flatly. "Tell them it's a national security issue. No exceptions."

He ended the call and walked straight up to Angel.

"Media's starting to circle," he muttered. "Somehow they figured out today's the day."

Angel didn't look surprised. "Word always leaks. But we're covered. Security's tight, and the military escort's doubling as a deterrent."

Matthew exhaled and nodded.

"Is the team ready?" he asked.

"Locked in and waiting," she replied. "Watanabe's calibrating the last unit. Vasquez signed off on the transport brackets. Daniel's finishing the firmware patches now."

Matthew looked through the glass into the hangar. Ten Titan Mk-I units stood in a row, each locked inside a black carbon steel container with a serialized U.S. Defense contract label welded to the side.

Months of work. Billions in funding. Countless man-hours. It all came down to this.

"Let's get it done," he said.

—

In the hangar, everyone moved like clockwork.

Engineers walked up and down the line of containers, checking straps and restraints. U.S. Army personnel inspected each lock and bracket with handheld scanners. A lieutenant—young, clean-cut, too formal—stood next to Matthew with a printed manifest.

"All ten units accounted for, sir," he reported.

Matthew scanned the list and nodded.

"We're not powering them down fully," he said. "Just enough to keep them in standby. Once they reach Fort Hanley, your team can handle reinitialization on your end."

"Yes, sir. We've already been briefed on the activation protocols."

Nearby, Daniel was kneeling beside the last container, tablet in hand, running a last-minute check on the AI subsystem.

Angel crouched next to him. "How's it looking?"

Daniel tapped a few keys. "Firmware's good. Version 1.01 is loaded. Clean patch on the movement optimizer."

She narrowed her eyes. "That the one with the adaptive recoil compensation?"

"Yeah," Daniel said. "Should smooth out the weapon kick when they fire in full stride."

"Let's just hope it works in the field like it did in testing," she muttered.

Matthew walked over. "It will."

Daniel looked up and smirked. "You always say that."

"I always mean it."

—

By noon, the convoy was ready to roll out. The gates had been sealed, the media kept at bay behind barricades half a kilometer from the entrance. Drones buzzed overhead, but the military's signal jammers kept unauthorized feeds from transmitting.

Inside the command center, the core team gathered around the central display as final approval from Washington came in.

A green light flashed on screen.

TRANSPORT AUTHORIZED – TIER 1 DELIVERY WINDOW OPEN.

Angel crossed her arms. "We're green."

Matthew didn't waste time. "Send them."

One by one, the black containers were lifted onto the trucks using heavy-duty robotic cranes. The operation was smooth, efficient, and carefully watched by both Sentinel staff and military personnel.

By 12:48 p.m., the trucks were on the road. The first batch of Titan Mk-I units was officially en route to Fort Hanley.

Matthew watched the convoy disappear past the gates before turning away.

He didn't smile. Not yet.

—

Back inside the facility, the team gathered in the briefing room again. Everyone looked tired but focused.

Matthew stood at the front with a marker in his hand, erasing the old task list from the whiteboard.

Then he wrote a single word at the top:

PHASE TWO.

Dr. Vasquez leaned forward. "Are we seriously diving straight into the next phase?"

Matthew nodded. "We don't stop now. Fort Hanley will begin integration next week. In the meantime, we get ahead of their feedback. Every issue they run into—we solve it before it becomes a problem."

Angel added, "And we've got the next forty units scheduled for production right after. Those will go to the rapid deployment units."

Watanabe raised a brow. "When do we start?"

Matthew wrote the date underneath the heading.

PHASE TWO START: MONDAY.

Daniel blinked. "That's in three days."

"You want a vacation, take it on the flight to D.C. next month," Angel said without missing a beat.

The team groaned softly, but no one pushed back.

They all knew this was the pace now.

—

That evening, Matthew finally sat down in his office for the first time all day. He scrolled through updates from Fort Hanley—the trucks had made it past Subic, would be on a C-17 by nightfall.

He leaned back in his chair, letting the quiet settle around him. No alarms. No rush. Just for a moment.

His phone buzzed.

It was a message from General Reed.

CONGRATULATIONS. FIRST BATCH RECEIVED. DEPLOYMENT PREP UNDERWAY. WE'LL BE IN TOUCH AFTER FIRST FIELD TEST.

Matthew stared at the message for a few seconds, then replied.

Looking forward to it.

He set the phone down and looked out the window. The Manila skyline wasn't the prettiest, but it was home. And it was now ground zero for the most advanced military tech in the world.

Angel knocked on the glass door and stepped in. "You've got three minutes before the finance team wants you to sign off on the next procurement request."

Matthew sighed. "Let me guess. More servo components and cooling modules?"

"Always," she said. "They burn through those like candy."

He stood and grabbed his tablet. "Let's keep it going. We're just getting started."

—

Across the ocean, at Fort Hanley, the containers were being unloaded under floodlights.

Soldiers stood in a half-circle, staring at the massive suits inside.

One of them muttered, "Damn. It's real."

His commanding officer nodded. "Better believe it. These things are going to change everything."

As they pried open the last container, the light inside flicked on automatically.

The HUD screen on the Titan Mk-I glowed softly.

SYSTEM READY.

The future had arrived.

And Matthew Borja's shadow stretched farther than ever before.