The boardroom of Blackwood & Thorne overlooked the shimmering skyline of Manhattan, but the men inside were looking at a different map. They were looking at the "End-Time Projection," a set of data that predicted the exact arrival of the alien fleet.

"The panic is our greatest asset," Julian said, leaning back in his leather chair. He was the youngest partner in the firm, a man who viewed the apocalypse as a series of investment opportunities.

Julian had pioneered the "Omega Option"—a financial derivative based on the probability of planetary survival. He had convinced the world's elite that by investing in the Omega Option, they were funding a secret "Exodus Project" that would save a chosen few.

In reality, there was no project. There was no ark. There was only a massive, complex Ponzi scheme that transferred the wealth of the terrified into a series of offshore accounts that Julian controlled.

"The beauty of it," Julian explained to his partners, "is that we don't have to deliver. By the time the aliens arrive, the accounts will be empty, and we'll be the richest men in a dead world."

For two years, the Omega Option was the only thing that mattered. Governments collapsed, and the new world order was dictated by the holders of the Option. Julian became the de facto ruler of the city, a king of the ruins, deciding who got food and who got to starve based on their investment portfolio.

He loved the power. He loved the way the most powerful men in the world crawled to him, begging for a spot on a ship that didn't exist.

But then, the sky changed.

The aliens didn't arrive with beams of light or giant ships. They arrived as a "Spatial Fold." In a single second, the distance between the stars and the city vanished. The fleet didn't descend; it was simply *there*, filling the entire horizon.

Julian stood on his balcony, watching the geometric monoliths block out the sun. He reached for his phone to check the latest market movements, but the screen was blank.

The aliens didn't care about gold. They didn't care about power. They didn't even recognize the concept of "wealth." To them, the humans were just an infestation of carbon-based life that needed to be cleared.

As the first wave of the fold began to disassemble the building, Julian looked at his bank balance on a printed sheet of paper. He had billions of dollars. He was the most successful man in history.

And as he was turned into a cloud of subatomic particles, he realized that he had spent his life trading in a currency that the universe didn't accept.

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