Chapter 2: Mordred Capital Files Its Opening Bid

The term sheet arrived at 7:43 a.m. on a Tuesday in February, delivered by a courier in a gray suit who handed it to the Camelot receptionist with the careful neutrality of someone who had been paid to have no opinion about his cargo. The receptionist, a second-year Stanford grad named Elena who wore her Camelot badge like a decoration, called Percy immediately. Percy read the cover page in the elevator. By the time the doors opened on the executive floor, he was already typing.

Arthur learned about it at 7:51, eight minutes into his standing morning review, which he conducted the way he conducted most things — standing at the window of his glass-walled office on the fourth floor, watching the campus below come into its daily pattern, the clusters of engineers moving between buildings like information traveling through a nervous system. Percy set the envelope on the desk behind him without a word. The fact that Percy said nothing told Arthur everything about its weight before he turned around.

He turned around.