Killed at Eighteen, Billionaire Alpha at Dawn

Chapter 3

They kept him restrained for six hours. Six hours. Arashi thought he would go crazy. 

When they finally released him, Arashi's first instinct was to run. But the door was locked and the room had no windows and his back still ached where the bullet had gone in and he'd just been told that there were a bunch of rich and powerful people trying to kill him. That kind of thing tended to make even hotheads patient. 

So he waited.

Rue returned with breakfast. Eggs, toast, coffee. Real food, not the processed garbage from the group home.

"Eat," Rue said.

Arashi didn't move. "What happens now?"

"Now we begin testing." Rue sat across from him. "You'll undergo a series of evaluations. Physical, cognitive, psychological. We need to establish baseline capabilities."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then you confirm you should have been the one cremated, not the sorry sack that tried to steal from me.”

Arashi picked up the fork. His hand was steadier than he expected. Would you look at that. "What kind of tests?"

"The kind Cassian designed." Rue sipped his own coffee. "He believed intelligence was useless without pressure. Comfort breeds weakness. That sorta thing. You'll be evaluated under stress."

Arashi nearly snorted. "I've been under stress my whole life."

"Different kind." Rue's expression was unreadable. "This won't be about survival. As I said, it's about pressure. Will you crack or will you rise?” He seemed to find that funny. 

Arashi ate. The eggs were good.

When he finished, two men entered. Security, clearly. The boring black uniforms was a dead giveaway. They didn't speak, just gestured for him to follow.

The facility was larger than he'd realized. Long, endless corridors, numbered doors, everything sterile and quiet. They led him to a room marked Testing Bay 3.

Inside was a table, two chairs, and a woman in a gray suit.

"Sit," she said.

Arashi sat.

She placed a tablet in front of him. "You'll be shown a sequence of images. After each sequence, you'll answer questions about what you saw. You have three seconds per question. Begin."

The screen lit up.

Images flashed. Faces, numbers, symbols, patterns. Too fast to consciously process. Arashi's brain scrambled to track them.

The images stopped.

First question appeared: How many faces showed fear?

He answered. Then the next question. Then the next.

It went on for twenty minutes. It felt longer. 

When it ended, the woman took the tablet. "Eighty-nine percent accuracy. Impressive."

"What does that mean?"

"It means your pattern recognition is optimal." She stood. "Next test."

The next room had no furniture. Just padded walls and a man waiting inside. Older than Arashi. Built heavier. The bloke even looked military.

"Defend yourself," Rue's voice said from a speaker overhead.

The man moved.

Arashi barely dodged the first punch. The second caught his shoulder, spun him sideways. He recovered, dropped low, swept at the leg, old instincts taking over as he faced yet another fight for his life. 

The man didn't go down.

They traded blows for two minutes. Arashi held his own but couldn't gain advantage. Every move he made, the man countered. Every opening he saw, the bloke closed before he could exploit it. Arashi gritted his teeth and endured. 

Finally the speaker crackled. "Stop."

Both men stepped back, breathing hard.

"Heart rate variability optimal," Rue said. "Tactical adaptation within acceptable range. Proceed."

Four more tests followed.

Memory recall under physical pain. Logic puzzles while standing in ice water. Verbal reasoning while being screamed at by three people simultaneously.

Arashi endured. That was all he could. Endure or die. Crack or rise. There were only two options this time. The world had never given him any before. 

By the end he was exhausted, shaking, vision blurred from fatigue.

They brought him back to the medical room. Gave him water. Let him sit.

Rue appeared twenty minutes later.

"You performed well," he said. 

"Great." Arashi wanted to sleep and wake up yesterday. 

"There's one more test."

Arashi looked up. "Now?"

"Yes."

Rue placed a black box on the table and opened it. Inside was a mechanical puzzle, intricate and strange, obsidian pieces interlocking in ways that seemed geometrically impossible.

"Solve it," Rue said.

Arashi stared at the thing. "How?"

"That's for you to answer, boyo."

He reached for it. Turned it over. The pieces shifted but didn't separate. He tried different angles, different pressure points, different sequences.

Nothing worked.

Ten minutes passed.

Twenty.

Sweat dripped down his temples. His hands were cramping. Rue said they'd kill him if he failed. He didn't want to die. 

Well, he didn't want to die a second time. 

"I can't," he finally said, giving up. He waited for the other shoe to drop. Would Rue do the deed himself? Shoot him in the face point blank? Arashi watched the man's hands, head scrambling to make a plan of escape. 

Rue nodded instead. He looked pleased. "Cassian couldn't either."

Arashi froze. "What?"

"That puzzle was created by a mathematician Cassian employed for thirty years. Cassian never solved it. He spent hours trying. It drove him mad." Rue smiled wistfully then closed the box. "Intelligence isn't just about finding solutions, Arashi. It's about knowing when solutions don't exist. Knowing when to stop."

"So I failed."

"No." Rue's expression softened slightly. "You recognized your limits. Most people never manage to do that. Cassian had to train himself to and it was closer to the end.” Ancient grief flickered across Rue's face, but it was gone in an instant. 

He stood.

"Get some rest. Tomorrow the real work begins."

He left.

Arashi sat alone with the closed box and the weight of everything he didn't understand pressing down like water filling his lungs.

Outside the room, in a private office three floors above, Rue reviewed the test results on his screen.

The numbers were better than expected.

He picked up his phone and dialed.

"Selene? Yes, thank you,” he said when the line connected. "He's viable. We can proceed."

A pause.

"Yes, I'm certain. He's exactly what Cassian predicted. It's almost uncanny."

Another pause.

"That should work. I'll inform him in the morning."

Rue ended the call and looked at the photograph on his desk. Cassian Giodanzo, taken decades ago, standing in front of the Milan estate. Short black hair, lean muscular build, intense eyes. 

The resemblance was undeniable.

He closed the file and left the office dark.