Martha Miller stared at the paper on the table in the way people normally looked at venomous snakes. Her hands clawed at the polished wood, scratching it with her nails.
"Fake..." she whispered. Her voice was tinged with a trembling quality. And then she screamed, "FAKE! This is a forgery! You typed this up in a basement! You think you can come in here and steal my company with just some paper?"
She had an absolutely wild look in her eyes as she scanned the room.
"Don't just sit there!" she screeched at the stunned directors. "He's lying! Security! Chief Wilson! Get in here!"
The boardroom doors swung open again.
In walked a tall, broad-shouldered man dressed in a uniform. It was Chief Wilson, the head of corporate security. He was on the Miller payroll for the last ten years, mostly doing their dirty work.
Martha's face flashed with that triumphant malice of hers. "Wilson! Thank God! Arrest this intruder. Break his legs! Toss him out of the window!"
Wilson walked past the shuddering directors. He strode straight for the head of the table where I was seated.
Martha smirked at me. "You're done, Ethan. Wilson's ex-Special Forces. He'll snap you like a twig."
Wilson stood before me. He looked over the seal of "Dragon Capital" on the document. Viper was behind me. Then, he looked at me.
Wilson was a smart guy. He understood the meaning of "Dragon Capital". He knew that Miller Corporation has been bought out just five minutes ago. His paycheck, now, comes from me.
Click.
His heels clicked. He bowed at an angle of forty-five degrees.
"Mr. Wright," he said resonatingly, "Welcome to the building. We have the perimeter secured according to your instructions, sir."
Martha's smirk was wiped clean off of her complexion and shattered across the ground with the rest of her sanity.
"Wilson? What are you doing here?" she gasped. "I pay your salary! Arrest him!"
Slowly, Wilson turned to Martha. His gaze was a frigid stone.
"You paid my salary, Ms. Miller," Wilson corrected her. "As of 9:05 A.M. Mr. Wright is the sole owner of this building. You are currently trespassing."
"Intrusion?!" exclaimed Martha. "I built this company! This is my office!"
Tap. Tap. I tapped my finger against the table.
''Wilson,'' I said quietly, admiring the ''annoying noise level''.
''Understood, Sir.''
Wilson grabbed his radio. ''Team Alpha, get in here. Escort the intruder out.''
Martha would not relent, though. She was immediately met with a flurry of noise created from two muscular guards rushing in to intercept her. No hesitation in her command; one guard was commanded to grab her left side, while the other took off her right side.
"Have me released immediately!" Martha kicked and screamed like a banshee. "I am Martha Miller! You can't do this! I’ll sue you! I’ll kill you all! Ethan, you ungrateful bastard!"
I did not so much as cast a glance at her. I picked the financial report up off the table and began to read it.
"Drag her out," ordered Wilson. "She resists, call the cops, and charge her for embezzlement."
"NOOOO! MY COMPANY! MY MONEY!"
Martha's screams were drowned by the final echo down the corridor when she was dragged away. Her feet dragging aimlessly on carpet.
The boardroom fell into deathly silence. The remaining eleven directors were sweating profusely; all looking toward where Martha had sat, then at me. Terrified. They all knew they had supported David in the past, and had all laughed when I was imprisoned.
I shut the file.
Glancing upward, I said, "Now that the trash is over with, let's think about the future."
I scanned the respective faces of the directors.
"Director of Finance," I said.
The balding man jumped out of his seat. "Y-Yes, Mr. Wright!"
"Didn't you approve the transfer of funds to David's personal account for his 'business trips' to Vegas?"
The man had become starkly pale. "I... I had orders to do so..."
I said, "Fired. Get out."
"But—"
"Viper."
As the Viper stepped up, the finance director flew out of his chair, never looking back.
"Director of Operations, you cut the safety budget for the factory workers to maximize profit margins. My wife worked at that factory. She inhaled toxic fumes for three years because of broken ventilation."
The lady in gray shook unceremoniously. "Please, Mr. Wright, I have a family..."
"The workers did, too," I said, coldly. "Fired. Get out."
And I went one after the other.
Fired. Fired. Fired.
In five minutes, the room was by and large empty. Only one person was left.
A young girl sat at the far end of the table. She was not a director but a secretary taking minutes. Her head was bent so low as to fade into insignificance.
"You," I said.
She shuddered, looking up while nervously adjusting her glasses. "M-Me? I’m just a minute-taker, sir. I... I’ll pack my things."
"What is your name?"
"Linda, sir. Linda Chen."
"Linda," I looked at her. System Diagnosis: Highly Intelligent. Honest. Suppressed ambition. "Three years ago, you submitted a proposal to modernize the logistics chain. It was thrown in the trash and laughed at by David. Correct?"
Linda's eyes widened. "How... How did you know this?"
I offered no explanation as I knew all.
"It was a good proposal," I said. "It would have saved the company ten million dollars."
I rose from my seat.
"Linda Chen. From this instant, you are the new CEO of Miller Corporation."
Clang.
The pen dropped from Linda's hand. "C-C-CEO? Me? But I'm just a secretary!"
"Not anymore," I said, advancing toward the door. "You have absolute authority. Re-hire the factory workers. Fix the ventilation. And liquidate all of David and Martha's personal assets linked with the company-car-and-house package."
I halted at the door and turned slightly.
"Do not disappoint me."
I left the room with Linda stunned, sitting there holding the keys of a billion-dollar empire.
Location: Sky Garden Villa.
The noontime sun was warm.
Sarah sat in the private garden and stared at a rose bush. She was clad in the silk robe that cost more than everything she had worn over the last five years put together.
It felt like a dream. The servants called her "Mistress." The chef would ask her what she wanted for lunch.
But something else was racing through her mind.
Ethan... just who are you really?
The man who used to catch bugs and let them go outside without harming them came to her mind. Gentle was the man who came back... this one broke bones without even blinking, buying companies like he was buying groceries.
Bzzzt.
The intercom at the main gate buzzed.
"Mistress," the voice of the head butler came on the speakers in the garden. "There is a... visitor at the gate. He claims to be from the Imperial Capital."
"The Capital?" Sarah frowned. River City was just a small pond compared to the Capital. The powerful families of the Capital were real monsters.
"Who is it?"
"He says his name is Elder Mo. He says... he has information about your husband biological parents."
Sarah's heart skipped a beat.
Ethan was an orphan. He never knew who his real parents were. The Millers had adopted him just to access a small trust fund.
"Let him in," Sarah ordered.
A few minutes later, a black limousine descended the winding driveway. An old man in a traditional Tang suit emerged, with long white hair and a cane made of black dragon wood.
He looked ancient, yet his eyes were penetrating.
He walked into the garden and slightly bowed to Sarah.
"Mrs. Wright," Elder Mo said, with a raspy voice. "Or should I say... Young Mistress of the Yeager Family."
"Yeager?" Sarah was confused. "My last name is Wright. Ethan's name is Wright."
Elder Mo chuckled. It was a dry, mysterious sound.
"Wright is a fake name given to him to hide him from his enemies," Elder Mo said, putting his hand up the sleeves of his robe to retrieve a wooden box.
"For twenty years, my Master—Ethan's grandfather—has been looking for him. Just yesterday, we finally pinpointed the energy signature back to River City."
Elder Mo handed the box to Sarah.
"Give this to him. Tell him... the Yeager Family faces a calamity. We need the Dragon to return."
Before Sarah had any chance to ask something more, Elder Mo turned.
"Wait!" Sarah called. "Who are you? Why did you leave him?"
Elder Mo paused and turned back; a shadow of sadness reflected in his eyes.
"We did not leave him. We hid him. Because if the world knew who he really was...the sky would burn."
He entered the limousine, which departed without any sound, like a ghost.
Sarah remained in place, clutching the heavy wooden box. A strange vibration emanated from it.
Ethan... just what kind of world have I stepped into?
Latest Chapter
The Shadow of the Conductor
Zenith-Prime. The Temple of Echoes.Time: 02:05 Hours Post-Jump.The black neutronium tuning fork hairline ripped away in the form of a spider-webbed outward.Ethan supported the focussed ray of blue plasma in place. The intensity of the heat emitted through his arm and the White Bio-Steel was disastrous. The plating melted and became a blinding sickly white. His artificial nerve endings, in his shoulder, cried out, but he was not going to cut the connection. He infused all the remaining energy of chaos of his essence into the strike."Cease this madness!" The Prime shrieked. The Guardian of the Source was struggling in the stream of blue plasma, its violet light flickering and disintegrating in the sheer power of Ethan his discordant power. And you will destroy the localized reality field!"Then we fall together!" Ethan roared.The fissure on the tuning fork extended out into a sharp gulf of flashing bluish light. The stuttering of the First Note frequency was the absolute zero. It s
The Guardian of the Source
Zenith-Prime. Inside the Temple of Echoes.Time: 02:00 Hours Post-Jump.Ethan crossed the decadent silver, barrier. The atmosphere of the Temple of Echoes was totally opposite to the one of the cave on the outside. It was physically weighty. It was like that of heavy, waving water. With every breath Ethan drew it shook his ribs and gave his human body a shiver and his White Bio-Steel arm made a sympathetic hum.Next came Jarek, with his metallic-heavy feet falling on the floor. The sound was not echoed in a regular manner. The violet crystal walls consumed it immediately, and swallowed it into the fractal geometry of the old building.The Imposter sailed over them, his chrome body showing the violet light. He gazed with very real awe.Perfect math there, The Imposter said, following a rune of silver that was molten into one finger of the next. "There is no friction. There is no decay. This whole system is a closed thermodynamic system. It will continue up to the end of time.Nothing,
The Veins of the World
Zenith-Prime. The Subterranean Descent.Time: 01:25 Hours Post-Jump.The black swallowed Ethan whole.The metallic teeth of the planetary vent clanked together some distance over his head, and the sickly purple light of the Zenith-Prime sky was cut off. The wind whistled in his ear receptors, a hurricane of stinking breath exhaled out of the lungs of a living world. He was losing control and had fallen to terminal velocity in an alien abyss."Ignite your thrusters!" Through the blowing wind Ethan called. His internal messages were in hope that they would reach Jarek and The Imposter by the sheer force of the bio-magnetic noise that the crust of the planet produced.He threw on his own boot-jets, the blue plasma falling upon the fleshy ribbed walls of the tunnel. The shaft was huge, fully half a mile broad, and was hung with throbbing skyscraper veins.Beneath these again, there was a splendid, dreadful radiance. There was a roar of sound waking along the shaft, and smothering the wind
The Immune Response
Zenith-Prime. The Surface.Time: 01:20 Hours Post-Jump.Jarek struck the cushy earth as a meteor. His Void Scythe whistled and cut a flawless black line of the poisonous atmosphere.He put the lead Antibody right along the middle. The ten-foot skeletal creature of the bone and biomechanical material collapsed, landing on the ground in two heavy and wet slabs."Too easy!" Jarek bellowed, and turned to meet the next danger."Jarek, behind you!" Elena was screaming, on the ramp of the flying Void-Skiff. She fired her sniper rifle. The explosive round hit the chest of a second golem knocking it backward.The two parts of the Antibody which Jarek had just cut were not bleeding. They writhed. The boiled dark grey tissue swelled up, and closed the cuts immediately. In a couple of seconds, the two halves were erect, two complete, full-size, five-foot-tall golems. They were smaller, yet twitchy and hyper-accelerated their movements.They pounced upon Jarek as wild dogs.They multiply, Ethan gr
The Raven's Promise
Zenith-Prime Orbit. The Debris Ring.Time: 01:15 Hours Post-Jump.Ethan did not decelerate. He flung the flight stick forward. The Void-Skiff flew through the perfidious ring of the dead worlds about the Progenitor Homeworld.The seriousness in this industry was a nightmare. There were inherent crushing force tethers of invisible pulling all around the hull. The metal groaned. The bridge was fired with warning signals.It is impossible to fly through a neutron star field blindly, Lord Gear announced at the central board. The hull will be torn open in four minutes by the gravitational shear.I am not driving in the dark, Ethan replied. His cybernetically directed eye followed a thin wavering ion line disappearing into the blackness. "I am following the rat."He turned the Skiff sharply left, and only just escaped the event horizon of a dying white dwarf. After the junk-ship, led by the Exile, Korvath."Gear. Ping his transponder. Force an open channel."The comms became static and then
The Space Between
Earth Orbit. The Void-Skiff.Time: 01:00 Hours Post-Salvage.integral complete said Lord Gear on the main console. The Singularity Core is fitted into the drive matrix. The production is at one hundred percent.Ethan sat in the pilot's chair. He moved his metal fingers through the controls. The vessel was vibrating with hideous vitality. Progenitor Core violet light leaked through the deck plates to cast the long shadows on the bridge.Set coordinates, Ethan said. "Zenith-Prime."Locked, co-ordinates locked, Gear answered. "Warning. The gravity of the Singularity Core will cause an interim hole in normal spacetime. The transport will be acute but short-term. Secure yourselves."Jarek buckled himself in the gunner seat and laid the Void Scythe on his lap. "Severe is my middle name. Let's punch it."Elena sat beside Ethan in the co-pilot position where she sat, holding tight to the armrests until her interlocked knuckles turned white.The Imposter was motionless in the middle of the bri
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