Gazing into the bottom of a glass, Vincent began to grasp the scale of what would unfold the next day. They would use all the power in the world against him, but that didn’t scare him. What truly worried him was the collateral damage...

  "Ah, shit..."

  He cursed under his breath, trying to drown out the guilt that crept in.

  It had to be done. There was no other way.

  He replayed the possible scenarios in his mind over and over, counting the number of victims the economic disaster he was about to trigger would leave behind. He tried to counterbalance it with the lives he would save… with the positive impact it would bring to the world… and still, the weight of guilt on his shoulders didn’t lighten.

  Come on, Vincent. Don’t be such a coward.?

  He downed the glass in one gulp. He was drinking alone. It was only then he noticed that the sound of helicopters had stopped. They had been picking people up ever since his presentation ended. They needed to flee. To mitigate their losses.

  "Ha… idiots."

  He laughed, half slumped in the armchair.

  The ballroom was empty, except for his bodyguards and the service androids clumsily cleaning up the mess left behind by the stampede of people who had fled. A couple of idiots had tried drinking with him, trying to convince him of how useful they could be… but they left when he wouldn’t stop laughing in their faces.

  There had also been a couple of assassination attempts. Pathetic ones, of course. After all, Vincent had screened everyone before they entered, so the only things they could use against him were the fine shrimp tableware and a fondue fork. Their decrepit bodies posed no threat. His bodyguards didn’t even need to step in right away; he took the pleasure of landing a few blows himself before they were subdued.

  He had to savor those moments, as sweet and rare as the nectar of a flower. What awaited the world were years of suffering. A chaotic transition, filled with hunger, uncertainty, and despair. He prayed he would have the strength to avoid taking the easy way out when guilt began to crush him.

  There was no turning back…

  Sometimes, he wished he could be more selfish… less empathetic.

  Why can’t I enjoy material pleasures like the rest of the billionaires?

  He wondered.

  This is what I get for having had a loving mother and father…

  He reached for another sip, but his glass was empty. A nearby bodyguard noticed and approached.

  "Need a refill, sir?"

  He asked.

  "Huh? Yeah, sure."

  He handed him the glass.

  The bodyguard walked to a nearby table and, after a moment, returned with a bubbling glass of champagne.

  "Here you go, sir… the ones from that table are colder."

  And he was right. There was alcohol at his own table, but Vincent had the habit of chewing the ice while he drank… even so, something caught his attention.

  "Thank you very much… what was your name again? Chad?"

  He asked as he accepted the glass. An excuse to get a good look at his face.

  "It’s Carl… and it’s no problem. If you need anything else, just let me know."

  Vincent took the glass and settled back into the armchair. Even though the world never stopped turning around him, part of his mind remained active… always active.

  Carl wasn’t scheduled for service today. And the color of his neck was different.

  Maybe it was the alcohol, but he could have sworn he saw something strange on his skin, just behind the ear.

  He had always taken the precaution of pretending not to recognize those who served him, acting as if he didn’t remember their names or faces. In reality, he had memorized even their smallest mannerisms. All for one purpose: so that if one day someone came for his life, they would do it thinking his weakest point was the people around him.

  And today, that elaborate routine seemed to be paying off… He was more alert than ever.

  Even if it wasn’t someone else wearing his face, he shouldn’t have been there that day… If they were threatening his family, he might try something desperate.

  He knew the man was behind him, so he let his gaze slide toward the glass he had been served, careful not to reveal his suspicion. At the bottom of the sparkling drink, an effervescent dot clung to the glass.

  A pill.

  Like a cold shower. A frozen mantle ran down his back and brought him back to his senses. The adrenaline surge lit every fiber of his body, preparing him for danger. It was primal instinct, an automatic response triggered when one’s life is at risk.

  "Oh, damn."

  Feigning clumsiness, Vincent spilled the drink over himself.

  "S-shit…"

  Carl made a move to approach, but Vincent stopped him before he could take a single step.

  "Don’t bother, I was craving whiskey anyway. Go get me one from the cellar, will you? I have to take a leak."

  He stood up, staggering slightly, selling the act with ease. He didn’t just have one bodyguard. His men were posted at every exit, all over the building.

  If my security detail is compromised, then I can’t trust anyone…

  One of his guards tried to follow him to the bathroom, but Vincent pushed him away after questioning his sexuality, unbuckling his belt and threatening to piss in the hallway. He managed to get him to back off, though the man stayed posted by the door. That day, more than ever, he had reinforced the security of the entire tower: hundreds of guards, snipers in the neighboring buildings, and aerial control drones.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  …And as far as he was concerned, he couldn’t trust a single one.

  Once inside, he leaned against the sink and splashed his face with cold water. The dizziness persisted. He tried to focus, separating the urgent from the fog in his head.

  Think, think… it was this bathroom, right?

  He turned and scanned the place with his eyes. He knew there was a hidden exit somewhere. Concealed within the stalls.

  "If I’m not mistaken, the exhaust shaft should be around here…"

  Once inside the stall, he closed the lid and stepped onto the toilet, checking the tiles behind him. He ran his hand over them, applying pressure until he found the one that gave way… after several tries, he found the right one.

  A dull click.

  He pressed one of the black tiles, and it lifted. A light scanned his hand, verifying his identity. Immediately after, the wall behind the toilet split in two, revealing a small emergency elevator.

  During the construction of the tower, several of these had been installed in secret. Hidden inside false columns, a series of tubular elevators had been distributed throughout the building in case of an extreme situation, forming an escape network only he knew about.

  Wasting no more time, Vincent squeezed himself through the hatch. The capsule-shaped compartment barely had room for one person. After pressurizing, it dropped in free fall more than 700 meters down to the third basement level of the Helix Tower.

  The rapid pressurization and brutal speed of the descent stole the breath from his lungs. The pressure in his head became unbearable. His vision blurred. And then… nothing.

  When he woke, the disorientation was total. He had no idea how much time had passed since his escape.

  He had to fight to get out of the capsule, eventually emerging into a dark room filled with steam. Immediately after, he painted the floor with a mix of champagne and shrimp. He felt like he had just stepped off a roller coaster.

  "Urgh… blergh!"

  He vomited again, coughing between retches. He wiped himself with his jacket.

  "Well… ugh… a stomach cleanse. I had to do it anyway in case the shrimp were poisoned."

  He joked to himself, somewhat relieved to have survived the fall.

  Before leaving the machine room, he took a pistol and a set of keys hidden inside the same capsule.

  "I hope I don’t have to rely on this… I can barely stand, let alone aim."

  Fortunately, no one seemed to have noticed his escape yet. The third basement level was where the logistics and customer service employees parked, so security was much laxer there than in the executive sector.

  After making sure the coast was clear, Vincent pressed the key to call his vehicle. The autonomous car wasn’t registered under his name; no one should know it was there. He got in and activated the autopilot toward his safe house, an estate on the outskirts of the city.

  "Time to rely on the enemy one last time…"

  He muttered bitterly as he entered the electric vehicle from the competition.

  "In this condition, I can’t even hold the wheel."

  He reclined the seat back and sank into it, making sure his face was hidden as he left. Still, it was hard to relax. The sterile interior of the car smelled of new plastic and disinfectant, and it was stocked with medical supplies in case his escape hadn’t been so clean. Suture kit, defibrillators, an oxygen mask… He was glad he hadn’t needed to use them.

  "If only I’d kept some hangover pills in the first-aid kit…"

  He joked, feeling slightly more at ease.

  Since it was common for employees to return asleep in their cars after working so late into the night, the guard didn’t bother checking his departure. After all, the only thing that mattered was revenue.

  Getting out of the city was difficult. Even if he wasn’t the one driving, lying back in a drunken state while trying to stay lucid took all his effort. Every turn of the car disoriented him; he had the car make a couple of loops along the way, only poking his head out to make sure no one was following him.

  The fear of a sniper blowing his brains out made Vincent cling to his weapon like it was a cross.

  It wasn’t until he reached the highway that his state of alert began to fade. Far from the skyscrapers, far from prying eyes…

  They must have noticed I escaped by now… if the tower’s forces weren’t completely compromised, the group loyal to me should have realized something was wrong…

  He wondered why no one had contacted him. His security team should have already tried to reach him somehow. He checked his pocket, but didn’t find his phone.

  "Shit… must have been left on the couch."

  He cursed under his breath, though in a way, it was a blessing. He didn’t know if his phone had been compromised. Fortunately, he had a replacement in the glove compartment.

  "Let’s see… for safety, I won’t contact the tower division. But the team at the estate should be clean."

  He searched through the saved contacts. His vision was blurry, so it wasn’t until he tried to make a call that he realized it.

  No signal.

  "Huh?"

  Something unheard of for him. The phone in his hand used his own technology as its sole means of communication. The twin particles transmitted directly to a network of servers in space. There was no interference. There were no failures. Nothing was more secure.

  "It can’t be… the only way it could fail is if…"

  He looked out the window, into the darkness of the sky. His satellite network wrapped around the globe, and the mesh they formed was always visible when the sky was clear. He blinked several times, trying to focus his vision. He raised a hand to block the glass reflection and squinted, searching the starry night for his satellites.

  "Nothing… They wouldn’t… They couldn’t."

  For his network to go completely down, more than 50% of his satellites would have to be physically destroyed, each one three times the size of the old International Space Station. To think they would do such a thing just to stop him… it would mean leaving half the world without internet. It would require entire nations to mobilize their missiles.

  The mere thought that they would respond so quickly and disproportionately was hard to imagine… until a small glint crossed the sky, followed by a tiny explosion in the dark night.

  "N-no…"

  He backed away from the window, terrified. He didn’t want to believe what he had just seen. A missile had destroyed one of his satellites… he couldn’t be sure, but it was the only possible explanation for that explosion.

  His calculations had been wrong. He had underestimated the powerful’s response to his threat. A cornered dog is the most dangerous… although, in this case, it was a pig.

  Damn it… if only I had been more careful…

  He thought about how foolish he had been to expose himself like this… but there had been no alternative. He hadn’t done it just to gloat in their faces. The panic had been necessary. Part of the plan.

  And before he could dwell on it any longer, his vehicle emitted a mechanical noise, followed by a spark on the dashboard… Seconds later, the car made an announcement.

  "Autopilot disengaged."

  The car’s console delivered the message coldly. The steering wheel extended toward him, demanding that he take control.

  "H-Hey… activate autopilot!"

  He ordered, trying to reactivate the function from the touchscreen.

  Nothing.

  The car didn’t respond. The console shut down completely, handing him control without warning. He knew something was wrong. He knew it wasn’t a coincidence. It had happened without any alert. Without slowing down before giving him control…

  This was planned. "Drunk billionaire dies at the wheel after destroying his satellites…" He could already predict tomorrow’s headlines.

  The alcohol in his blood slowed his reactions. The curves were coming fast, and the vehicle kept accelerating. A rush of memories flooded his mind, but he refused to grant himself an epilogue. He could still fight.

  Unable to control the vehicle and with a collision inevitable on the horizon, he did the only thing he could: decide when it would happen. If he let it keep gaining speed, he wouldn’t survive the crash. He couldn’t trust the airbags to work, so, carefully, he steered the deadly machine toward the guardrails at the side of the road.

  Sparks burst like fireworks as the body scraped against the barrier. Vincent tried to reduce speed through friction, but the upcoming turn was far too tight. If he kept going, the metal barrier would spear the car like a lance.

  He had seconds to decide.

  Rollover… head-on collision… skid.

  He mentally reviewed the survival rates of each type of crash. He had been planning to launch his own line of cars, so he had studied safety test drives. The most viable option seemed to be crashing into a patch of bushes on the next curve; with luck, the vegetation would absorb part of the kinetic energy.

  He clenched his teeth, bracing for impact. Gravel crunched under the tires, and just before hitting the bushes, he jerked the wheel with all his strength. A controlled rollover into the vegetation was the best way to mitigate the blow.

  A burst of metal, glass, and snapping branches accompanied the brutal jolt that threw him against the seat.

  One.

  Two.

  Three rolls…

  The airbags didn’t deploy, but the car stopped.

  The noise went silent. Everything went silent…