Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the Taipei nightscape stretched out like a sprawling, precision-engineered circuit board. Neon arteries and streams of headlights flowed in silence, casting a cold, affluent glow over the metropolis. This city was never short on secrets; most people simply chose to live within the comforting illusions of the mundane.
I stood in the center of my living room, swirling a glass of single malt Scotch over ice. I had just wrapped up a grueling two-hour weight training session. Years of relentless self-discipline meant my breathing had already returned to a steady, rhythmic baseline, though a lingering chill remained on my skin where the sweat had evaporated. As a bachelor standing on the precipice of forty, I thoroughly enjoyed this rhythm—one where everything remained absolutely under my control. Whether it was the pace of my daily life or the strategic layout of my business, I was a man hardwired to dominate. In my world, there were no coincidences. There was only precisely calculated inevitability.
But tonight, a single phone call disrupted my cadence.
On the brushed-steel surface of the desk, my phone let out a low, guttural vibration. The screen illuminated with a chillingly brief notification: Caller ID Unknown.
I raised an eyebrow. Pressing the speakerphone button with one hand, I brought the crystal tumbler to my lips with the other, letting the sharp, amber liquid burn its way down my throat.
“Speak,” I said, my voice deep, devoid of any impatience.
“Am I speaking with Mr. Eric?” a calm, impeccably polite male voice inquired from the speaker. “Good evening, sir. I am the Executive Secretary of HLA Corporation. Our Chairman has a private affair of an exceptionally unique nature and paramount importance to discuss. He wishes to formally invite you to his office for a personal consultation.”
“The Chairman?” I keenly cataloged the caller’s breathing and the background ambiance. It was sterile, perfectly devoid of ambient noise. “I don’t recall anyone on my client roster whose secretary reaches out via restricted numbers.”
“My humblest apologies, sir. It is true that you do not know him yet. However, the Chairman noted that if I simply mentioned to you ‘the black building in the Da’an District,’ you would understand completely.”
At those words, my pupils tightened. My fingers clamped a fraction harder around the heavy base of my glass.
It was a heavily guarded memory. Not long ago, I had been escorted to a windowless, monolithic black structure in the heart of Da’an. Deep within its subterranean levels, I had witnessed a blood-sport arena engineered to the highest UFC specifications—a shadow syndicate bankrolled and manipulated by the world’s topmost billionaires and power brokers. It was a forbidden sanctuary of blood, capital, and unadulterated violence. A blind spot where the law could not reach.
“The Chairman emphasizes that this matter has nothing to do with the matches. It is a critical situation of a far greater magnitude, one far too sensitive for a phone line. We require your presence in person,” the secretary continued, his tone remaining perfectly level. “A private transport will arrive precisely at eight o’clock tomorrow evening in the lobby of your residence. We would be profoundly grateful for your compliance.”
The call cut off, leaving the harsh, hollow ring of a dial tone echoing in the quiet room.
I leaned back against the leather sofa, watching the ice cubes slowly disintegrate in my glass. My life had been structured and predictable for far too long. The predator gene buried deep within me, starving for adrenaline, had been quietly awakened by that single voice. A slow smile crept onto my face as I drained the final drop of whiskey.
The following evening, exactly at 8:00 PM.
The moment I stepped into the ground-floor lobby, a matte-black luxury van pulled up to the entrance with Swiss-watch precision. The windows had been treated with an obsidian tint so dark it resembled polished jet, making it entirely impossible to peer inside from the street.
The side door slid open with a muted hiss, and I bent low to step inside. The interior was cavernous, smelling faintly of premium distressed leather and a subtle, masculine wood-smoke cologne. The driver, clad in a sharp black suit and white gloves, remained as silent and immobile as a marble monument from the second I boarded. This extreme, familiar brand of cold professionalism didn’t unnerve me; instead, it coaxed a spark of dark exhilaration into my chest.
The vehicle glided seamlessly into the chaotic arteries of Taipei traffic. I laced my fingers together, closed my eyes, and mentally cataloged every permutation of what was to come. Before long, the familiar cadence of deceleration and the sharp tilt of a downward ramp signaled our arrival.
The subterranean parking garage of the black building in Da’an was as oppressive as I remembered. It was bounded by massive walls of raw, board-formed concrete, illuminated by dim, industrialized lighting that cast long, skeletal shadows.
The door slid open to reveal two private security operators outfitted in full tactical kit. Judging by their stances and the dead, predatory look in their eyes, they were undoubtedly tier-one operators from an elite special operations unit.
“Mr. Eric, please submit to biometric identification,” one of them said, holding out a portable biometric scanner. I calmly pressed my thumb against the glass and aligned my eyes with the dual retina scanners.
“Identity verified.”
The operator muttered a brief confirmation into his wrist comms. A second later, accompanied by the heavy, mechanical groan of hydraulic seals releasing, a massive, blast-proof steel acoustic door slowly retracted.
The moment I crossed that threshold, the very texture of the air transformed. It was a volatile cocktail of high-octane adrenaline, bespoke leather, and obscenely expensive champagne. On my previous visit, this scent had been choked with the roars and metallic tang of blood from the underground cage. Tonight, however, the silence was absolute, punctuated only by a distant, sub-audible mechanical hum—like some primordial leviathan respiring deep within the crust of the earth.
“This way, sir.”
Instead of leading me down the familiar, reinforced concrete corridor toward the arena, the operators escorted me down an adjacent, pristine hallway. At the far end stood elevator doors forged from cold, brushed titanium.
I stepped inside the capsule. As I turned around, the heavy doors sealed shut with a soft, definitive click.
Once the doors sealed, the cabin entered a state of near-death stillness. Peculiarly, I felt none of the kinetic lurch associated with conventional vertical transport; there was no sudden burden of G-force, no weightless drop in the pit of my stomach. The only sensation was a microscopic, ultra-high-frequency electromagnetic hum vibrating through the soles of my shoes.
This was categorically not a traditional cable-driven traction elevator. I glanced down instinctively at my wrist; the sweeping second hand of my Omega Seamaster marched on with mechanical indifference.
Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty. A full minute. Two minutes. Three minutes.
Only when the internal timer hit exactly three minutes and five seconds did the faint electromagnetic thrum finally dissipate.
My mind was racing, running calculations at breakneck speed. This defied all spatial logic. Even at a modest velocity, a three-minute vertical ascent or descent would span hundreds of stories. The physical profile and foundation of this building simply could not accommodate that kind of vertical architecture.
Yet, while my inner ear had been robbed of orientation, my fine-tuned nervous system and athletic balance had captured something else: the faint, recurring inertia of lateral translation and serpentine bankings.
I arrived at a hypothesis. This capsule utilized a maglev-style multi-directional track system, capable of both horizontal and vertical movement. For one hundred and eighty agonizing seconds, it had been weaving me through a massive, three-dimensional subterranean labyrinth.
Ding.
A crisp, crystalline chime broke the silence.
The titanium doors parted, and the vista before me caused my pulse to falter for a fraction of a second.
It was not the ultra-modern, glass-and-steel executive suite I had anticipated. Instead, I stepped into a palatial, unapologetically opulent hall designed in the grand European classical tradition. The floors were blanketed by thick, antique Persian carpets; the walls were adorned with Renaissance-era oil paintings heavily varnished with age. A massive crystal chandelier suspended from a vaulted ceiling cast a warm, fractured, amber glow across the space. The sheer, jarring architectural whiplash only emphasized the unfathomable depth of the mastermind behind it.
“Welcome, Mr. Eric. The transit is somewhat prolonged; I trust it did not cause you any undue discomfort.”
A young man dressed in an impeccable, charcoal Savile Row three-piece suit stood by the elevator threshold. He possessed a striking, athletic build and an air of aristocratic grace, though the depths of his eyes betrayed a terrifyingly sharp intellect.
The moment he spoke, I pinned the vocal profile instantly. “You’re the secretary from the phone yesterday.”
“Indeed. You may call me Alex,” he said, offering a subtle, practiced bow. “The Chairman has been eagerly anticipating your arrival in the primary study. Please, follow me.”
Suppressing the cascade of analytical questions flooding my brain, I fell into step behind him. As my shoes sank silently into the plush wool carpet, every primal instinct I possessed screamed a frantic warning: whatever waited beyond this hall was about to alter the trajectory of my existence.
Rounding an intricately carved ebony privacy screen, Alex pushed open a pair of massive, heavy oak double doors.
The study within was choked with shadows. The sole source of illumination was an antique green-glass banker’s lamp sitting atop a sprawling, classical executive desk. The emerald shade focused a harsh, conical beam downward, illuminating the mahogany desktop and the high-backed leather wing chair behind it.
At the periphery of that green glow, I finally laid eyes on the enigmatic “Chairman.”
He was an ancient creature, a man standing on the very brink of mortality. I estimated his biological age to be ninety, perhaps closer to a hundred. His skin was translucent and slack, heavily mottled with dark, indigo age spots; his cheeks were so hollowed out they looked skeletal, and the hands resting on the desk were as brittle and gnarled as dead winter branches. He was practically swallowed by the massive leather chair, his respirations so shallow and weak that he resembled a candle sputtering out its final drops of wax.
Yet, when he lifted his head to look at me, the eyes peering out from beneath heavy, hooded lids struck me like a physical blow. They burned with a fierce, terrifyingly brilliant light. It was absolutely not the gaze of a dying man; within those irises lurked an intense, fanatic vitality that made my skin crawl.
“Sit, Eric.”
The old man spoke.
In that instant, my body threw itself into a defensive posture; my muscles coiled for violence. His voice was thick, resonant, brimming with a rich baritone command and masculine vitality. It was the voice of a seasoned man in the absolute prime of his physical life. Hearing that powerful cadence emanate from a withered, decaying husk created an intensely disturbing, almost grotesque cognitive dissonance.
“Ah. It seems the disparity between my physical vessel and my voice has startled you,” the old man murmured, a thin smile gracing his lips. The voice reverberated through the empty spaces of the study, dripping with an absolute, mocking confidence.
“It’s certainly an impressive parlor trick,” I replied, pulling out the heavy leather chair opposite him and forcing my heart rate back to a disciplined baseline. “Fewer men live to your advanced age while maintaining the vocal resonance of an opera singer. However, I’m far more intrigued by the geography. Where exactly did that three-minute maglev maze take me?”
The Chairman let out a low, rumbling chuckle that vibrated through his chest, causing his frail frame to shudder in a manner that looked profoundly unnatural.
“We went nowhere, Eric. You are still within the perimeter of the monolith,” he said, extending a skeletal finger to tap the polished mahogany. “The internal topology of this structure is infinitely more complex—and secure—than you could possibly conceive.”
The old man’s amusement vanished, his gaze turning infinitely deep, cold, and calculated.
“Allow me to introduce myself properly. I am the founder of HLA Corporation, a multinational conglomerate. To the public, we are merely an empire profiting off semiconductors, laser-sensing systems, and medical optics. But that is merely a shell—a corporate camouflage designed to deflect scrutiny.”
He pivoted his chair slightly, looking into the absolute darkness behind his desk.
“The genesis of this project dates back to 1999. That year, through a classified joint venture with the Hebrew University, our assets secured several unreleased, completely intact copper scrolls belonging to the Dead Sea Scrolls collection. Our research division deployed cutting-edge quantum computation to analyze and decode the hidden symbology within those ancient scripts. What we discovered was staggering: it was not religious mythology. It was an anachronistic field theory—a precise mathematical model outlining the microscopic fractures in the fabric of spacetime itself.”
“Utilizing those parameters, our laboratories achieved a monumental breakthrough. Through the extreme interference techniques of non-linear optics, we successfully compressed the electromagnetic field energy density of ultra-high-energy lasers to its absolute theoretical threshold. Eric, do you comprehend the physics of that?”
I leaned back, analyzing his words. “In pure physics, when energy density reaches a specific critical threshold…”
“Yes!” the old man interrupted, nodding with fierce validation. “The internal electromagnetic energy-momentum tensor surpasses the energy density of an astronomical black hole of equivalent volume! It doesn’t require the cosmic mass of a dying star; by virtue of its pure electromagnetic geometry alone, it can violently cleave the localized continuum!”
“We tore a wound in reality itself!”
“To tame and harness this anomaly, we spent the past two decades endlessly calibrating the microscopic variables. This very building stands as one of only two coordinates on the entire planet that successfully anchors a stable, artificial singularity. That complex cubic elevator you just rode was engineered specifically for asset protection. Should an adversarial force attempt to cut the power grids or launch a breach down the elevator shafts, they will simply become permanently displaced within a shifting, multi-dimensional labyrinth of steel, never to find the threshold.”
“A technology like that must carry an astronomical overhead,” I noted coldly.
“Astute observation,” the Chairman agreed. “Initiating a single spatial fracture consumes roughly 800 million kilowatt-hours of energy. To give you a modern reference frame, that is equivalent to a full month’s power consumption for an entire advanced 3-nanometer fabrication plant at TSMC. We must operate exclusively in the dead of night, siphoning power from our proprietary, closed-loop micro nuclear fusion peak-shaving reactors and an isolated grid. And every single trial carries cataclysmic risk.”
The old man leaned back into his wing chair, his eyes reflecting the ghostly memories of a shadow history as he began to lay out the chronological record.
“Our first macro-scale test took place in 2008, nestled within the underground levels of the Ministry of Finance’s Central District Building in Changhua, Taiwan. The methodology then was primitive; we could only stabilize a rift the size of a standard manhole cover for roughly twelve seconds. However, the localized gravitational anomalies leaked micro-gravitational waves, resulting in the instantaneous, unexplained disappearance of several civilians inside the facility. The state apparatus enforced a total media blackout, and that was the moment we truly grasped the volatile nature of what we were playing with.”
“In 2011, we migrated our secondary testing phase to Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. Disaster struck before the rift could fully stabilize; a critical energy feedback loop triggered an automatic emergency failsafe shutdown. The resulting electromagnetic backflow and spatial compression frequencies resonated violently with the deep tectonic plates, triggering a catastrophic megathrust earthquake deep beneath the seabed. That ‘accident’ caused our state sponsors to pull out completely; from then on, they chose to remain silent ‘observers’ from the periphery.”
“With the state apparatus gone, liquidity became our primary bottleneck. Following the events of 2011, I defied my family’s counsel and quietly broadcast the existence of the core copper scroll to an elite circle of global billionaires and shadow sovereigns. I established a hyper-exclusive private equity fund, raising astronomical capital to bankroll our research. This monolith in Da’an became our ultimate redoubt. As for the underground fight club downstairs—it is merely a playground for our primary investors to purge their primal urges and launder their capital.”
“Subsequent field tests in Texas saw our operational parameters mature. By 2018, we could reliably maintain a spatial rift with the dimensions of a standard door frame, while miniaturizing the array down to the footprint of a standard server rack. That same year, I consolidated all core operations back to this facility in Taiwan. This is my birthplace, my homeland. I resolved that my final stand would take place here.”
“From 2018 to the present day, within this high-security sanctum, we have executed five operational breaches. For the first four iterations, we deployed human assets—volunteers, so to speak. Though ‘volunteers’ is a loose term… each was compensated with an eight-figure sum in US dollars, guaranteed to their estates. Yet, the moment those four individuals crossed the threshold of that event horizon, they vanished from existence. No signal can penetrate the rift. We remain utterly blind to their fates.”
“Which brings us to the fifth test,” I deduced. “You ran out of patience.”
“Yes! I grew desperate! Absolute truth was separated from me by a mere sheet of light, yet I possessed zero empirical data!” The old man stared down at his withered, bark-like hands. “The fifth test occurred exactly six months ago. This time, I resolved to step through myself.”
His respiration grew suddenly erratic, his frail fingers clawing weakly at the leather armrests.
“I stepped through the mirror-like sheen of the electromagnetic threshold, entering a… a chamber that utterly defies human linguistic taxonomy. And within that space, I encountered a Gatekeeper.”
“That entity… its geometry is fluid. From my empirical observation, the Gatekeeper possesses no fixed physical architecture. It appears to manifest its form by extracting and materializing the most deeply repressed, foundational archetypes residing within the traveler’s subconscious mind.”
A heavy, suffocating silence hung in the room for a long time before he found the strength to continue.
“And what manifested before my eyes… was a young boy, perhaps ten years of age, possessing an expression of absolute innocence.”
A wet, ragged gasp caught in the old man’s throat, his withered face fracturing with emotion for the first time.
“That child… he possessed the exact biometric and physical profile of my son, Yu-wen, who was taken from me by illness a decade ago.”
The composure in his voice finally shattered completely.
“My equilibrium failed me entirely. I stood frozen, my mind spinning into absolute static. I found myself whispering his name out loud… Yu-wen.”
The Chairman closed his eyes, his frail shoulders shaking violently under his bespoke suit.
“He looked up at me and smiled. That smile… it was identical to the one preserved in my memories. But beneath the grief, my intellect knew the truth—it was an impossibility.”
He opened his eyes, and I saw tears glistening like mercury in the emerald glow of the lamp.
“In that moment, the paradigm became clear: the Gatekeeper is a mirror, a reflection of the traveler’s inner terminal values.”
“I asked the boy, ‘How do I exit this chamber?’ The child smiled and replied, ‘You may leave at any moment of your choosing.’”
“Then I asked, ‘How do I return to the domain I came from?’ The boy looked at me, his voice carrying a pure, angelic sweetness that chilled me to my very marrow: ‘Those who cross this threshold inevitably choose never to return. Each soul, each energetic signature is distinct. If you demand a regression back to your coordinate of origin, you must render an equivalent toll.’”
“I demanded to know the nature of the toll. He merely shook his head, stating that he could not provide a theoretical value—it had to be rendered to be known.”
The old man let out a hollow, agonizing laugh. “I looked at the manifestation of my son, then into the abyssal void beyond him. I knew the path ahead was unmapped, teeming with cosmic peril. I reasoned that it was mathematically sound to retreat, to consult with my theoretical team before making a definitive push. So, I told the entity I wished to return.”
“And?” I prompted, shifting my weight forward, my interest genuinely piqued.
“The entity extended its index finger, placing it precisely upon my brow, right between my eyes,” the Chairman’s body began to shake as if afflicted by an ague, his hand rising to mimic the gesture in empty space. “His fingertip ignited with a sickening, eldritch crimson light. He looked at me, and in that innocent child’s voice, he whispered: ‘I require thirty years of your vitality.’”
The atmosphere in the study seemed to solidify into ice, leaving only the ragged, desperate gasps of the old man echoing in the dark.
“I was paralyzed, utterly undone by terror. But ultimately, the fear of dying in that alien space overrode my reason. I gritted my teeth and accepted the regression. The sensation of one’s fundamental life force being violently torn from the marrow… it is a horror I lack the linguistic capacity to describe.”
The old man raised his head, pinning me with those terrifyingly manic eyes.
“Eric. Look at me. By chronological reckoning… I should be only fifty-eight years old today.”
I sat unmoving in the leather chair, my chest rising and falling in a controlled rhythm as a tempest raged in my mind.
The decrepit creature sitting before me, a man who appeared to be standing on the absolute precipice of a century-long life, had been a vibrant, fifty-eight-year-old man in the prime of his executive career a mere six months ago. A single moment of hesitation, a single retreat from the unknown, and the entity had extracted three decades of his existence as a penalty. This was no longer a question of advanced quantum mechanics. This was an incursion into the forbidden territory of gods or demons. The toll was absolute, tangible, and devastating.
“An assignment of this nature…” I let out a low, cold laugh, leaning forward and projecting the full weight of my physical presence across the mahogany desk. “You expect me to pull your chestnuts out of the fire? What makes you think I would agree to this? To throw my life away inside an anomaly-ridden chamber that even you cannot comprehend?”
Faced with the full brunt of my aggression and interrogation, the Chairman didn’t flinch. Instead, his withered face contorted into a frantic, almost euphoric smile of pure validation.
“The rationale may sound archaic, Eric. But my asset-acquisition team in Taiwan combed through thousands of candidate profiles over three years. You are the mathematical anomaly—the sole individual who fulfills every variable.”
The old man looked directly into my soul. “I have dissected your psychological profile; I have read the nature of your intent. You are calculated and disciplined, but beneath that corporate veneer flows a different breed of blood. You do not merely face the unknown—you crave it. You possess a terrifying degree of sensory awareness, and under extreme stress, your autonomic nervous system remains perfectly suppressed. You can master your own pulse. You are the perfect vessel.”
I leaned back against the wing chair, my expression a mask of ice. “And what about your prime directive? You constructed an empire, expended billions in capital, and sacrificed thirty years of your personal timeline. What is your ultimate win-state? Biological immortality? Absolute geopolitical hegemony?”
“I seek nothing,” the old man whispered, his voice carrying a sudden, devout sincerity—the pure, unadulterated zeal of a pilgrim reaching a holy site. “At my tier of existence, capital and power are merely abstract concepts. This is the ultimate exploration, Eric. Someone must be the first to chart the outer darkness. Before my heart ceases to beat, I must know what lies beyond that threshold. And you are the only human machine capable of walking into that room and returning with the data.”
An oppressive, protracted silence descended upon the study.
My index finger began a slow, rhythmic tap against the mahogany. A toll of thirty years, a fractured spacetime continuum, a psychological mirror acting as a Gatekeeper… it sounded like the delusions of a madman, yet the long-dormant instinct within me—the wolf that had been starved for a real hunt—was snarling for release.
However, I was not a reckless child to be swayed by a romantic narrative.
“I appreciate the depth of your research, Chairman,” I said, rising to my feet and buttoning my bespoke suit jacket with a singular, fluid motion. “But I decline.”
The Chairman stared at me, a flash of profound exhaustion and grief flickering across his brilliant eyes before fading into the dark.
“Superb. Truly, you are exactly the man I calculated you to be. Analytical, immune to coercion. Alex—escort Mr. Eric to his transport.”
To Be Continued…