The darkness in the room was soothing. The room was like a place out of time, a place to rest without consequence. The darkness in that way was a sanctuary, a place to recharge and forget the things the world said had to be done. In that room, there were two shapes in monochrome, one relaxing in the element of darkness in its antique chair while the other kneeling on the floor. There was a strange look in the eyes of the kneeling figure, like something in the darkness was enticing yet oddly dangerous.
" Please. I need your help." said the kneeling figure
"Mr. Starn. Oh, Mr. Starn." chuckled the oddly young charismatic voice from within the blinding darkness.
"In this darkness, everything and anything seems possible. No sight gives free rein to the imagination in a way that daylight renders impossible. You are driven by fear there Mr. Starn, fear, your primal brain taking control and coming here for hope. By coming here, you might very well know, every end for your actions is you, you lying dead in a bed that came thirty or so years earlier. So, why have you paved the road to your eventual destination this soon? "
"Sigh, you already know and yet you still need a reason to ask me. I have some grasp of how deep your information sources are. I just need some help in dealing with my situation temporarily. Can you please assist me with this problem?"
"Problem? Problem? What you have in your hands is a huge conflict, Mr. Starn. Not a simple, petty, little trouble. The audacity for you ask us to help you is, commendable but not something I would encourage. However, if you want help, we will gladly do it, we just need more than our discussed payment to solve the complication you have stirred. Mr. Starn."
"I know. I know. I will pay extra after the work has been done and I will try not to mess up again. As for how much this "extra" payment is needed, I am sure you already have the answer." sighed Mr. Starn
"We do not ask of anything too much. All we ask from you is your two territories up north and your wishes will be our command."
Mr. Starn, quickly, with a nervous tone said, " You're not serious right? I mean that's how I get the majority of my income from. The farming agriculture is booming right now and I can't afford to sell it."
"Then we have no deal as I see it."
Mr. Starn, confused and then visibly angry, said, " YES, we have no deal." Before getting up and revealing his face to the spot where the dim light shone on the room. He was a middle-aged man that had tousled dark brown hair, which was thick and lustrous. His eyes were a mesmerizing deep ocean blue, flecks of silvery light performed ballets throughout. His face was strong and defined, his features molded from granite. His dark eyebrows sloped downwards in a serious expression of anger yet he contained it for the fear of the consequences of the actions he might call upon himself. He bowed to the figure sitting on the chair and faced the other side, walking towards the door.
There was only the sound of footsteps retreating before a tap of two continuous knocks in a rhythm broke the surface. There was a quick sound of air retreating, then the figure walking towards the door dropped down on the floor like a sack of ripe potatoes. There was an aroma of burning flesh coming from the corpse, but soon it was gone, like the winds of the north.
"What petty little thing you just sprang forth. You said it yourself, we have deep informants. How could we miss the opportunity to take the two slave farms that you, so deliciously offered for us. Hehehe." chuckled the figure leaning back on the chair.
"No.2, clean up the mess and invite Haizel here. Also remember to harvest all of his body parts, except the brain, everything should be sellable. He also said he was preparing the required amount of money, so remember to hack his account and clean all of it. He also has a 46-year-old wife and a 19-year-old daughter, sell the pair to the slave market and make sure to sell off their owned property too. Got that?"
"Yes, boss." came an unnoticeable shadow from deep within the neverending darkness. It quickly took the body and went out the door of the room, dragging the body away in the hallway and completing it's given task.
A deep yawn escaped from the figure in the darkness as he clapped twice, igniting the room of darkness with light. Within the light, a young man sat lazily in his chair while murmuring something. Despite the perfect tailoring and the crispness of the suit, the man inside did not look a day over eighteen. His eyes were the green of fresh dew glinting in the sunlight off a leaf of green emerald. His lips were pale and thin and his nose slender and rounded. A prominent jaw curved gracefully around and the strength of his neck showed in the twining cords of muscle that shaped his entire body; strong arms, bold thighs and calves, a firm chest and abdomen. The only peculiar thing about him was his pure white hair that seemed to radiate its own light.
There was a knock on the door and a middle-aged man wearing a light fitted dark grey suit came in. The man had a thin face, yet was handsome nonetheless. His bone structure was symmetrical, cheekbones high and prominent. His brown eyes and dark hair made the perfect contrast to his face and despite his pale skin, his posture and body frame radiated strength and respect. He stood three meters away from the figure sitting in the chair and waited for his command.
"Haizel, prepare to support a new person in the Mayoral Election. This city lost another candidate. "
"On it. I will also make sure this time, there is no interference from the central government because of our candidate's action," said Haizel before looking at the figure sitting at the chair and, with anxiety. The young man and Haizel made eye contact with each other for a full minute.
Haizel was trying to collect his thoughts before proposing the eventual question. He sighed and finally asked, "Are we really going forward with the plan?"
The figure with glistening white hair nodded at Haizel. "That much is definite. We just need to talk about the move in more in-depth."
"Haizel, call the meeting of the Spark and organize it for the four of us in Sector X3." said the young man standing from his chair and heading out the door.
"For all that it is worth, today is the day where our decision will make or break our organization."
____________________________________________________________________________________
The conference room was currently the most secure room in the entire building. The outside of the room had the organization's fully armed and trained private army "Coiled". They were wearing different types of offensive and investigative equipment and held the most technologically advanced firearms that were not even available in the black market. Coiled stationed one soldier per 102 meters and had different snipers placed at different parts of the building to counter any opposition of enemy snipers. The fifth squadron was sent towards the nearby buildings and was tasked to survey any possible sniping spots and eliminate any suspicious activities.
The actual conference room was reinforced with various inviolable materials such as Magnesium F3 and Sulfur Adamantite that could block against any type of standard firearm. The inside of the room, nevertheless, was rather spacious and even had a fireplace located at the northeast side. The room's wallpaper had a big golden coiled dragon in the front of the room, a vibrant red in Phoenix in the back, a pitch Black Tortoise on the right and a striking White Tiger on the left. Overseeing all of them, was a big picture of the 12 zodiac constellation on the ceiling. It also had four pairs of different samurai armor in the different corners of the room that had different weapons in their arsenal. In the middle of the room stood a black marble table with swirly patterns on the side of its corners and floating half a meter off the ground. On the right side and the left side of the table sat two men each and on the head of the table sat a man with vivid white hair.
"So Boss, why did you all call us here?" asked a middle-aged man. His face wasn't anything extraordinary or significant, and yet, his black eyes radiated a feeling of knowledge, making people attracted to him. The only distinguishing feature about him was a blob of a dark brownish birthmark on his lower jaw.
On the head of the table sat a green-eyed man with a prominent jawline and a strikingly aggressive white hair, wearing a tight black tuxedo. He nodded his head and said, "Oh right, you were out of town. This meeting is very important and the topic is highly confidential, so we could not risk it to send it over the web, so here are all the details." He paused for a second, took a sip of water from the glass and continued, "We are here to discuss a new business opportunity that has severe consequences on our organization, we can either profit from it or be heavily suppressed by it. This meeting heavily influences which side we stand on at the end. So, Titus, we need to consider every aspect our step forward."
Haizel, sitting next to Titus, said, "The information that we have is very secretive and we, if our information is correct, might be the first people outside of that organization to know about it." He specifically looked at Titus before saying, "People all over the world have had their suspicions on why the collective consciousness of over 100 countries, decided to support that organization. There are rumors and gossip going around, however, we have solid information on their agenda. This information is very pondering and can, potentially, change the lives of every single people in the entire world. Due to this reason, corporations and behemoths of industries will rise and fall. We are going to be one of the organization's most impacted by this event and we need to have a plan to deal with our losses." There was excitement on Haizel's face mixed in with awe and fear when explaining the details and the feeling was mutual among all the core member that knew the information.
The old man sitting across Haizel yawned. He had a wizened face that seemed to brim with all the knowledge in the universe. His eyes heavily lidded and weighed down with some wrinkled folds, yet he was quite alert and full of spirit. His deep wrinkles seemed to carve a map of his life on his still agile and mobile facial features. His twinkling eyes were framed by thick white eyebrows and on his stubbled chin were white whiskers. His hazel eyes radiated a sense of dangerousness and yet, filled with care at the same time.
The figure at the top of the table looked at the old man yawn before tenderly saying, "What do you think about this threat, Grandpa Hunt?"
Grandpa Hunt looked at the figure at the top of the table and he gave a wholeheartedly smile that seemed to not match with his face, yet inexplicably made his face complete. "This old man is far out of the technology of this world and this business is not good for grandpa's heart. I am just going to let the youngsters take care of this. You are in charge little Yama, you make the decision. This old bag of bones will support any decision you arrive at." he chuckled.
There was a deep silence in the room as everyone started to contemplate about their next move, while Titus just looked confused and pretended to think as to not interrupt their chain of thoughts.
"I think that we should not only treat this as a threat but as an opportunity to become more powerful and more influential. With this, we can have our grasp over the entire world's economy and arrive at points of power unheard of," said Yama, enforcing each word of his sentence with a deep meaning. "If we do not act now or react a second late. We stand to lose a huge amount of profit."
"That's right," said Haizel. "Our general gross profit trend is increasing at 3.8% annually. We are doing better than all of our past years. However, the incoming event might drastically reduce our profits coming in."
"What can we do other than move forward. If we do not do anything, we are at risk of losing everything we have," said Yama. He nodded towards Haizel and said, "Explain the details to Titus."
"At our current state, we own 70% of the world's drug smuggling trade, have a full monopoly over our prostitution and slavery markets and we have over 25% of the business shares on other activities. If that thing worked, we will lose the majority of our business as people won't be as engaged in them as much. The drug usage is expected to decrease to about 15% as people will have another form of escape that is better for them mentally and physically and even the 15% that are left, they are going to be people that can't afford the drugs. Prostitution and slavery are also expected to go down significantly. Violence and crime rates are also expected to go down. Overall, we are expected to lose 95% of our business in profits."
Yama looked at everyone and said, "Our best bet is to act and use this information that we have to get a head start on the event."
"I like the kid's plan. We should be optimistic about this situation." said the rough voice coming from the man sitting across Titus and beside Hunt. He was a half shadow, every muscle on his torso flowing from the light into the dark. He was a living work of art, his brown skin so tempting to touch; every move giving away his strength. Every muscle in his body was brimming with intense strength, from the top of his bald head to his stubby toes. He wore a white shirt that could not hide the developed muscles within him compared to the suits of everyone.
" Hmm..okay, I understand. However, what is the actual plan? All I have heard is this "threat" and this "opportunity" and I have no idea what we are dealing with, care to explain further?" asked Titus, feeling lost from the conversation that was occurring,
"This opportunity and the threat are the same things, Titus. What we have come to discuss is the possibility, what can this "opportunity" and "threat" do to our organization and this "thing" we are talking is about is Underneath, the first immersive virtual reality game ever created."