A Very Generous Offer
Liam and Voss barely made it out of the mountains alive. Exhausted and battered, they regrouped at a safe house buried in the outskirts of Geneva. It wasn't much—a dingy, one-bedroom flat with peeling wallpaper and a dubious smell—but it was safe for now.
Voss was pacing the room, her movements agitated. "That drone wasn't ordinary. It was Starlink-enabled. Musk is pulling strings faster than we can cut them."
Liam slumped onto the couch, his head in his hands. The USB drive, now resting on the coffee table, seemed heavier than it should have been. It contained everything: the experiments, the mutations, the orbital fleet, the Martian robots. But how could they get it out to the world without getting themselves killed?
Their planning session was interrupted by the sharp trill of Voss's burner phone. She hesitated, then answered.
"This is Voss."
There was a pause, and then her face darkened. She handed the phone to Liam.
"They want to talk to you."
"Who's 'they'?" Liam asked, but Voss just gestured for him to take the call.
A familiar voice came through the line, calm and deliberate. "Mr. Adler. This is Elon Musk. Shall we chat?"
The Billionaire's Bargain
Liam's blood ran cold. Musk's voice was like silk wrapping around a blade—smooth, dangerous.
"First of all, congratulations," Musk continued. "You've managed to unearth some fascinating secrets. The Vatican? Very old-school. The Alps? Quite resourceful. But you're playing a game you can't win."
Liam forced himself to stay calm. "If I've got no chance, why are you calling me?"
Musk chuckled. "Because I appreciate talent. You're a sharp mind in a dull world, Mr. Adler. I'd hate for it to go to waste."
"Cut to the chase," Voss snapped, leaning close to the phone.
"Fine," Musk said, his tone hardening. "You hand over the drive, and I'll make sure you both live long enough to enjoy the fruits of your labour. Keep poking around, and you won't see next week."
Liam looked at Voss. Her expression told him what he already knew: Musk wasn't bluffing.
"What's on Mars?" Liam asked suddenly.
There was a long pause. "Something you wouldn't understand," Musk replied. "Yet."
The call ended abruptly, leaving Liam and Voss staring at the phone.
Breaking the Silence
"We can't trust him," Liam said finally.
"No kidding," Voss replied, pacing again. "But now he knows exactly where we are."
Liam stood and started gathering their things. "Then we need to move. Fast."
They left the safe house under the cover of darkness, heading for Zurich. There, they planned to meet a contact of Voss's who specialised in whistleblowing on powerful corporations.
The train ride was tense, each shadow outside the window feeling like a threat. Liam clutched the USB drive like it was a live grenade.
"What's the plan?" he asked.
"Expose Musk for what he is," Voss said. "A puppeteer, pulling the strings of a global machine."
The Zurich Revelation
Zurich was bustling when they arrived, its streets alive with activity even in the dead of night. Voss led Liam to a nondescript café where her contact waited.
"Call me Sigmund," the man said, sliding into the booth across from them. He was middle-aged, with a grizzled beard and a laptop that looked like it had survived a war.
Voss wasted no time. "We've got evidence that Musk's Mars project is more than it seems. Experiments, military robots, orbital fleets—he's building an empire out of alien technology."
Sigmund raised an eyebrow. "Ambitious, even for him. What's the angle?"
"That's what we need your help to figure out," Liam said, handing over the USB drive.
Sigmund plugged it into his laptop, his fingers flying over the keys. As the files opened, his eyes widened.
"This... this is insane," he muttered. "Genetic mutations? Alien artifacts? And what's this—'Project Aether'?"
Liam leaned forward. "What's Project Aether?"
Sigmund clicked on the file. The screen filled with schematics for a massive starship, far larger than anything humanity had ever conceived.
"It's not just a colony ship," Sigmund said. "It's an ark."
The Dark Truth of Project Aether
According to the files, Project Aether was designed to transport not just humans but a genetically enhanced elite—people modified to survive and thrive on Mars. The rest of humanity would be left to fend for themselves on an increasingly uninhabitable Earth.
"He's picking winners and losers," Voss said, her voice filled with disgust. "And the rest of us are the losers."
Sigmund scrolled further, revealing another layer of the project: a collaboration with the World Economic Forum. The documents detailed meetings where the world's wealthiest individuals had discussed orchestrating artificial scarcity on Earth to force migration to Mars.
"This isn't colonisation," Liam said. "It's a coup."
A Twist in the Shadows
Before they could process the enormity of what they'd found, the café's lights flickered. Sigmund frowned. "That's not a good sign."
Moments later, a black SUV screeched to a halt outside. Men in suits poured out, armed and moving with military precision.
"They've found us," Voss hissed.
Liam grabbed the laptop, but Sigmund shook his head. "No. I'll buy you time."
"What?" Liam said, stunned.
Sigmund smirked. "I've been waiting for a chance to stick it to these bastards. Now go."
Reluctantly, Liam and Voss slipped out through the kitchen, the sound of shouts and gunfire following them into the night.
As they ran, Liam couldn't shake the feeling that their fight was far from over—and that the worst was yet to come.