Bineth Global HQ – Moon Base - Babel City - Executive Conference Room
The sliding doors hissed open with the soft precision of wealth and control.
President Leon Lake of Bineth Global Corporations entered the room with the poise of a crowned sovereign. He appeared no older than twenty-five, his skin smooth, his posture exact—immaculate, eternal. But it was a lie. Leon Lake was over seventy-five years old, his youthful body a product of age remodification protocols. His pale blue eyes, too still for youth, scanned the room with predator precision.
He was dressed in a white tailored suit—sharp, minimalist, and deceitfully angelic. The kind of man who smiled as he signed off mass layoffs or bio-clearance orders. His face had the symmetry of a politician and the ruthlessness of a seasoned warlord.
Leon Lake was a mirage. A mask. A monster.
He sat silently at the head of the long obsidian table, flanked by some of the most powerful minds in the galaxy-spanning conglomerate. His silence was unnerving.
Hauwai Sandes, Chief Financial and Strategic Asset Officer, stood to greet him but was waved down with a flick of Leon's wrist. Hauwai—tall, angular, eyes always calculating—was Leon's right hand, his fixer, his cleaner, and in many ways, the man who ran Bineth's bones and blood. Utterly loyal. Brilliant beyond comprehension. And fully aware of the devil he served.
Seated two chairs down was Dr. Lira Chen, Chief Technology Officer. She wore her signature blue glasses, her demeanor impossibly calm. Cold, elegant, and razor-sharp, she was one of the few people who dared to speak back to Leon—if only in private. She oversaw several major projects: Freddie R. Moore's deep systems, the Honami synth initiative, and most notably, the Lunar Nexus Base. Her fingers hovered over her data slate like a pianist before a requiem.
Isidora Quell, Chief Resource Strategist, joined as a floating hologram flickering in with crystalline clarity. Beamed in live from Lunar, his frame was youthful but his gaze carried the hunger of a vulture circling fresh prey. He worked directly under Hauwai, managing interplanetary energy assets and extractive zones across Mars and Lunar. Quell had a reputation: If it existed, he could buy it. If it didn't, he could still profit from it.
Dr. Freddie R. Moore appeared next, a delayed flicker. He was already visible on Lunar but confined to restricted movement protocols due to his sensitivity clearance. His tone was grave, his eyes reflecting long nights and system failures.
Lastly, General Hein Spade, the war-hardened head of Bineth Security, took his seat in person—broad, leathery-skinned, cybernetically enhanced and always armed. He'd fought through the Red Circle Riots, the Phobos Rebellions, and the Synthetic Worker Uprisings. He never flinched, but today, even he looked restless.
Leon leaned back, his silence louder than most men's rage. Then he tapped the screen on his table.
A sequence of footage, data overlays, and news reels projected into the air.
The Marsbus explosion. Thr scientists murders and all.
The room darkened under the weight of the content.
"Chaos," Leon finally said, almost to himself. His voice was clean, clipped, charmingly eerie. "I don't like chaos—unless I'm the one paying for it."
He turned to General Spade, sharp now.
"So. Tell me who's stepping on my stage."
Spade's jaw clenched as he brought up a separate stream of data.
"We believe it's a calculated strike. Revenge, possibly. Someone with access to ex-military and abandoned data vaults. They're distributing a new compound in underground rings—not ours, but it mimics our molecular signatures. Clean. Precise. Someone knows how we operate. Even the local bosses are scared. Rumor calls him Purple Flower."
Leon absorbed this. He frowned and turned to Hauwai.
"Does that sound familiar to you!?" He asked.
Hauwai thought for a moment. He sighed. Yes it did. Yes it really did. He projected a flurry of files. For all.
Hein read with curiosity. It made more sense now.
His fingers tented.
"And the Marsbus?"
"This changed everything, nothing so far has been random, but I thought they finished the job," Hauwai said.
"That's what you get for trusting a bone bag to do your dirty work for you, I should have murdered that son of a swine long ago, Imagawa!" Leon said.
Spade replied grimly. "That leaves Atsumori as the only surviving member."
"Have someone to talk with him, see what he knows," Hauwai said.
Leon's brow twitched. Just slightly.
Then he sat forward, spine perfectly straight.
"In three days," he said, "we open the Lunar Base Commission. Our most expensive PR stunt in the last ten years. Same day as the elections. I want serenity. I want elegance. I want smiling crowds. I do not want blood in the streets or secrets bleeding from corpses."
He looked across the room like a blade being unsheathed.
"Nothing must interfere. No rumors. No explosions. No ghosts. Do I make myself clear?"
A chorus of nods.
A quiet "Yes, sir" from Hauwai.
A silent gesture of agreement from Lira.
Leon let the silence breathe, then stood.
"I don't care how. Silence them. Find them. Bury them. Buy them. Erase them."
He turned to Hauwai as he walked toward the exit.
"I want contingencies. I want projections. I want Spade to have whatever he needs to find this psycho and make it all go away.
And if anyone's hesitating…" he glanced back with a smile that belonged in a graveyard—
"…remind them why Nobody f**ks with Bineth."
Then he was gone.
The room exhaled. And the real war, silent and corporate, began.