The city slept under the haze of midnight rain.
Titan Skincare's corporate tower rose through the mist like a monolith, its lights the only things still awake. On the top floor, Malcolm Veyra stood in his office — sleeves rolled up, collar open, exhaustion sitting heavy in his eyes.
The screens in front of him glowed with red numbers. Sales reports, market shares, stock dips — every graph painted the same picture: Titan was bleeding.
He rubbed his temples and took another swallow from the glass in his hand. "Goddamn it…" he muttered, watching another alert flash across the screen. Eversage surpasses Titan in domestic market share.
The words mocked him.
He had done everything. Price slashes. Marketing blitzes. Product redesigns. And still, this upstart company — born out of nowhere — was devouring everything he'd built.
He slammed his fist against the desk, and the glass cracked.
A soft chime echoed through the room. His computer screen flickered once — then went black. Every light in the office dimmed. The air changed, colder somehow.
A voice came through the speakers. Calm. Measured. Male.
"Still losing your temper, Malcolm?"
Malcolm froze. The sound was smooth, ageless — a voice that could've belonged to a scholar or a killer.
He turned slowly toward the far side of the room, where a black glass wall reflected only faint outlines. "…You're early," he said, setting the glass down. "I didn't think you still monitored this channel."
"I don't," the voice replied. "You pinged me six times in twenty-four hours. Desperation has a way of making noise."
Malcolm's jaw tightened. "You think I enjoy this? I've held Titan together through three recessions. But now—"
"Now, an unregistered company is making you look obsolete."
Silence stretched for several seconds. Rain tapped against the glass, each drop echoing like a metronome.
Malcolm stepped closer to the wall. "You've seen the numbers?"
"I've seen more than numbers." The voice carried a hint of something — amusement, maybe. "Eversage. Curious entity. Two visible faces — Natalie Su and Hendricks Vale — but no discernible backing. No digital trail of investors. Even their servers are routed through private cloud hubs that don't exist on any government registry."
Malcolm exhaled sharply. "So you've looked into them."
"Of course. You called me."
He didn't need to see the man's face to know he was smiling.
The silence stretched again.
Malcolm finally said, "Then you know why I need your help."
"I know you think you do."
A soft hum filled the line. The glass shimmered faintly, and for a brief second, the outline of a figure appeared — seated, hands folded. No features. Just the suggestion of presence.
"Tell me," the voice continued, "what makes Eversage worth my attention?"
Malcolm took a breath. "They've done the impossible. Their moisturizer's results are near-instant. Consumers are calling it a 'miracle.' My R&D heads can't reverse-engineer it. We tried. It's like the formula doesn't follow conventional bio-chemical logic."
He paused. "I believe it's synthetic — proprietary nanotech or something similar."
"'Believe,'" the man repeated. "You don't know."
Malcolm hesitated. "No. Not yet. But whoever's funding them has access to something beyond standard market research. I've seen product performance data. This isn't luck."
The figure shifted slightly, and though the glass hid every detail, the faint pressure that followed was suffocating.
"Malcolm," the voice said softly, "you built Titan on fear. Fear of loss, fear of competition, fear of irrelevance. It served you well — until you mistook noise for innovation."
Malcolm's shoulders tensed. "With all due respect, I didn't call you for philosophy."
"Good. Because I don't offer it."
The silence after that felt heavy enough to crush words.
Finally, the voice said, "You want a way to reclaim dominance. I can give you one."
Malcolm's eyes narrowed. "I'm listening."
"Find out who truly runs Eversage. Not the faces — the spine. The one pulling the strings. You'll know when you've found them because their absence creates gravity."
Malcolm frowned. "You think there's a single person behind it?"
"I know there is."
The answer was absolute, final — like fact carved in stone.
Malcolm hesitated, then asked the question he shouldn't have. "…And what do you want in return?"
The reflection in the glass leaned forward slightly.
"When you find them," the voice said, "I want a copy of everything they have. Their formula, their blueprints, their data. Every secret."
"Why?"
"Because I've been waiting for whoever they are for a very long time."
The words sent a faint chill crawling up Malcolm's spine.
He swallowed. "And if I fail?"
The reflection tilted its head, almost curiously. "Then you'll join the rest of the market."
Malcolm's mouth went dry. "…Dead?"
"Forgotten," the voice said simply.
A soft click followed, and the screens flickered back to life. Numbers and graphs flooded back into view, but the signal was gone. The office was his again.
Malcolm stood there for a long moment, the hum of the electronics the only sound.
He finally sat down, running a hand over his face. The reflection in the glass stared back — pale, furious, haunted.