Chapter One

"...worldwide. I can assure you, Mr. Meyers, that yesterday's events in Tokyo were not the first of their nature. My team has compiled a timeline of these events from the accident in Cape Verde in 1989 to the earthquake in Bordeaux two years ago, and now Tokyo. Every time one of these accidents occur, civilians perceive it to be a natural disaster or a terrorist attack, from what they can see. Burning buildings, colliding cars, floods, wildfires. Mass death and destruction. But it most definitely is neither."

"How would you know?"

The Suit, an elderly, elegant man with a straight posture and a lavish suit, gently placed a light brown file folder atop the desk's mahogany tabletop, a folder marked "Confidential" in bright red lettering. Tobias Meyers, a paunchy man in a wide bowler hat, carefully opened the folder and scanned through its contents. Meyers took a pause to examine the photographs. As the Suit had remarked, they most definitely were not natural. Buildings decimated, levitating debris. The very nature of the incident seemed somewhat unreal.

"Good God."

"Mr. Meyers, I believe that if there were a God, he certainly would have had a hand in preventing death and destruction of this magnitude. Yet, only we have, and as much as it pains me to say it, our efforts amount to naught if we still cannot eliminate the threat that caused these incidents."

"Do your people have any theories as to what caused it, then?" Meyers enquired.

"I have one."

The Suit unveiled another photograph, this time from within his own jacket, handing it to Meyers with an undisturbed expression. Meyers studied it carefully, and set it gently on the desk, gawking with a questioning look back at the Suit, who calmly stood there chewing on his cigar, waiting expectantly.

"But this... that couldn't have been... I mean, it's not possible, is it?" Meyers stammered breathlessly.

"I'm afraid it is. That photograph was printed directly from satellite imagery, and our satellites have retrospectively never been factually incorrect. That," the Suit remonstrated, "is a black hole."

"It can't be."

"It is. Look, humanity has dreaded this day ever since black holes were discovered, but it has undeniably happened. The Hawking radiation does not lie. A black hole has entered our solar system."

"And where is it now?"

"As the image shows, it is currently positioned in the Kuiper Belt. By this time tomorrow, Orcus, Pluto, Haumea, Quaoar, and Makemake will have been eaten by the black hole and it will have made its way to Neptune. By then we will have limited time before it reaches our planet."

"Please tell me you and your people have some sort of plan to stop it."

"We're working on it. But we will need your assistance."

Meyers sighed. "Name it."

𝘚𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘥, 𝘕𝘰𝘳𝘸𝘢𝘺

The Suit's Gulfstream streamlined gracefully past velvety clouds in a shrouded, frosty sky. The jet dipped past jagged mountains of ice dotting vast glaciers capped with snow. Rapidly, the jet streaked over a brightly lit set of houses blanketed in snow, careening towards the towering, rocky crag of a massive mountain crowned with snow. With impeccable timing, the bristly surface of the mountain smoothly split open, and the jet skidded to a halt within a spacious steel hangar. As the jet's engines sputtered out, a set of stairs protruded from the rim of the plane before the Suit himself steadily descended down them.

"Mr. Suit, sir. How was Washington?"

The Suit sighed, removing his jacket and trading it for a black overcoat.

"As expected, less cold by far. I'll need my effects, and for Mr. Pedersen to meet me in my office. Quickly, Anthony. We haven't a millisecond to waste."

The reverberating clang of the Suit's cane against the metal floor evoked a sense of discipline, if not self-consciousness. The Suit did his best to preserve this image, using it to keep his agents where he wanted them. While most perceived this as egoistic, the Suit did this for the good of his own organization. Without a chain of command, any coterie would descend into unruliness. After all of the Armament Society's accomplishments to protect the world from global threats that terrorized it, it would not only be a shame to let all of their progress go to waste, but detrimental to global safety if they were to let down their guard. Especially during the contemporary crisis.

The Suit navigated the Warren's winding hallways as if they were his own home. He knew which corridor led to which flight of stairs which led to whichever room he wanted to enter. The corridor maze design was essential in the event of an intrusion. Armed security forces would find it all the more simple to detain the intruder if they were wandering the hallways like a lost animal. The Warren was the Suit's own brainchild, his own architectural design and all. It had stood proudly and yet covertly for thirty-two years; the exact tenure of the Suit as the Armament Society's director. He had overseen almost everything since the organization's inception. The covert operations, the criminal underworld busts. The organization had seen no other leader but him.

The Suit gently unlocked the door to his office, which had been pried from the remains of the Titanic itself. As old as the office was, it still maintained its sense of timelessness. An ornate chandelier hanging from the domed marble ceiling, Leonardo Da Vinci's Salvator Mundi hanging in one corner, his African blackwood desk in the other lined with computer monitors. The back wall was entirely a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the mountain's snowy view, ajar to a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf stocked with the Suit's preference. Socrates, Aristotle, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sun Tzu. Philosophers and strategists. Throughout his tenure, the more the Suit looked to their words for guidance, the more success became abundant. The Suit preferred believing in tangible concepts rather than religious beliefs, which he had deemed unprovable a long while back. What could not be proven, could not be beheld.

"Homesick?"

The Suit slowly turned expectantly, lightly chuckling. Isak Pedersen, a hulking, bewhiskered man in a tight-fitting dress shirt stood cross-armed at the doorway, glaring downwards at the Suit.

"Mr. Pedersen. I did not miss very much of this place, but from the very few aspects that I did miss, I can assure you, you were an incorporated element."

"Should I take that as a compliment?" Pedersen replied gruffly.

The Suit laughed. While he admired Pedersen for his unrelenting determination in the face of insurmountable odds and his undying loyalty for his comrades, his intellect was one of the very few characteristics in which he was lacking. The Suit straightened up and set his black fedora on his desk, often a sign that he was prepared to discuss business.

"What is it, Suit? You must have summoned me here for a reason."

"As much as I would hate to pry you from your demanding duties, this reason is understandably urgent. The Supernova Crisis released another singularity in Tokyo. The Japanese government has been tipped off that the incident was natural, but that is simply one of the many lies we tell to protect civilians from panic. I summoned you because if we are to overcome the Supernova Crisis, we will need to be able to invoke Project: Vortex."

Pedersen scoffed.

"It's not ready, Suit. Sending operatives through would be a suicide mission."

The Suit approached Pedersen, dwarfed by the towering colossus' height.

"Listen to me and listen well, Isak. The fate of the entire world as we know it is at risk every second we are standing around here. Where we should be is down there overseeing our last chance at saving our world from total annihilation. This is the last ace we have up our sleeve. There are no more cards to deal except for this one, Isak. If we don't use it, it's game over. We'd have already lost."

"It's too dangerous to send personnel down there. I mean, the monkeys we sent, not one of them came back alive."

"They're apes, darn it! Apes! They most likely blew themselves to bits the moment they stepped through that portal. They're inferior! If we send people down there, they'll live. That's what they're trained to do. This is obviously a query of morality, Isak. Choosing between the lives of seven individuals and the entire world's population. Seven to seven billion. Given the ratio, I believe it is not very difficult when you choose."

The Suit stared up at Pedersen, both glaring with a spark in their eye. The Suit scowled for a split second and looked away, sighing.

"What use is arguing, Isak, when the solar system we've known is crumbling around us. We're dying. This is rock bottom, Isak. There's no escaping this reality. The only way to stop the black hole is to take the choice we've been given."

Isak's arms dropped. His sense of hostility had waned.

"How are you going to make sure we don't endanger our personnel, the people who trusted us, took an oath, looked up to us?"

The Suit's scowl faded into a slight grin, acknowledging that his plans were already underway. Calmly, he brandished a bottle of Dalmore Scotch, uncapping it and pouring himself and Pedersen two modest glasses.

"A toast, then. To saving the world."

"I don't drink," Pedersen growled.

The Suit chuckled softly and sipped from his glass, pausing to relish the taste. The taste of being the world's savior. Its last hope. The weight of the world rested on his shoulders, and he was basking in it.

𝘈𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘚𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘺 𝘌𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘓𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺, 𝘑𝘢𝘯 𝘔𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘯, 𝘕𝘰𝘳𝘸𝘢𝘺

The Suit often complimented himself one of the world's greatest minds. His position at the peak of the Armament Society's chain of command required him to be adept in strategy, which strengthened his profound knowledge of martial arts, having spent six years under rigorous martial arts training in Kyoto. A science-minded physicist and mathematician, the Suit had great reason to hold himself to the highest esteem. While something he was eternally pleased with, he simultaneously considered this one of his greatest flaws, having kept himself distant from any social connections. This was only logical considering the egomaniac within him cared not about anything other than his work. He'd never had friends he considered close since he was a child. Or perhaps he may have. His greatest flaw of all was his absence of childhood memories. Not traumatic memories that he dismissed and locked deep within the back of his mind. A complete and total nonappearance of recollections before he was in the military. No reminiscence of his adolescent years. While sometimes he chalked this up to a substantial case of amnesia, he did worry; any logical being would, if entire decades of their memory had vanished completely without a trace. Over many years, he would attempt countless methods to retrieve his memories; therapy, hypnosis, narcotic treatments. All of his efforts ultimately resulted in nothing. Without his core memories, the Suit was a bitter old man, mocked by some as a sociopathic narcissist, incapable of caring for anything but himself. Yet he never defended himself, for as far as he knew, it may as well have been true.

Being the strategist that the Suit was, it made sense that he considered the possibility of an intruder bypassing the Warren's rigorous security measures. Thus, he implemented a backup, in the event of such an invasion. While also serving as their experimental laboratory, Fort A.S. was the Armament Society's bunker, stocked with a complete arsenal of weapons, rations, and bolstered by state-of-the-art technological security systems in the event of an armed attack against the Society. The Suit nonchalantly strode over bridge after bridge, looming over multiple storeys of laboratories and test rooms. Pedersen lumbered closely behind, keeping his guard up. The A.S. often operated in secret, never using their widely ranged arsenal in broad daylight unless it was completely necessary. The threats that the A.S. faced almost daily were no joke, but on the other hand, neither were they. The Suit pressed his palm against one of the many security measures implemented to safeguard the Fort, passing through set after set of blast doors until he had entered a palatial chamber fortified with tungsten coating lining the walls and the ceiling. At the center of the circular floor was a heightened platform, ringed with a set of stairs. Agents in white lab coats manned computer monitors forming a ring around the circular platform, clearing a wide berth for the Armament Society's most prized possession.

"I'd like a status update, immediately."

"Mr. Suit, sir." A tall, slender scientist in a lab coat and goggles approached the Suit and Pedersen, grasping a tablet at his side.

"Who's in charge here?"

"I am, sir."

"And you are?"

The scientist straightened up, looking the Suit in the eye.

"Dr. Christos, sir. I was appointed by the Armament Society's Board of Directors to oversee the progress of Project: Vortex."

"So you were. You must be some scientist, eh? The Board of Directors chose you to lead this operation."

"I suppose so, sir."

The Suit crossed his arms and scanned the device. On the rim of the platform, a massive cannon stood pointed at a wide, circular hole in the chamber's wall.

"Have you gotten it to work?"

"The portal hasn't stayed open for more than mere seconds. If you want to send operatives into the other side, then it will have to stay open for longer."

"I'm well aware, Doctor. You're overloading the device's output. Keep the energy input and the device's output steady, and it should work. Let's test it again."

"Mr. Suit, sir, with all due respect, we're not ready. Spontaneity is risky when it comes to this project. We need to calculate every possible variable, be ready for every possible misstep."

"Clearly, you were not. Why hasn't this project been successful of late if you claim to be ever so precise?"

"Well, Mr. Suit, I-"

"Have been holding off on activating it for long enough. There are billions of lives at risk here, just because you're afraid of underperforming and not receiving the attention and the acknowledgement from the Board that you so desperately crave. Christos, are you aware that this is not a third-grade science project? There is no teacher, no crowd, no approving parents for you to amaze with your little dazzling theatrics. There is only the choice of whether you decide to have a hand in helping the Armament Society preserve the Earth from this Supernova Crisis or not. I will ask you this second, which decision will you choose to make?"

The Suit could smell the scent of Christos' fear. The beads of perspiration trickling from his brow. Clearly, Christos was becoming self-conscious. Insecure. Behind his gung-ho, no-nonsense facade, the Suit was savoring Christos' anxiety. His pain. He was not often one to terrorize his agents, but he was well aware that his aura was doing that for him. His presence often made those near him uneasy, to be so close to the disapproving director.

"I told you clearly, activate the machine."

Christos sighed and hesitantly began to key in numbers on his tablet. The other scientists hastily worked their computers and formed a wide horseshoe on the platform, backing away from the machine. Christos manually activated the device and took several cautious steps back, joining the crowd. While most of the scientists, including Christos, were visibly panicked, the Suit carelessly slipped a lit cigar into his mouth, observing the device as if it were a theater show.

"One, two, three.."

The machine began to hum and sparked to life, rising and leveling directly towards the cavity in the wall. Instantaneously, a concentrated beam of white-hot energy flowed rapidly into the dugout, blossoming into a minuscule sphere. Gradually, the sphere extended larger, to the point where it abruptly found release, bursting into a circular, milky void. Sparks danced around its outer rim, waves rippling across its bright surface. The flow of energy began to ebb moderately, eventually receding into nothing. All that was left was the vortex, glistening with radiance. The Suit removed his sunglasses, gazing up in awe at the machine's creation. They'd done it. They had actually done what humanity struggled for years to accomplish. They had created a wormhole. The crowd was silenced. They were all gaping at the same marvel, entranced by its luminescence. The Suit silently approached Christos, peering at his tablet.

"How is the energy output?"

"It's at a stable rate," Christos replied confidently. "It worked. Our tests have only been able to open the wormhole for a matter of seconds, but now..."

Christos glanced back at the wormhole, checking if it was still levitating there, unmoving.

"We've succeeded in opening the vortex. How would one go about closing them?"

Christos tapped his tablet once, and simultaneously, a pair of rings ensnared the wormhole.

"To close it, we would have to continuously bombard the wormhole with the same energy that created it. The energy samples from the black hole. These rings were designed to emit that radiation at the wormhole to stabilize it until it shrinks back into nothingness."

The Suit removed his cigar from his mouth, holding it between his fingers, smoke billowing from his mouth.

"Astounding."

"Of course, we're not sure if it's safe to send human operatives into the wormhole. For all we know, it would tear them to shreds before they reached the other side."

"We have protective suits currently being manufactured for this mission specifically, designed to withstand negative energy to the extent of our current knowledge on the subject. For now, we will need to survey the portal."

The Suit brandished a pistol from his holster, a Glock. With immaculate aim, the Suit fired a single bullet at the portal, which streaked inside its surface. Christos stared at his tablet, watching the progress of the bullet.

"It's degrading. Not entirely, but it's breaking down gradually. I fear the same might happen to our human operatives."

"This bullet was not designed to withstand the wormhole's energy. The suits will be, and they will be tested tomorrow. For now, we have succeeded in keeping the wormhole open long enough for the test subjects to enter."

"When will the subjects be ready?"

"As soon as we can. The plan has not fully been completed as of now. But we cannot hold off on this. The fate of the world rests on our shoulders. That does include yours, Dr. Christos."

The Suit gently patted Christos on the back and for a split second, Christos felt that his science project had impressed his teacher. The Suit marched past Pedersen, who instinctively followed behind him.

"Where are we headed to now, Suit?"

The Suit halted and turned to face Pedersen.

"Now that Phase One is complete," the Suit gestured toward the operational wormhole, "it is now time for us to discuss Phase Two. I trust you and our friends have this underway?"

Pedersen nodded, giving the Suit a disapproving stare.

"Very good, then. We must depart immediately. In order for this mission to succeed, we must be sure of every factor. And as of now, our priority is to ready the subjects."