CHAPTER 1
The Ice Planet Killjorn
Earth Year 2014
In the far reaches of the Milky Way galaxy, the planet Killjorn sits isolated, making its lonely loops around its distant white dwarf sun. Formerly a trading outpost, Killjorn is now home to an elite training program for advance infiltration agents of the League of Planets. Formed over two hundred Earth years ago, the League was intended to be a cooperative among several planets where intelligent life had developed hyperdrive via the construction of traversable wormholes, permitting speedy interplanetary travel. However, as time passed and ambitions grew, the quest for absolute power proved unquenchable, despite the spillage of untold blood and fortune.
While much history has been lost or erased—leaving only half-forgotten memories and legend—in recent decades, the League has been nothing more than an ever-expanding empire. Sitting atop the throne is Supreme General of the League Council Anton Frozos. First serving as a leading military commander at the age of twenty on the Eastern Frontier, amassing significant territory and natural resources to feed the League’s ever-growing need for nuclear fuel and food, Frozos would leverage his popularity among the troops to take control of the Council by force at the age of twenty-five, nearly fifteen years ago.
At six foot five inches, his pale blue-skinned frame, fiery red eyes, and short white hair casts a dominating figure that combines with a deep, booming voice to instill drive in his soldiers and terror in political opponents. Today, he enjoys total political power, with the Council serving only ceremonial purpose. The combination of an ever-expanding planet count, providing with it a fresh supply of slave labor and heavy surveillance has brought stability. For now, a consistent supply of food has been worth the price of lost freedom for most of his subjects. Significant rebel activity hasn’t been spotted for years, leaving the discontent to wonder if the rebel cause was little more than legend anymore.
Today, Frozos is visiting the Planet Killjorn to pick one pupil for a critical mission in the expansion of the League. Students have been subjected to intense training, physical and mental, to be a new breed of soldiers beyond the front lines as Frozos seeks to expand his intergalactic power. They will be sent to the far reaches of the universe to nascent intelligent civilizations, laying the groundwork for a planned invasion, perhaps in months, perhaps in years. Lying in wait, and with knowledge of far advanced technology, finance, and military strategy, these soldiers should be positioned to quickly climb social, economic, and political ladders, weakening institutions from within and priming the planet for easy conquest.
Frozos stands in a spartan cafeteria where graduating students, ranging from fifteen to twenty-five years of age, have eaten every meal for at least three years. There are ten such facilities on Killjorn. While it will be a long day of ceremony, Frozos enjoys this annual tradition, for he suspects his eventual successor would be a graduate of this scouting program. To minimize the risk of being discovered on their future planet, no two students from the same class are sent to the same planet, and there is absolutely no interaction between facilities. Each are to act as individual scouts, unless and until the League gives orders otherwise.
This gray-tiled room has been repurposed for today’s ceremony with the twenty-five graduates standing at attention in blue coveralls in front of a modestly raised stage. For each of these groups of graduates, approximately eight prospects failed. To ensure the absolute secrecy of the program, those who fail out are sentenced to a quick and unappealable death sentence. Standing to each side of Frozos are half a dozen instructors—stern-faced men and women of varying species—who have overseen these young spies’ development. On his left, there is a desk topped with envelopes.
Taking to the lectern, Frozos offers brief remarks: “Congratulations on reaching this point—a pinnacle of achievement most can only dream of. You will now play a critical role in ensuring the safety and security of this great League of Planets, home to more than 1.25 trillion souls. While our security services maintain peace and order, it is up to you to scout for sources of food, resources, fuel, and paths of transport. We can ensure peace and security today, but it is your sacred duty to lay the groundwork for our future peace and security.
“You will be entering societies that may feel foreign or backwards, but be comforted by the fact we will be coming to bring you home and pull the poor, feeble residents of your planet into the future at a pace they could not otherwise achieve. It will be your job to facilitate their entrance into the League as smoothly as is possible. I know you will succeed.”
Frozos now steps aside from the lectern, allowing the Director, a pudgy, balding humanoid, to take his place. The Director begins calling the names of the graduates one-by-one, from last to first in the class. They walk on stage, shake General Frozos’s hand, take their envelope, and walk out to their room where they will open the letter and discover their assignment.
The final student, the valedictorian, thanks to unparalleled technology scores as well as a high emotional quotient, and despite only median military strategy scores, is seventeen Earth years and is now standing alone. Born of the planet Nayan, Marcus Natent is virtually identical to humans on the outside, except that his life expectancy is closer to 150 Earth years. Given the rugged life on this mining planet, Nayans also have rapidly coagulating blood, healing skin, and a second heart behind the lower abdomen. He stands five foot nine inches tall, with short but messy black hair, and thoughtful brown eyes. He stands, jaw clenched, firmly at attention.
Frozos walks off stage to him, as he did for each valedictorian. Extending his hand, he says, “Congratulations, son. Come with me, and let’s discuss your future.”
“Thank you, Supreme General; it would be an honor.”
Together, they make the short walk to a small adjoining room, taking seats at a small wooden table. To enjoy such an intimate audience with Frozos would be the ultimate honor for any military recruit.
“You know, Marcus, of course, that you are the first Nayan to graduate this program. We are fortunate Admiral Tyrone Tiberius saw your potential and pulled you up from a life working the Nayan mines.”
Marcus concurs, “Yes, I saw firsthand how years of toiling at that mine crushed my father’s will. I am fortunate the League opened such opportunity to me. I look forward to gifting the same opportunity to a new planet.”
Handing Marcus the envelope, the general said, “Good. In there, you’ll find the details of your assignment. Given your unique skillset, we are giving you a long-term mission. You will be heading to Earth, a planet we anticipate reaching in fifteen of what you will soon know as ‘years.’ Earth is critical to the next phase of our development. In addition to significant natural resource potential and an innovative, albeit backwards and tribal population, Earth sits near the linchpin of our transportation strategy. Within three to five years, we will have saturated this portion of the galaxy. To meet the needs of our growing population, we must be able to travel quickly and safely to the far end of this galaxy, which is ruled by a collection of small-minded despots. We are in early stages of building a large-scale web of speedways where we can quickly move tankers of troops to expand outward and secure supply-lines. In every design, our engineers map out Earth as the central point of this wormhole system. We must control Earth to protect troops in passage and eventually secure food and supply lines back home from rebels and pirates.”
“I see, sir. It is an honor to be assigned to such a critical planet to our expansion plans.”
“It is. Earth is our longest-range project in this program. With your skills, you should be able to gradually attain significant power. When we make contact with Earth, you can use that power to persuade the human race to quickly and peacefully join the League. From there, with our superhighway complete, the universe will be in the palm of our hands. Do not fail us. Do not fail me.”
And with that, Frozos stands up, gives Marcus a pat on the back, and leaves him alone to read the details of his assignment. Details he will memorize during his ten month journey to Earth.
Marcus opens the envelope to see what his new name will be: “Robert Wilson.” Taking a red pen out of his pocket, Marcus writes next to his new name:
REMEMBER THE MINE
Putting the paper back in the envelope, Marcus gets up and walks out of the room to begin his new life.
CHAPTER 2
Jersey City, New Jersey
November 15, 2028
Robert Wilson stares out of his office window. Today is a momentous day, an unveiling of his masterpiece, a new headquarters for his company, Arbor Ridge. Standing tall in Jersey City, New Jersey, the sleek silver structure holds seventy stories of offices. On the northeast corner, extending from the ground level, is a purple spire that reaches 125 stories into the sky.
To build this one structure in eighteen months would have been impressive, but this was a project on a global scale with buildings constructed around the world, just outside the major cities of Los Angeles; Vancouver, Canada; São Paulo, Brazil; Bogota, Colombia; London, England; Moscow, Russia; Cape Town, South Africa; Dubai; Sydney, Australia; Hanoi, Vietnam; and Tokyo, Japan. Together these twelve buildings, costing a combined $20 billion, will be the work home to over 130,000 employees and serve as a command hub for regional operations. While each building’s habitable space ranged from forty to seventy stories, depending on regional needs, all have the same 125-story purple spire—a universal corporate emblem of sorts.
Staring out at the Manhattan skyline, Robert can’t help but feel satisfied with proving the naysayers wrong and finishing this project on time. With these towers, Arbor Ridge is staking its claim as a global behemoth—the largest and most powerful company on the planet, worth over $11 trillion, and he owns 80 percent of it. It has been a long, exciting thirteen years on Earth, but Robert is finally positioned as necessary and is prepared for the looming inevitability.
Arriving on Earth in 2015, Marcus assumed the identity of Robert Wilson, created in advance by Frozos’s army of cyber hackers. Records showed he was homeschooled by reclusive parents in rural Wyoming, and he had been accepted into the incoming freshman class at Yale University. His parents were “killed” in a staged car accident on his way to Yale. Free of potential complications, it was from here that Robert began his mission.
Given his advanced technological knowledge, Robert saw this as his clearest path to power. He partnered with two students he befriended at Yale: Chris Bailey, who showed a gift for financial matters, and Mark Morrison, who would aid in marketing given Robert’s lack of knowledge about America’s culture, which was excusable given his supposedly cloistered upbringing. Chris and Mark remain alongside Robert to this day at Arbor Ridge, each owning about 5 percent of the shares. While Robert has never disclosed his secret to them, neither man is a fool, and they recognize something beyond their grasp is at work.
Beginning in mobile games, Robert had “created” several viral apps (in reality, they were just adapted versions of games that had proven popular in the League of Planets) by December of 2015, making him one of the youngest billionaires on the planet. Dropping out of school after their first semester, building the business became the full-time focus of these three friends. Again focusing on inventing things that had already been invented a galaxy away, Robert pivoted his focus to defense contract work, showing the American government satellite and missile defense technology that was decades beyond what existing companies could offer.
Robert has carefully established his public image over the years, cultivated by a burgeoning gaming and consumer electronics empire, unparalleled technology, and help from select members of Congress, namely a young, ambitious congressman from the state of Florida: Nick Neverian. While there was initial difficulty in convincing the U.S. government to sign multiyear defense contracts worth billions with someone who still couldn’t legally purchase a beer, his stature as boy-genius eventually made Arbor Ridge the top defense contractor for the Air Force as well as America’s military allies. From 2015 to 2022, the focus remained exclusively on consumer electronics, gaming, and a near monopoly in virtual reality technology, anchored by the Galactic Flyer gaming franchise, as well as the defense business, which was rapidly expanding into Space. Arbor Ridge was the country’s most valuable company, enjoying steady, unprecedented profit growth, and Robert’s innovations were credited with spurring a productivity revolution, greatly accelerating economic growth.
But in 2022, Robert abruptly shifted Arbor Ridge’s strategy, greatly widening the focus of the company. Inventing massive industrial batteries and transmission systems that could power cities for days, Arbor Ridge began acquiring electric utility companies, long seen as boring, stodgy businesses. Expanding further afield in ensuing years, Arbor Ridge began acquiring global food and beverage companies, deep sea drilling firms, a wireless telecommunications company, and transportation companies, from railroads to air cargo companies.
By the end of 2026, Arbor Ridge was a verifiable conglomerate, the leading company on the planet in defense, consumer electronics, virtual reality gaming, food, electricity generation, and transportation. The company even operated a research base on the moon. Even if there were a logic behind the seemingly random pattern of purchases, it was not apparent to the outside world. That said, there was a clear pattern of behavior post purchase: increase research and development investment, fire the CEO and much of senior management, and give rank and file employees 5 to 15 percent raises to improve morale, boost profit sharing, and lower turnover. Robert focused his energy on managing the operations, but it was Chris’s job to manage the finances and essentially keep Robert from buying too many businesses. As it was, internal business investment was running so high on undisclosed long-term projects that Robert turned down his dividends to fund this investment, for he was wary of borrowing money and wanted to ensure dividend payments to the 10 percent of the company owned by the public, including his nearly seven million employees, would be uninterrupted. While many questioned the tens of billions being invested each quarter, there was little pushback since it was essentially his money.
Meanwhile, Mark, whose job had always focused on maintaining Arbor Ridge’s brand, was increasingly focused on strengthening relationships with government regulators who worried over how much power Arbor Ridge was amassing across multiple industries. His efforts were aided by the public’s strongly favorable view towards the company, thanks to its cutting edge technology and gaming business, well-publicized pro-employee pay practices, and the fact that the economy was booming past any previous projections, a boom often credited to the leap forward in technology Arbor Ridge had brought. The American economy was poised to pass $55 trillion, growing a previously unthinkable 8 percent per year, and with an estimated one in seven American households reliant on Arbor Ridge for their income—either because someone worked for the company or one of its suppliers—the boom times were being widely enjoyed.
Since the end of 2026, Robert has essentially stopped his acquisition spree, apart from buying an American 24/7 news channel, Headlines Now, in early 2028, focusing instead on fully integrating all the new businesses, boosting internal business investment, and launching his great towers project. Now, in November 2028, the projects are done, and it is time to show them to the world.
Mark and Chris walk into Robert’s office on the seventieth floor. The space is sleek and relatively modest, with grey carpets and a glass desk with three steel-framed chairs. On one wall hang several TVs showing various news channels, and behind the desk stands a bookcase, where several photos of key moments over the past thirteen years are scattered.
Robert turns to greet them, happy to see his friends and partners. “Morning, guys. Mark, is everything all set downstairs?”
Mark responds, “Yes, boss. We’re ready whenever you are, but I think Chris has some finance stuff for you to go over—”
Chris quickly chimes in, “Yeah, nothing major—it can wait until after the events this morning, but there are some questions over the material costs for the buildings.”
With a knowing hand gesture and unable to conceal a subtle smile, Robert can’t help but ask, “Let me guess. It looks like we bought more steel and concrete than needed to build structures as tall as these?”
Chris says, “Yep, and beyond the excess billing we’d expect from the construction industry, given their standard graft.”
Robert nods. “Okay. Let’s talk about it this afternoon. It seems you, like just about everybody, are too focused on how tall they are and not what’s underneath them. Frankly, I’m a bit disappointed it took you this long to question the numbers. You’re getting a bit lazy, Chris!”
All three knew of course that Chris had a sense the numbers didn’t quite add up for some time, but these towers were funded by the dividend payments Robert declined, and Chris never worried as much about that spending. As far as he’s concerned, it’s Robert’s money anyway, and if he wants to waste it or keep its purpose secret, that’s his business.
Together, the three founders take the elevator back down to the lobby. Robert checks his appearance in the mirrored walls. He’s wearing a slightly different outfit to Mark and Chris, who wear suits with no ties. In the early days of the company, Mark suggested to Robert that he use his wardrobe to develop a personal brand, pointing out how other visionaries like Steve Jobs, with his trademark black turtleneck, could better ingrain themselves in the public consciousness this way. And so, as with every major product launch and company announcement, Robert is wearing a white t-shirt, black suit jacket with an American flag lapel pin, and dark jeans. Even though at first he’d found the whole show annoying, Robert has come to recognize the performance art necessary in his role and appreciates the wisdom of Mark’s advice, even if he has grown weary of the t-shirts. He’s now thirty-one, and his frame has filled out since leaving Killjorn. His hair a bit tamer and trimmer, and his eyes betray a man contemplating deep thoughts, even if few of those thoughts are ever revealed beyond his close inner circle.
The lobby, as in each building, is a grand five-story atrium, mostly open to the public with the latest games and consumer products on display for test trials. And at the center stands a magnificent oak tree, basking in the natural light from the surrounding window facades.
Robert is scheduled to begin this morning with an interview on the leading business channel. He’s prepared for a wide array of topics, from the purpose of these buildings, to last week’s Presidential Election.
Congressman Nick Neverian has taken the political world by storm, bringing the opposition back into power. While his victory seemed likely in the closing stretch of the campaign, his forty-state romping with nearly 60 percent of the vote surprised nearly everyone. While Neverian helped Arbor Ridge secure its first government contracts over a decade ago, he had campaigned on cutting defense spending, given a world at peace, and made implicit criticisms of the company’s growing size. Arbor Ridge shares are down around 7 percent in the past week, wiping out nearly $900 billion in value. It has been an interesting time.
With Mark and Chris in the background to cheer him on, Robert takes his seat under the hot, shining lights across from morning anchor Jim Storks, a fair interviewer Robert had spoken with countless times before. After a handshake and quick hellos, the red light flips on; they are live.
Right on cue, Storks speaks into the camera. “Good morning from 111 Park Plaza in Jersey City—Arbor Ridge’s new global headquarters. We are lucky to have on with us today Robert Wilson. Morning, Robert. We’ve been touring around the building earlier, and I must say, it’s magnificent.”
“Thanks, Jim. It’s a pleasure to have you and your crew here this morning as we formally open this global headquarters and eleven regional ones.”
“Now, Robert, I know you’ve addressed the issue quite often during construction, but now that this project is complete. What does it show? Was it worth the twenty, twenty-something—”
“Twenty billion dollars, not twenty-something. Just twenty billion,” Robert interjected.
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