"Easy, easy, don't get so worked up. Why do you look more upset than I am?" Sophia Zade patted Adam Zade on the back, and seeing that this man seemed to actually get how she felt, her own mood eased a little. "Let me share some good news to cheer you up."
"Hiss... Whew... Okay, I could really use some good news right now."
Good news? What could possibly be better than what I just heard?
"It's not a big deal, but it's kind of interesting, so I thought I'd share." Sophia Zade said offhandedly, "While I was researching the possibility of hyperspace life, I stumbled on a side discovery: turns out, other people besides me can also figure out how to freely enter and exit hyperspace without the Spatial Anchor Device."
The air seemed to freeze—thick, heavy, as if the room itself was holding its breath.
Suddenly, the atmosphere thickened, a hush so deep it felt like the world itself had paused to listen.
In that moment, from the viewpoint of memory, Adam suddenly froze like a statue.
Sophia Zade was still patting him on the back. She had no martial arts skills, so she didn't notice anything, but through the sense-memory, Jill Young realized that Adam Zade's heart had stopped right then.
Not figuratively—literally, for real, his heart stopped.
If you looked at an EKG, it would be a long, screeching flatline. Morsey would say it looked like death itself.
Then, his heart suddenly restarted—and began to race out of control. One hundred, one forty, one eighty, in a blink it nearly broke the world record for heart rate. He didn’t move a muscle, but you could bet his chest felt ready to explode. You couldn’t see his face from this angle, but Jill knew: his eyes had to be bloodshot right now.
Maybe that soul-level ferocity was just shooting out of his eyes.
But Sophia couldn’t see that. All she saw was Adam, after more than ten seconds frozen in silence, finally speaking. He asked slowly, careful, but his voice was faint and oddly twisted, like he was forcing something down.
"You mean... without the anchor device... without your power... you can just... freely... go in and out of hyperspace?"
"Yep." Sophia Zade replied casually, then looked at him with concern: "Adam Zade, you might be having a heart attack. Go get yourself checked at the Medical Division, now."
You didn’t need martial arts to see that something was seriously wrong with the guy.
"No, no, no, I’m not going to any medical department." Adam shook his head hard, still keeping his face hidden from Sophia, his voice trembling as he pressed, "When you say 'freely,' does that include... other hyperspace applications? Does it mean... mean... like, like you?"
"Forget about that, if you don’t go now it’ll be too late!" Sophia Zade conjured a communicator out of thin air, all business: "Notify Medical Division—prepare for a heart attack case."
"No, no! I’m not going—"
With a wave of Sophia’s hand, Adam vanished.
Adam appeared out of thin air in the medical wing of the Gate of Science. He stared blankly at the drastically changed surroundings, then suddenly let out a roar that barely sounded human. His eyes blazed red as he went wild, smashing all the equipment around him.
"Boss, boss, are you okay?" The doctors nearby were stunned, but while they froze, the newly developed smart system from the Cybertron Team didn’t. A high-tech robotic arm shot out in an instant, jabbed a syringe into Adam’s arm, and pumped in a stream of tranquilizer. In the middle of his wild rampage, Adam’s eyes rolled back and he collapsed with a thud.
Adam Zade and Sophia Zade’s one-on-one meeting happened again, forty minutes later, in the Medical Division’s recovery ward.
Sophia sat by the bed, Adam lay on it.
This time, Adam looked a lot more normal. His eyes weren’t red anymore, and his heart rate was at least sort of reasonable.
After clearing everyone out and having his people shut down all the surveillance gear, Adam stared at Sophia, couldn’t wait to ask: "Sophia, just tell me straight—this so-called freedom, does it mean I can be like you? Do what you do?"
"Adam, Tiberius space doesn’t have an owner. Maybe it did once, but not anymore. I can use hyperspace, but I’m not its master." Sophia calmly peeled an apple, very carefully, making the peel thin and long. "If I can do it, others can too—in theory."
Adam’s breathing got rough again. He couldn’t help grabbing Sophia’s arm and pressing, "So, how do you do it? How can I be like you?"
"You, for now, should just chill." Sophia Zade handed him the apple, her face unusually gentle. "Come on, patient, open up. We’ll talk shop later."
"How the hell is this a shop talk!" The heart monitor started going wild again as Adam shot up, knocking the apple flying, his face a mix of desperation and a hint of savagery. "Tell me, just tell me!"
The apple rolled to the corner, and Sophia’s expression cooled again. Her answer didn’t change: "We’ll talk about it later. Just rest, okay?"
"Hey, don’t—"
Whoosh—Sophia vanished.
Adam stared blankly at where she’d disappeared, and in an instant his eyes went bloodshot again. His face twisted, showing the deep darkness and madness hiding beneath his sunny exterior.
He clutched his head, his eyes darting around—he looked totally unhinged.
"Later? Why later? Not telling me? Why not? Why not? This—this miracle... I could do it too... Why not tell me how! Why! Why say I can do it, but not tell me how? What are you up to, why torture me like this!!!"
Adam’s roar echoed through the ward. If Tiberius hadn’t been built so solid, with top-notch soundproofing, his shout would’ve startled everyone for miles.
Just then, there was a bang—a person barged in, shoving the ward door open and striding in, all smiles.
Adam’s roaring cut off instantly.
"Boss!" The bumbling young man was Morsey, Adam Zade’s assistant back when he led the Manchester team. Adam Zade eventually swapped him out for someone with more brains.
Honestly, Adam Zade hadn’t seen this guy in ages, but right at this crucial moment, here he was, huffing and puffing into the room with a stack of documents.
He didn’t notice anything weird about Adam Zade, just dragged over a big table and dumped the papers on it. "Boss, these are from Ms. Sophia Zade—she asked me to give them to you."
Sophia?
Adam’s bloodshot eyes flickered.
Why did Sophia send this guy to deliver something?
Oh, right—Sophia didn’t know the new assistant, only this kid.
Adam narrowed his eyes. "What is this stuff?"
"Oh, here’s the deal. Ms. Sophia Zade asked me to swing by your office. She said she’d left some materials for you on your desk. Then you got sick and needed them in a hurry, so she had me bring them over."
Materials I needed urgently?
Adam Zade instantly scrambled up and, hands shaking, started rifling through the papers. After just a couple pages, his breathing sped up. A few more, and he suddenly paused, looked up at Morsey, his voice flat and unreadable: "Did you read any of this?"