Avalon City shimmered against the twilight sky like a promise unfulfilled. Its skyline-an amalgam of steel spires, neon signs, and swirling advertisements-proclaimed progress and grandeur to anyone gazing from afar. But beneath the gleaming facades and crisscrossing monorails, shadows stretched long: secrets traded like currency, fortunes built on exploitation, truths buried under layers of corporate gloss. On this particular night, a thin fog clung to the streets, swallowing the usual roar of traffic into an eerie hush. High above, in the uppermost floors of the Crownwell Building, a single room glowed with urgent light. There, behind tempered glass and polished steel walls, Nicholas Crane surveyed his empire. Tall, sharp-featured, and impeccably dressed, Crane radiated the sort of calm that could only be crafted through years of wielding power. His reflection in the floor-to-ceiling windows was almost regal-an imposing silhouette against Avalon's electric night. In one hand, he held a tumbler of whiskey; in the other, a sleek phone displaying a single cryptic message: "Shipment delayed. Too many eyes. Need instructions." He exhaled slowly, gaze drifting to the city lights below. Delays meant scrutiny. Scrutiny meant risk. And risk was something Crane Industries could no longer afford-not when the Paragon Project was inching toward its most dangerous phase. No matter how many philanthropic press releases or "charitable donations" bore his name, one spark of public outrage could undo it all. Behind Crane, a clutter of blueprints and high-level memos lay scattered across an expansive table. The top page bore a bold header: "PARAGON-Experimental Energy Grid & Medical Trials: Phase II." Within those lines, technical jargon interwove with references to "enhanced sedation," "biometric testing," and chilling safety disclaimers. The entire project spelled out two possibilities: a quantum leap forward for humanity-or a city-shaking scandal if the details leaked. Crane set his phone aside and tapped at a hidden console embedded in the window ledge. A translucent screen flickered to life, revealing Dr. Elaine Porter's face in half a dozen photographs. A leading researcher, brilliant yet meticulous. She had kept to the shadows for months, driving the Paragon team to new heights-and quietly raising moral objections. If her unease ever became more than whispered protests, if she turned on him... He banished the thought with a sip of whiskey. Fear was weakness, and Nicholas Crane had no room for that. Not now. Across Avalon's sprawling labyrinth, Bailey Hunt hunched over a laptop in a cramped apartment that smelled faintly of old books and burnt coffee. She'd been digging for days into the finances of the Odessa Foundation-a front for philanthropic outreach that raised her suspicions. In a single text, her friend and part-time hacker, Erin, confirmed the existence of mysterious logs referencing "Paragon," "medical sedation protocols," and hush-hush shipments. Bailey's reporter instincts kicked into overdrive: if Crane was behind this, the entire city might be at risk. And in the heart of a hidden research facility, Dr. Elaine Porter stared at sedation readouts that made her blood run cold. A single beep... beep... beep measured the heart rate of a volunteer-someone who might not have fully consented to experimental sedation. She typed frantic notes, aware that if these vital spikes worsened, the volunteer could face irreversible harm. Yet everything in the lab screamed don't question orders. Nicholas Crane insisted Paragon was the future. But Elaine felt the future might also be a moral catastrophe. Such were the threads weaving Avalon's fragile tapestry this night: a billionaire visionary convinced he could reshape civilization at any cost, a relentless journalist determined to expose any wrongdoing, and a conflicted scientist torn between ambition and conscience.