[February 2001]
Several Months Later
Business was booming.
Wayne's gaming studio has been on the rise due to creating several hit games. Rumours were already circulating, the company was eyeing expansion into gaming consoles and custom-built devices.The buzz was good. Profits were strong, bringing in hundreds of thousands each month, but it still wasn't enough.
Not for what Krace was building.
His reserves, millions of untraceable black money, were almost used up. Most of it had gone into the company's early operations: covering overhead, feeding weekly donations to local food banks, and launching aggressive marketing campaigns. The rest had been swallowed by the house.
The original home in Kew Garden Hills was far too basic, far too exposed, lack security. So, Krace tore it down and built a new one from scratch. A custom-designed fortress.
The new house had a fully concealed underground basement, accessible only through two entry points: one hidden behind a shelf disguised as part of the living room wall, and the other through the garage. Both entrances were secured with layers of encryption and biometric locks—codes only Krace knew.
The entire house was soundproofed, reinforced, and wired with hidden compartments, 24-hour surveillance, closed-loop CCTV, and ghost cameras that couldn't be hacked. To reduce risk of exposure, Krace hired multiple contractors to handle different parts of the project. No single company had a complete blueprint of the house.
Despite the complexity, construction finished in just two months—a job that would normally take two years. But money talks. Triple the cost, and everything was accelerated.
His computer was moved into the basement—now fully upgraded into a high-level neural interface system that responded only to his brainwaves. It could process information at lightning speeds and was loaded with dozens of tools, modules, and programs.
But it wasn't true artificial intelligence.
Not yet.
What people called AI in this era—simple algorithms trained on patterns, prediction models, and basic automation—was a far cry from the real thing. A true AI, the kind Krace had in mind, required something far more complex: a system that could reason, learn independently, adapt, and problem-solve without being manually guided every step of the way.
To even begin building it, he would need mountains of data—billions of diverse, high-quality datapoints across multiple disciplines—and a computing system capable of evolving with that data. More than that, he'd need breakthroughs in neural architecture, memory modelling, adaptive logic systems, and maybe even quantum processing.
This era simply didn't have that kind of infrastructure.
But soon… he would create it. Not for profit or anything else, but to help build the multiversal teleporter.
All of these projects cost an arm and a leg and bled his funds dry like the Saharan desert.
The first game published by Wayne's gaming company was Blackshot, a multiplayer, fast-paced, first-person, shooting game. Sales kept on rising each month, but despite the demand, revenue plateaued, leading to less amount than its potential profits. The reason was simple: physical distribution.
Discs had to be printed, packaged, and shipped across the country. Then they had to sit on store shelves, waiting to be picked up. That was the bottleneck. Popular stores ran out of stock. Smaller towns didn't get shipments on time. And outside the U.S.? Forget it.
It was a system built for a slower age—one Krace knew was nearing its end.
He'd already started laying the foundation for what came next.
There were no online platforms yet. No Steam. No Epic. No digital marketplaces to buy and download games instantly. But there would be. Wayne Company would pioneer it and dominate the market.
Just last week, PUBG V1, an expansion of Blackshot, launched in stores across America. It allowed players to transfer their Blackshot character data, creating a connected game universe. If the release performs as expected, the company could see millions in revenue over the next year.
Wealth, knowledge, information and materials. Krace needed all these aspects to even begin the project, but now he's stuck at the first one. Wealth. Building the company from scratch, paying the employees forward and marketing the games solely relying on his own money has dried his funds like a sponge.
Although Subway Surfer and Candy Crush were well celebrated, the return was not a lot as the game was restricted only to Stark-branded phones. A couple of thousand dollars a month wasn't going to build a gateway between universes.
The PC titles, like Blackshot and PUBG V1, were different. Their reach was broader, profits higher—hundreds of thousands a month—but even that wasn't enough. Not fast enough.
Sure, he can easily amass billions of wealth in 10 years, patiently waiting for the games' profits, but right now, time is not on his side. He cannot afford to wait for decades to see his family. What if Darkseid and Joker are alive too? What if his delay cost another Earth its future? Ten years was too long. Entire worlds could fall in that time.
There is an alternative to do another black operation, stealing all the dirty money from various people around the world, but that would attract too much attention and increase the chances of him being traced. If the government scrutinised his income and the company to the minute details, they would find the inconsistent revenue and expenses of his business. Easily, the nation's audit institution can match the missing and stolen money with its expenses from last year, not to mention that if any secret US governmental agencies catch a whiff of his involvement, they will directly investigate, leaving no room for negotiation or escape.
….
The neighborhood was quiet, covered in a soft winter hush. A thin fog drifted between the houses, catching the glow of the street lamps.
Krace stepped out of his black sedan and shut the door with practiced silence. His boots tapped softly on the driveway as he walked toward the front door of what looked like an ordinary two-story home. The paint was simple. The garden was neat and freshly trimmed. All his money had gone into this place.
He pressed his thumb to a small keypad hidden under the porch light. A quiet hiss, a pause, then the door clicked open with a soft shhhk.
He stepped inside.
The house smelled clean — almost sterile. The lights turned on automatically, warming the shadows. Every window was sealed with smart polarized glass. The walls, reinforced with steel and soundproof materials, shut out the world completely.
He locked the door behind him and listened.
Silence.
No one here.
Safe.
He moved down the hallway into the living room. Everything looked normal at first: oak bookshelves, framed art, soft lighting.
Then he turned to one shelf in particular — a tall unit filled with rare books and journals. His hand reached for the third book on the second row, The Art of War.
With a gentle pull and slight twist, there was a faint mechanical click. The entire bookshelf shuddered, then slowly slid aside, revealing a hidden doorway.
Cool air drifted up from the passage. Dim strip lights flickered on, one by one, leading down.
The shelf slid shut behind him, sealing the room in silence again.
He walked down the steps. The walls were lined with hidden sensors and cameras, all connected to a private system only he could access.
At the bottom, the passage opened into a large underground chamber.
At the center was his neural computer — a sleek black console with a crown-like headgear resting on a stand. It hummed quietly, waiting for him.
Krace took off his coat and hung it neatly. He rolled his shoulders, stretching out the tension from the day.
The lights shifted, revealing the far side of the basement.
There were no surveillance monitors or city feeds.
Instead, there were scattered blueprints, tangled wires, and half-finished parts stacked against the walls.
On a wide workbench lay huge sheets of paper covered in detailed sketches — energy coils, transdimensional equations, frame structures. A few small prototype pieces, no bigger than a toaster, sat half-disassembled.
Above the workbench, a large screen came to life, showing digital blueprints and rough designs. Some diagrams were only half-complete, marked with question marks and quick notes. Annotations covered the screen — materials lists, power calculations, theoretical energy flows.
Krace stood there, staring at it all.
This was supposed to be his way home. The start of the multiversal teleporter. But now, seeing all the unfinished pieces and missing materials, it felt impossibly far away.
He stepped closer and ran a gloved hand across a blueprint.
He knew exactly what he needed: rare metals that didn't exist here, power sources beyond this Earth, knowledge he could only piece together from his broken memories. Each piece was another mountain to climb.
Krace let out a long, quiet sigh.
The road ahead was long. Maybe the longest he'd ever faced.
But he had no choice.
Slowly, he rolled up one of the blueprints and set it aside. Piece by piece, he would build it. No matter how long it took.
He paused, his eyes scanning the scattered sketches one last time.
A small warmth flickered across his face — brief, almost fragile.
"Wait for me," he thought. "I'm coming home."
...
In a well-lit office, the air was thick with cigar smoke. A heavy scent of ash and tension clung to the room. Behind an ornate desk sat a man hunched forward, a thick cigar clutched between two fingers, a phone pressed to his ear.
"Yes, sir… I understand. I'm sorry," he muttered, voice low, nervous.
The voice on the other end was slow and cold. "You've disappointed us, Mr. Luciano. The boss is not pleased. You're lucky you're still useful. Get the materials. Deliver them next week. Or I'll collect your head instead."
Beep.
The line went dead.
BAM!
Luciano threw the phone across the room, smashing into the wall.
"Bunch of goddamn FOOLS!" he shouted, standing abruptly, his chair screeching back. "You said the match was FIXED! I was supposed to win, get the Luciano name back in their good graces! Now my neck's in a noose!"
He turned toward the door, rage burning behind his eyes.
"Boys! Find the idiot host—and that rat boxer! I want them dead!"
"and MEN!
Get ready!
We'll ransack those DAMN RUSSIANS!!"
****
A/N: Sorry for not posting, I was writing the other fic "Marvel: Sævor of Wisdom", and I just finished my exam. This FF is different from the others I'm writing, as most of the chapters here are from my own words. I just use AI for grammar and to improve flow.
Give a read of my other fic. Thaks.