The skyline of Detroit City's corporate district was a jagged scar against the bruised purple of the late afternoon sky, a monument to industry and avarice. From his corner office on the ninety-fifth floor of the OCP Tower, Robert Morton could see it all; the half-finished skeleton of the future Delta City, his future, rising from the corpse of Old Detroit. A monument to his own impending godhood. He loved the view; it tasted of power.

A thin, perfectly straight line of pristine white powder sat on the black glass of his coffee table, a parallel of the city's sprawling grid below. He leaned forward, pinched the end of a rolled hundred dollar bill between his fingers, and inhaled sharply. The cocaine hit the back of his throat with a familiar chemical burn, a sharp, clean jolt that slithered through his veins and set his teeth on edge. The world snapped into a higher-definition, the colors more saturated, the ambient hum of the building's climate control a symphony of purpose.

"Fucking dinosaurs," he muttered, his voice a low rasp in the cathedral-like silence of the office. He was thinking of Dick Jones. Always Dick Jones. That fossil with his antiquated ideas and his lumbering, inefficient ED-209 prototypes. Jones was a relic, a fat, wheezing mammoth sinking into the tar pit of his own obsolescence, and Morton was the meteor hurtling from the heavens to ensure his extinction.

His gaze drifted from the window to the sleek, black intercom on his desk. His fingers, long and restless, hovered over the buttons. He had work to do. Presentations to polish, numbers to massage until they screamed his name. But first... a little diversion.

He had been assigned an assistant a few months back, some transfer from another department, someone meant to handle the boring-as-fuck tasks that were so far beneath him. Competent enough, but shit, certainly not bad on the eyes. An "asset." Morton snorted, the sound sharp and humorless. Oh, he would be an asset, alright. Just not in the way the drones in HR could ever imagine.

He leaned forward, his expensive Italian suit jacket falling open. With a deliberate, almost languid motion, he pressed the intercom button, his thumb caressing the cool plastic. His voice, when it came out, was all business—sharp, clipped, and utterly devoid of the heat coiling in his gut.

"Get in here. Now."