The steady hum of the rotor blades blended with the faint chime of glass as Arthur gently swirled the deep red wine in his glass.
The leather seat beneath him molded to his frame, but he barely noticed.
His gaze pierced through the helicopter window, where white clouds drifted lazily by like indifferent ghosts.
Below them stretched the Osborn Mega Industrial Park.
His reflection flickered faintly in the window, calm, sharp-eyed, unreadable. Yet behind that face, a storm of memories brewed.
The real tempest hadn't started in the sky; it had begun just thirty minutes earlier in the sterile silence of a sealed laboratory room deep within Osborn Pharmaceutical & Biotech Group.
---
FLASHBACK ...INSIDE THE PRIVATE RESEARCH ROOM.
The metallic door hissed shut behind them. Soft lighting cast long shadows across the polished floor, and an unspoken tension filled the air.
Old Henry stood stiffly beside Arthur, one eyebrow raised in curiosity and concern.
