Part I - A Flaw in the Equation
Seventy-seven years marked a long, brutal war of existence, yielding a single, devastating outcome: absolute, unbreachable boredom.
Such thought reverberates within this space, a place no longer resembling home. Instead, a mausoleum of ambition rises—a three-story shard of glass and steel cantilevered above Manhattan. Architecture, commissioned years prior, emerges minimalist and aggressive, clinically perfect like a surgical theater, offering no room for clutter, warmth, or human error. Every surface reflects, relentlessly bouncing back a lonely, silver-haired image, rendering that reflection the sole constant human presence amid sterile expanse.
Observation of this phenomenon occurs from a fixed position upon a chaise lounge. Furniture, designed with a precise, optimal angle for the spine, surpasses the knowledge of its occupant. For months in early 2024, the sole constant sound accompanying stillness becomes a Tuffin Global stock ticker. Soft, synthetic blip-blip serves less as soundtrack to solitude than beat of a slowing heart, a metronome counting down seconds no longer filled. To that rhythm, scrolling unfolds across a massive, curved screen—not an act of checking markets, but a means to pass hours.
Display reveals daily metrics of an empire: flat, predictable slope of market shares, calculated viewership of content, vast, shimmering bulk of intellectual property value. Watching numbers shift, minute by minute, evokes no feeling. The sheer weight of control smothers the passion that built it. Ownership extends to the world's most vibrant stories, yet sensation mirrors a pauper in a vault, starving amid mountains of gold.
Hours drag. Silence manifests as physical weight, pressing against eardrums.
Clicking a side panel, driven by sheer habit, fills a secondary screen with a news report known by heart: the retirement of Silas Kaine, the last true rival. Kaine, outmaneuvered and crushed decades prior, smiles benignly from a beach in the Seychelles. That genuine, easy contentment presents not a face of vanquished enemy, but an existential insult. Absence of battle, absence of victory, leaves only a hollow echo of prior life. Watching the clip again brings a stark realization: the goal fought toward no longer exists. Loss transcends simplicity; a flaw emerges in the fundamental equation of existence. If victory fails to yield fulfillment, the entire model stands corrupted.
The remaining week unfolds not in mourning, but in a final, ruthless audit. Access opens to private archives—a digital necropolis dubbed 'Ledger of Conquests.' On a massive screen, faces of vanquished materialize: a tech prodigy bankrupted over a patent dispute, now a footnote in a textbook; a celebrated painter whose entire studio was acquired, style absorbed, name erased; a first mentor, outmaneuvered, forced into bitter, early retirement.
Search does not seek old fire—the sharp, clean thrill of the kill. Instead, pursuit targets a missed variable. Dissection of each victory analyzes cost-benefit, scorched-earth tactics, and human collateral. Yet, the equation always balances. Each action proves logical, efficient, and successful. Audit unveils nothing beyond a gallery of ghosts, data points in a triumphant campaign, their defeats as hollow as victories achieved.
Week-long audit concludes with a single, maddening variable. Return shifts to Kaine footage. His smiling, content face transforms beyond an image of a rival; he becomes the final, mocking entry in a ledger. Escape from this mausoleum marks a sole victory unclaimed, a persistent itch beneath skin.
Then arrives a scheduled corporate viewing of the latest fantasy hit. Forced endurance of this market-analyzed piece of fluff becomes a form of psychological self-harm. Sitting in sterile quiet, dissection unfolds: colors too muted, plot beats too predictable, themes too safe. Mind automatically calculates guaranteed return, and that calculation itself turns poisonous. Each predictable point confirms original sin: sacrifice of genuine, messy art for predictable profit.
Viewing ends. Screen fades to black, reflecting a stony expression. A soft chime signals dinner service. A private chef, hired for supposed passion, wheels in a cart.
"Sir," he says, voice brimming with reverence that exhausts. He lifts a silver cloche with a flourish. "Tonight, a deconstructed bouillabaisse awaits. Saffron broth simmered for twelve hours, rouille hand-emulsified, red snapper flown from the coast of Corsica this morning. Thought it might evoke a certain... vitality."
Stare fixes on artfully arranged dish. Perception registers not food, but a collection of optimized assets.
"Snapper's market value depreciated seven percent during transit," comes a flat statement. "Saffron's thread count proves suboptimal for broth viscosity. Presentation remains predictable. Technical perfection achieved, chef, yet creation lacks soul entirely. Remove it."
Chef's face falls, manufactured passion draining to reveal simple, wounded pride. Without a word, he wheels the cart away. Silence left behind grows heavier than before.
Perfect, total control emerges as thought, venomous this time. An unassailable fortress stands built, yet the absence of a door to admit life becomes apparent. Perfection emerges as the enemy of life. Perfecting process meant perfecting irrelevance.
Pacing begins across the penthouse, cold marble amplifying footsteps—click, click, click—a meaningless ritual of discontent. Drawn to imposing, cold sculptures, recognition dawns: not masterpieces, but monuments to relationships crushed to achieve them; an artistic ledger of solitude. The next afternoon, compulsion drives an audit of financial records. Three hours pass in a private vault, tracing a finger over crisp bills, perceiving billions not as wealth, but as raw, accumulated price of solitude. Departure from the vault allows the silence of the penthouse to rush in, heavier and more accusatory than before.
Sleep eludes that night. For the first time in decades, numbers in head—market shares, viewership metrics, asset valuations—offer no comfort. They transform into a meaningless string of code, a language no longer desired. Haunting presence shifts to the ghost of an artist executed to build this empire.
Before dawn, a feverish, primal urge takes hold: a need to create an absence, a balance sheet. A charcoal stick, a simple, dusty tool of youth, meets a blank sketchpad. An attempt is made to draw a human face from memory. Hand moves, yet lines emerge stiff, hesitant, calculated. Proportions prove perfect, angles precise, but life is absent. Result mirrors an architectural blueprint of a face, a corporate schematic of a soul. The skill to draw without a spreadsheet guiding composition has faded.
Stare fixes on a sterile, dead thing on the page, and failure proves absolute. Charcoal stick snaps in grip.
Stumbling into the bathroom, reflection catches in the mirror and freezes. The imposing mask of Colossus vanishes. A desperate, lonely old man appears, eyes wide with terror no stock market crash could induce. True bankruptcy surfaces. System perfected—the relentless pursuit of flawless, predictable, profitable results—extinguished the last ember of humanity.
Relentless pattern demands breaking. The equation requires corruption. A desperate, final strategy forms—a Hail Mary not of logic, but of chaos. Stride to desk unfolds, movements now sharp with terrible purpose, pressing an intercom.
"Amelia, please enter."
The latest executive assistant steps in, a portrait of immaculate efficiency. Posture remains perfect, expression neutral, tablet already in hand.
"Sir?"
"Employment here terminates," comes a flat, cold declaration. "Effective immediately."
For the first time, a flicker of emotion crosses her face—controlled confusion. "May an inquiry be made as to why, sir? Has performance proved unsatisfactory?"
"On the contrary," comes the reply, turning to face the sterile skyline. "Performance has been flawless. That poses a problem. Send security to escort out."
Silence following her departure shifts. No longer the sterile quiet of before, but the charged silence of a chessboard after deliberate sacrifice. One piece leaves the board. Now for next. Perfection exists. Predictability becomes an enemy. What emerges as a need is a flaw in the system. A human error.
Contact with Human Resources follows. "Send C-minus candidate," comes the command. "One from the bottom of the last recruitment cycle. Programmer. Need for a diagnostic."
The young man who enters stands antithesis of Amelia. Suit fits poorly, hands tremble slightly, and eye contact is refused. An algorithm of anxiety manifests. Perfect.
"S-sir? Desired presence?" he stammers.
Gesture vaguely toward the main console. "Run quarterly asset depreciation report." Meaningless, automated task serves the purpose of observation. Trying to fill dead air, he nervously attempts small talk while fingers skitter across the interface. Fumbling closes the wrong window, and in haste to correct, personal streaming service logs in on the big screen.
"That suffices," comes dismissal. As he practically flees the room, his eyes draw to the screen. A personalized recommendation, left by a ghost in a machine, glows in sterile darkness:
Trending Collection: Fated Souls & Broken Destinies
Suggestion emerges as an error in the corporate matrix, a glitch in the system built to police taste and passion. Intrigue by anomaly allows error to remain. First unpredictable variable in decades.
Tap on the screen to bring modern anime to life. Not curated, literary classics engineered, but something vibrant, chaotic, emotionally violent. Animation proves frantic, sound design abrasive, and characters scream not for market share, but for abstract, visceral justice.
A spark—pure, uncalculated dopamine—shoots through the brain. This transcends analysis; this embodies passion, swiftly becoming obsession. Fall into a rabbit hole, unfold into a secret life, a world entered only when the lights dim and the penthouse falls silent. Re-watching anime runs episodes on a continuous loop, raw noise dissolving sharp edges of calculated reality. Characters in Jujutsu Kaisen fight not for metric; they battle curses, dark destiny woven into souls. Sacrifice proves personal. Pain rings authentic.
Realization dawns: not mere watching of a show, but witnessing a thesis. Search begins for the same thesis in other media, hunting the same signal on a different frequency. A track like Kendrick Lamar's 'HUMBLE.' delivers sonic assault, aggressive trap beat commanding a man who sat for no one in fifty years. Then comes a song like Imagine Dragons' 'Whatever It Takes'—adrenalized, emotionally raw pop echoing drive perfected and sterilized.
Eyes close, and understanding emerges. Anime, music—different dialects of the same language: unfiltered human will. No permission sought; simply an expression of chaos. Fire killed in youth, replaced by the cold, clean logic of the balance sheet, resurfaces.
Sketching resumes for the first time in a decade. Avoidance turns from imposing bronze of Titan sculptures; instead, quick, feverish charcoal drawings of new characters—energy, unbridled rage, tragic vulnerability—take shape. Sketches prove sloppy, imperfect, utterly alive.
Sketches lead to a deeper need. Move from charcoal to studio follows, need to prepare for the final act, consuming every hour.
Hours pass in private study, staring at financial models of Tuffin Global. Core belief, foundation of empire, held logic and control as the only paths to immortality. Now, gazing at frantic drawings, truth clarifies:
An unassailable fortress stands built, yet the absence of a door to admit life becomes evident.
Empire manifests as a monument to control. This newfound, chaotic art emerges as a monument to what was surrendered.
This is what was lost; acknowledgment surfaces in the final days of May. This chaos, this fire, this unfiltered energy—killed in self to become Colossus.
Entire adult life unfolds as a meticulously built cage of own making. Vibrant, chaotic art consumed transcends media—it becomes the sound of a key turning in a lock. For the first time in decades, clear, desperate, uncalculated desire emerges: not to control the world, but to be reborn into life where pure, creative fire thrives again.
Powering down the screen, silence rushes back, heavier and colder than before.
Tomorrow brings June 1st. Seventy-eighth birthday looms less than a month away. A global celebration is scheduled, a choreographed spectacle of reverence. Tonight, only the deep, cold emptiness of man destroyed to make that celebration happen remains. Chest tightens, pressure building behind ribs, an internal storm no stock ticker measures.