Two months later, Aleksander brought Koji and Akira down to the deepest sub-level of his lab.
Sitting in the center of the room was his finished prototype.
It looked like a hybrid between a high-end MRI machine and a sleek, futuristic tanning bed.
The base was a pristine, white, contoured mattress designed to comfortably hold a human body.
Arching over the mattress was a sweeping, translucent glass canopy.
On the side of the machine, a holographic touch-display was waiting, ready to show a person’s vital signs, bones, and cells in real-time.
“I call it the Elysium Med-Bay,” Aleksander said, running a hand along the smooth white edge.
Akira walked a slow circle around it.
“What does it do?”
“You just lie down,” Aleksander explained simply.
“The glass canopy scans your entire body down to the microscopic level.
It finds any diseases, broken bones, or damaged organs, and it automatically rebuilds your cells to remove the problem.
It can cure cancer in seconds.
It can heal a fatal gunshot wound instantly, as long as the brain and central nervous system are still intact.”
He paused, looking directly at Koji.
“It also repairs cellular decay.
It reverses the aging process.”
To say Koji and Akira were shocked would be a massive understatement.
The room went completely silent.
Akira stared at her brother like he had just pulled down the moon.
Koji stepped closer to the machine, his seasoned eyes tracing the glowing blue lights.
He knew exactly what this meant.
“A person having this,” Koji muttered, his voice thick with disbelief, “is practically immortal.”
But then, Koji’s face hardened.
He looked at Aleksander, worry lines creasing his forehead.
“Aleksander, you cannot release this to the world.
If the public or the High Table finds out you have a machine that grants immortality, there will be a global war over it.
Governments will hunt you down.
You will never be safe.”
Aleksander held up a hand to calm him.
“I know, Father.
I already thought of that.”
He tapped the holographic screen.
“This specific machine is the prime prototype.
It stays in this basement, strictly for our family.
The public version will cure major diseases, heal broken bones, and save lives, but it will not reverse aging.
It will be a medical miracle, but it won’t make anyone immortal.”
Koji let out a long, heavy breath, the tension leaving his shoulders.
He should have known his son was already ten steps ahead.
Akira grinned and nudged her father’s arm.
“You should use it right now.
Fix that bad shoulder you’re always complaining about.”
Koji looked at the pristine white bed, then back to Aleksander.
“I will try it,” Koji agreed.
“But Aleksander…
I am the leader of the Shimazu clan.
I cannot walk out of this basement looking like a twenty-five-year-old man.
People will ask questions we cannot answer.
I need my outward appearance to stay exactly as it is.”
“That’s easy,” Aleksander nodded.
His Absolute Mind instantly calculated the exact biological markers required.
He typed rapidly on the holographic interface, adjusting the machine’s programming to ignore Koji’s graying hair and facial wrinkles, while completely overhauling his internal organs, joints, and muscles.
Koji took off his jacket and lay down on the white mattress.
Aleksander tapped a button.
The translucent glass canopy smoothly slid over Koji.
A warm, scanning light passed over his body from head to toe.
On the holographic screen, a 3D model of Koji appeared, highlighting decades of old knife scars, micro-fractures in his bones, and cartilage worn down from a lifetime of fighting.
The machine hummed quietly.
Under the glass, Koji felt a strange, warm tingling sensation deep in his chest and limbs.
It didn’t hurt.
It just felt like a heavy weight he had carried for thirty years was suddenly lifting.
Three minutes later, the canopy slid back open.
Koji sat up.
He looked at his hands.
His skin still had its wrinkles, and his hair was still gray.
But as he rolled his shoulders and stood up, his eyes widened.
The dull, constant ache in his lower back was completely gone.
His bad shoulder felt as smooth and strong as it had when he was a rookie assassin.
His lungs pulled in air with perfect, effortless clarity. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
He was biologically in the physical prime of his twenties, hidden perfectly behind the face of a seasoned elder.
Koji looked at Aleksander, completely speechless.
He reached out and placed a firm, grateful hand on his son’s shoulder.
“I think,” Aleksander said with a small smile, “Apex Industries is ready for its next product launch.
And I am ready for Riverdale.”
The public release of the Apex Med-Bay hit the world like a tidal wave.
When the first hospital models were powered on, the global shock was absolute.
People who had been given weeks to live were walking out of treatment rooms completely cured in a matter of minutes.
No country or government could reject the technology.
Refusing to buy a machine that could effortlessly cure cancer and heal major trauma would have been political suicide.
For the Shimazu clan, the invention changed everything.
The clan had always operated their own private hospitals and shadow clinics to patch up their assassins.
With the Med-Bay, Koji smoothly expanded those fronts into a massive, legitimate global healthcare empire.
Naturally, the world’s superpowers and rival tech giants didn’t just want to buy the machines; they wanted to own the secret.
Within the first month, there were dozens of highly funded attempts to steal the technology.
But anyone who tried to come after Apex Industries quickly realized they were not just fighting a tech company.
They were fighting the combined might of the High Table.
Koji knew he couldn’t protect Aleksander from the entire world by himself, so he called in his closest allies within the global criminal underworld.
Powerful crime lords stepped up to throw their massive resources into keeping the young genius safe.
Gianna D’Antonio, a sitting member of the High Table and the powerful leader of the Camorra, used her immense financial and political influence to quietly shut down government investigations across Europe.
The Director, the fierce leader of the New York branch of the Ruska Roma, used her vast web of informants to intercept corporate spies, eliminating them before they ever got close to Aleksander’s labs.
Pyotr, the seasoned leader of the German branch of the Ruska Roma, deployed his most elite, heavily armed soldiers to guard Apex shipping convoys and factories against black-ops strikes.
These leaders pushed their powers to the absolute limit to keep Aleksander safe.
They did it because Koji was their loyal ally and good friend, but they also did it for a very practical reason: Koji made sure they were heavily rewarded.
By protecting Aleksander, Gianna, the Director, and Pyotr were given exclusive access to his amazing technology.
Their top soldiers were equipped with Bio-Foam and Kinetic suits, and their private clinics were the first to receive the Med-Bays.
Even if a rival somehow made it past the High Table’s army, they still couldn’t steal the technology.
Aleksander had built the Med-Bays with terrifying layers of security.
If someone tried to forcefully open the machine, an internal charge instantly melted the core processors into useless slag.
Cortana constantly monitored the global network, ready to shut down any machine that was stolen.
But Aleksander’s ultimate safety design was simply his own intelligence.
Aleksander had invented chemical compounds and micro-circuitry that defied current human understanding.
Without Aleksander there to explain the impossible math, the greatest engineers on Earth were completely helpless to recreate it.
The world had no choice but to play by his rules.
With his company secured, his technology changing the planet, and the most powerful crime lords on Earth guarding his back, Aleksander finally packed his bags.
The Ghost was ready for a quiet life in Riverdale in a month’s time.