The side door of the control room had already been opened, and someone wearing an IEVA suit was waiting at the entrance. The person's face was obscured by the helmet, revealing only two small amber lights inside. Without a word, this person quickly pulled Tuan onto the ship and guided him into the cockpit. Because the ship was positioned upright in preparation for launch, the floor stood at a ninety-degree angle relative to the ground, forcing Tuan to wear gravity boots just to move normally. The stranger pressed a fashionable sphere device into his hand, then quickly returned to their post.

  Tuan stood there in a daze, letting everything unfold on pure instinct. The lingering drowsiness left him unable to remember what he did next. All he knew was that when he suddenly came to, his body was already seated in a chair – seat restraints automatically secured, an IEVA suit fully equipped – without him ever realizing when or how it had happened.

  Valentina appeared not long after Tuan. She pressed the fashionable sphere against her chest, and the IEVA suit immediately spread across her body, replacing the thin white garment she had been wearing. She hurriedly pulled the helmet over her head, then dropped heavily into the seat beside Tuan, her entire posture stiff with anxiety and confusion.

  The stranger from earlier returned as well and took the last remaining seat. Outside, the transparent glass corridor slowly detached from the ship’s hull and retracted back into the depths of the research facility. Security personnel stationed there struggled desperately to restrain a group of frantic scientists who were trying to rush forward and stop the spacecraft from launching. They screamed and hurled curses, but none of it could reach the ears of those already inside. The side hatch leading into the cockpit sealed shut under a pneumatic locking system, turning the entire chamber into a perfectly closed space. The concept of sound suddenly vanished, and silence enveloped the space like a heavy blanket. Only a few seconds after all three had settled into their seats, the ground began to tremble – then the entire ship started to shake violently.

  The control center had activated emergency launch mode.

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  A thunderous roar erupted from beneath the ship, tearing apart the metal framework that held it in place and hurling the spacecraft skyward. The shockwave shattered the surrounding glass, blasted debris into the air, and dragged a colossal column of white smoke straight up into the sky. The three passengers were slammed deep into their seats by the sudden acceleration. Their eyes strained wide open, their breathing growing labored. In that instant, everything they left behind was swallowed by the past, while the view ahead unfolded into countless gateways leading toward vast, uncharted horizons.

  With Mars’s gravity measuring only one-third that of Earth’s, and an atmosphere barely one percent as dense, launching a spacecraft out of Martian orbit was a relatively simple task. However, that did not mean what followed would be just as forgiving.

  Inside the ship, the operating system began flooding the cabin with an artificial gaseous compound known as G.o.D, in preparation for the upcoming high-speed transit. The air aboard the vessel gradually gelled, thickening into an invisible, liquid-like medium. Every movement became sluggish, as if one were walking along the ocean floor. The purpose of this process was to create a stable pressure field – one that could evenly distribute force and protect those inside from extreme acceleration and the distortion of spacetime itself. Without it, the moment the transit began, the unfortunate bodies of the astronauts would be crushed flat, reduced to nothing more than sheets of paper.

  A suffocating silence engulfed the space around them. Three members – three special passengers aboard the ship – each carried within them a tangled web of chaotic thoughts.

  Valentina and Tuan had no idea what was happening, nor who the person seated in front of them truly was. Where were they being taken? Or was this merely another experiment designed specifically for the two of them?

  Those questions clung stubbornly to their minds, until Valentina, without even realizing it, reached out and tightly grasped Tuan’s hand, searching for a fragile sense of emotional safety.

  Just as the atmosphere grew heavier by the second, the communication screen connecting them to the ground control center suddenly flickered to life. For reasons unknown, the signal was violently unstable – black-and-white static tearing across the display like an old box television from the late 1990s.

  A few seconds later, through the chaotic distortion, the face of a painfully familiar woman emerged before them – Doctor Giáng Tiên.