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A flicker of uncertainty crossed Dr. Connors's eyes.
He sat motionless in his office chair, his face calm and composed, while inside a storm raged.
One part of him was desperate to proceed with the human trials.
This was his life's work. What was the point of all the research if not to benefit humanity, to ensure no one would ever have to suffer from a debilitating injury again?
But the other part, the rational scientist, knew the truth: the regeneration serum was still unstable.
To date, only one test subject—a single white mouse—had achieved the miraculous results he dreamed of after being injected.
And that was the crux of the problem.
They didn't know why it had worked.
Yes, they had succeeded. But they couldn't replicate the success because they couldn't identify the variable that had made it possible.
Medicine is a discipline of precision. It leaves no room for error.
Especially when it comes to human trials. You don't proceed when you have a single question, let alone a complete mystery. Every doubt must be resolved.
So—
Emotionally, no one wanted this to succeed more than he did.
But logically, he knew that what the board was proposing was nothing short of monstrous. They were asking him to gamble with the lives of wounded soldiers.
An angel and a devil materialized on his shoulders.
The angel warned him that this was wrong, that if something went horribly awry, he would never be able to forgive himself.
But the devil whispered that scientific progress demanded sacrifice. If this worked, his legacy would be eternal. He would save millions.
"..." Dr. Connors sat in his office, unmoving.
The afternoon sun streamed through the window, casting shifting patterns of light and shadow across his face.
He sat there for hours, long after the sun had set and the city had gone dark.
A text message chimed on his phone, jolting him from his trance.
He grabbed the device and opened the new text message.
It read:
Doctor. I'm on my way to the hospital now. We believe in you.
He read the words, and his focus dissolved.
The next second, he shot to his feet.
A new, terrible resolve had taken hold. He strode out of his office, his face set in grim determination.
The security camera in the corner of the lab watched silently.
Its red light blinked rhythmically.
With a soft chime, the lab's 'Bio-Engineering Splicer' powered on. Dr. Connors removed a vial of green-hued serum.
I may not be an angel... but I will not be a devil.
Dr. Connors stared at the vial in his hand—a fusion of the mutated serum extracted from that one successful mouse and the core reptilian DNA—and muttered the words to himself. His eyes hardened. He took the vial and sat down.
A moment later.
Sitting on the stool, Dr. Connors looked at the syringe in his hand. He took a deep, shuddering breath, then, without another moment of hesitation, plunged the needle into the stump of his right arm—the arm he had lost in an accident years ago. He pushed the plunger all the way down.
The instant he pulled the needle out, a wave of vertigo slammed into him without warning.
Thud.
Dr. Connors collapsed forward onto the lab table.
At the same time, beneath the skin of his right stump, something began to stir, writhing as if it were trying to claw its way out.
...
Manhattan, the Goring Building.
"Was that a bug?"
"No, a tiny lizard." Gwen, who had finished dinner and was back in her room, was on the phone with Hawk, telling him a funny story about how her eight-year-old brother had just been terrified by a lizard that had crawled in from somewhere.
Hawk listened to her laugh. "You're not scared of them?"
"Hawk," Gwen said, her voice mock-serious. "Have you forgotten? My entire summer internship was based on lizards. Our lab has more of them than it has lab rats."
She was no damsel in distress. She was a scientist who could draw blood from a lizard without blinking and dissect a mouse without hesitation.
"Right," Hawk chuckled.
Gwen laughed with him, then changed the subject. "So, what about you? Have you eaten yet?"
"Not yet."
Hawk looked at the bucket of fried chicken he'd just bought. "I was about to go up to the roof and train. I'll eat after."
The old gym had been torn down to make way for the new swimming pool. And the new gym was always packed, especially now at the start of the semester with all the new freshmen.
So Hawk had decided to just train on his rooftop at night, then eat, shower, and sleep.
Gwen listened to his plan, then a thought occurred to her.
"Hawk, can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Why do you still train every day? You're already so strong."
As she spoke, an image flashed in her mind: Hawk, standing in the pool at the base of the waterfall, his body radiating a palpable heat.
The inverted waterfall.
She still didn't know for sure if he had been the one to do that.
But she had no doubt that he could kill a bear with a single punch.
She had seen it with her own eyes. That day, after she had found him, as they were hiking out of the forest, a bear had charged them. Hawk had killed it with one blow. The memory of it, the sheer, brutal power, still sent a shiver down her spine.
As Gwen was lost in thought, Hawk considered her question.
"Why do I still train?"
"To—"
He paused. An image flashed in his own mind.
"—To protect myself. And the people I care about."
"Does that include me?"
Gwen's voice was soft, but clear.
Ever since that day, ever since she had forced him to take her phone and he hadn't refused, she felt like she had finally cracked the code, finally figured out how to talk to him.
Hawk was taken aback by her directness.
A small laugh escaped him, and then he nodded, his voice firm.
"Of course."
"..."
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