Cambridge, USA
In the three weeks since the Crimson Moon, Jack Wilson's lab at MIT had transformed. What was once a space of theoretical physics and controlled experiments had become the high-tech nest of a man obsessed. Wires snaked across the floor like metallic vines, connecting the pulsing stellar nucleus fragment to every diagnostic tool he could commandeer. Screens displayed cascading lines of code and complex energy wave models, their glow reflecting in Jack's exhausted but fiercely intelligent eyes.
He had slept in four-hour increments, fueled by stale coffee and the electrifying thrill of discovery. He'd confirmed it: the crystal was a near-perfect energy source, its output clean, stable, and orders of magnitude greater than anything humanity had ever produced. He'd also proven his own hypothesis; the energy wave had rewritten his biology on a cellular level. He was stronger, faster, and his mind processed information at a rate that made his old self feel like a dial-up modem. He was the first success story of a new human age.
He was so absorbed in calibrating a quantum entanglement scanner that he didn't hear the lab doors slide open.
"Dr. Jack Wilson?"
The voice was smooth, calm, and utterly out of place in his chaotic sanctuary. Jack spun around. Two men stood there, dressed in impeccably tailored black suits that seemed to absorb the light. They didn't look like soldiers or government thugs. They looked like the future.
The man who had spoken stepped forward. He was older, with silver hair and a face that was a placid mask of polite authority. "My name is Director Thorne. I represent a joint research initiative funded by the Pan-European American Alliance. We call it the Stellar Nucleus Academy."
Jack's eyes narrowed. "I'm not looking for funding."
"We're not offering funding, Doctor," Thorne said with a thin smile. "We're offering a new world." He gestured to a datapad he was holding. A holographic projection bloomed in the air between them, showing a facility of gleaming white towers and vast, subterranean laboratories. "The greatest minds from across the Alliance, gathered in one place. Unlimited resources. The singular goal of understanding the power that has just been gifted to our world, and ensuring it is used to protect it."
It was a scientist's dream. Every piece of equipment he could ever imagine, all his, without a single grant proposal to write. It was tempting. Too tempting.
"Protect it from what?" Jack asked, his tone skeptical. "Or protect it for whom?"
Thorne's smile didn't waver. "An excellent question. Our initial analysis suggests that these stellar nuclei are not merely passive energy sources. They can be... integrated. Imagine, Dr. Wilson, a firefighter who can walk through flames, a rescue worker who can lift a collapsed building. Imagine a suit of armor powered by this energy, a shield for humanity in this dangerous new era."
As he spoke, Thorne swiped the projection. For a split second, before the image of a heroic firefighter appeared, another schematic flashed on the screen. It was an accident, a slip of the thumb, but Jack's enhanced mind captured it in perfect detail. It wasn't a rescue suit. It was a bipedal war machine, bristling with weapon emplacements, a human pilot strapped into its core like a battery. The file was labeled: Project Sentinel.
There it was. The truth beneath the polished sales pitch. This wasn't about science or salvation. It was about weapons. It was the Mecha Modification Plan, hidden behind a friendly name.
Jack felt a surge of cold fury, but he let none of it show on his face. He looked at the gleaming projection, then at his own cluttered, underfunded lab. He could refuse. He could stay here, a lone genius fighting for the soul of science. Or he could go with them. He could get inside the machine, learn its secrets, and be in a position to control, or even destroy it, when the time came.
"You've got my attention, Director," Jack said