The meeting room had no windows. It was located on the seventh sublevel of a nondescript building in Washington D.C., a place that officially didn't exist. Agent Thorne stood before a massive holographic screen, his face lit by the shifting images. Across from him, seated at the head of a long obsidian table, was Director Katherine Shaw. She was a woman in her sixties, with silver hair pulled back in a severe bun and eyes that seemed to have seen everything and been impressed by none of it.
"...the Chicago incident occurred seventy-two hours ago," Thorne was saying, his voice a monotone report that barely concealed the urgency. "A known drug lord, Gianni 'The Fat Man' Romano, was found in his penthouse. He and his five bodyguards were, according to the coroner's report, 'crystallized.' Encased in a kind of quartz cocoon that erupted from the marble floor. The perpetrator left a note on the wall, written in spray paint. It said: 'Taking out the trash.'"
The image on the screen changed, showing the grotesque sculpture of men trapped in crystal. Shaw didn't blink.
"Continue, Agent."
"Forty-eight hours ago, in Miami. A city councilman with alleged connections to money laundering, Robert Brand, was intercepted while driving. His vehicle was dismantled piece by piece around him in under a minute, in the middle of rush hour. Witnesses describe the parts floating in the air before landing neatly on the sides of the road. Brand was left sitting in his seat on the car's chassis, completely unharmed but in a state of shock. The perpetrator was, according to witnesses, a teenager who never even touched the car."
The screen showed a shaky cell phone video: nuts and bolts unscrewing themselves, doors levitating.
"And the most recent, last night in Los Angeles," Thorne continued, his voice now tinged with undeniable gravity. "A warehouse used by a human trafficking ring. The FBI team that went in found all twelve members of the group. They weren't dead. They were… attached. Organically fused with the concrete walls of the building. They were still alive, Director. Conscious. The person responsible for this didn't leave a note. Just a symbol burned into the floor."
Thorne turned off the projector. The silence in the room was absolute.
"They're isolated cases," Shaw finally said, though her tone gave her away. "Opportunistic vigilantes, inspired by the news."
"With all due respect, Director, I don't believe that," Thorne countered. "The residual energy analyses from the three crime scenes are different, indicating different perpetrators. But the method, the ideology… it's identical. Precision, overwhelming power, and a moralistic justification for extreme violence. It's not a coincidence. Jack didn't just appear on the news; he sent out an invitation. He told everyone who was like him that they don't have to hide anymore."
He approached the table, resting his hands on the cold, dark surface.
"This isn't a containment problem. It's an ideological epidemic with biological weapons. Every day that passes, his legend grows, and with it, the number of these… acolytes. We're no longer hunting a single man. We're facing the birth of a new era of anarchy. We can't just keep watching."
Shaw stared at the now-dark screen, her fingers drumming softly on the table. For nearly a minute, she said nothing. Thorne waited, knowing the woman before him was weighing options that would make most presidents lose sleep.
"You're right, Agent," Shaw finally said, her voice cold and precise. "Our observation methods are useless against him. The observation phase is over. The strategy is shifting from passive to proactive."
"Are you authorizing lethal force?" Thorne asked.
Shaw let out a cold, dry laugh.
"What force? What firing squad can we send after him? One he can melt from a kilometer away? No, Agent. You don't fight a force of nature with guns and bullets. You fight it with another force of nature."
She stood and walked to a wall that appeared solid. She pressed a section, and the wall slid aside, revealing a private elevator.
"Come with me, Thorne. It's time I showed you why this organization has survived for sixty years. It's not because of our ability to spy, but our ability to anticipate the unthinkable."
The descent was long and silent. The elevator had no floor indicators, only a growing sense of pressure in their ears. When the doors opened, they led not to an office hallway, but to a laboratory that looked like it was from another technological generation entirely. Sterile white walls, scientists in lab coats moving in near-reverential silence, and the background hum of massive energy, barely contained.
An older man, with disheveled hair and the same intelligent but far more tired eyes as Thorne, approached them. He wore a lab coat over a wrinkled shirt.
"Director Shaw," he said with a slight nod. "I wasn't expecting you so soon."
"Circumstances have moved up the timetable, Dr. Aris," Shaw replied. "Agent Thorne needs access to the program."
Dr. Aris looked at Thorne, and for the first time, the agent saw a flicker of something that looked like a mix of pity and resentment in the scientist's eyes.
"Marcus. You still look like your father."
"Aris," Thorne replied, his tone formal but with an undercurrent of shared history. "It's been a long time."
"Not long enough, apparently," the doctor muttered. "You know what you're asking for, don't you? You know what you want to open the door to."
"I know the world up there is changing at a speed we can't control," Thorne said, his voice firm. "We need a response."
"He's not a solution. He's an unpredictable factor with the capacity to destroy a city," Aris retorted, his voice dropping to an urgent whisper. "We've kept him stable for fifteen years. Balanced. Taking him out of here, exposing him to the… chaos of the outside world… it's an incalculable risk."
"'Risk' is a luxury we can no longer afford, Doctor," Shaw intervened, her voice leaving no room for argument. "Protocol 'Asset Zero' is now officially in effect. Take us to him."
Aris looked at them both for a moment, a deep sadness in his eyes. Then, he sighed and turned away.
"As you wish. But for the record, once you release him, there will be no way to lock him up again."
He led them through the lab, past containment bays and equipment whose purpose Thorne could only guess. They reached a series of circular titanium doors, like a bank vault's, which opened with a hiss of pressurized air. The hum of energy grew stronger.
"We had to build this facility two kilometers underground," Aris explained as they walked down a corridor lit by a pale blue light. "The granite bedrock helps contain his… passive fluctuations."
"Fluctuations?"
"When he sleeps, he sometimes has nightmares," Aris said with chilling simplicity. "The temperature in a ten-meter radius can drop to absolute zero. Or the lightbulbs on the entire level burn out. He's a biological energy sink. He draws in and consumes every kind of energy around him. It's his nature."
Finally, they reached the last door. It was different. Not metal, but a translucent, milky material that seemed to absorb light.
"The cell is flooded with argon gas and a low-level sedative agent. It keeps his metabolism at a minimum," Aris said, placing his hand on a scanner. "It dulls his… appetite."
The door slid upward, revealing a spherical white room. In the center, sitting on a simple stone platform, was a young man. He couldn't have been more than twenty-five. He was thin, pale, with straight black hair that fell over his eyes. He wore a simple, seamless white uniform. He wasn't chained. He didn't look dangerous. He looked fragile. The only unsettling thing was his eyes. When he lifted them to look at them, Thorne saw an unnatural stillness, a deep, expectant emptiness.
"Cain," Thorne said, his voice echoing in the silent room.
The young man, Cain, tilted his head. He didn't speak.
"We need you," Thorne continued.
An almost imperceptible smile touched Cain's lips. His voice, when he finally spoke, was a rasping whisper, rough from disuse.
"You need me. A week ago, you needed me to stay in this box."
"Things have changed. Someone's appeared. Someone like you."
Cain's eyes focused for the first time. The emptiness was replaced by a spark of intense curiosity.
"Like me?" he whispered. "Liar. You told me I was the only one."
"We were wrong," Thorne admitted. "He's strong. Dangerous. He's killing people. He thinks he's above everyone."
Cain stood up in a single fluid, silent motion. He was taller than he looked sitting down.
"And why should I care? This world isn't mine. My world is this room."
"Because he's out there, living, breathing, doing whatever he wants," Thorne said, choosing his words with extreme care. "While you're in here. He's free."
The hook was set. Cain's jaw tensed. The idea of another being like him, but free, was a direct affront to his existence.
"Does he have a name?"
"He calls himself Gamma Jack."
Cain savored the name.
"Gamma…" he whispered. "Interesting."
An hour later, Cain was in a spherical test chamber the size of an airplane hangar. He wore the same white uniform. Thorne, Shaw, and Aris watched from an armored control room.
"His power is the antithesis of energy," Aris explained, his hands flying over a console. "He doesn't create anything. He absorbs. Radiation, kinetic energy, thermal, bio-electricity… all of it. He metabolizes it. But he needs a source. He's been on a subsistence diet for years. Let's see how he reacts to an appetizer."
He pressed a button. From an opening in the chamber's ceiling, a combat drone was released. The drone dove toward Cain, its weapons glowing as they charged.
"Fire a plasma pulse," Thorne ordered.
The drone fired a crackling, blue sphere of energy. Cain didn't move. He didn't even raise a hand. He simply watched the plasma sphere approach. A few feet from him, the projectile seemed to hit an invisible wall. But it didn't explode. The energy was… absorbed. Tendrils of blue light peeled away from the sphere and flowed into Cain's body, which glowed faintly for an instant. The plasma sphere shrank and vanished into nothing.
"Astonishing," Thorne muttered.
"You haven't seen anything yet," said Aris.
The drone, now circling, opened fire with its automatic cannons. Tracer rounds shot out at supersonic speeds. Again, they stopped in mid-air a few feet from Cain, losing all their kinetic momentum and falling to the floor with no force at all.
Cain looked up at the drone. And for the first time, he smiled. He held out a hand. No beam shot from it. Instead, the drone seemed to lose power. Its lights flickered. Its rotors slowed. It was being drained. In a matter of seconds, the state-of-the-art combat machine powered down completely and fell from the sky, crashing to the floor with a dull, metallic thud.
Cain lowered his hand. His skin had a little more color. His posture was a little more upright. He had fed.
Back in the observation room, a tense silence filled the room. Shaw turned to Thorne.
"Get him ready. I want him in Metroville in twenty-four hours."
Later, Thorne stood before Cain's cell again. The door was open.
"We're getting you out of here," Thorne said. "We'll give you a target. Help us stop Gamma Jack, and you'll get a new life. One with… more room."
Cain looked at him, his curiosity now mixed with a barely concealed hunger.
"I accept. I want to meet him. I want to know if he's like me."
"Your mission is to neutralize him. Nothing more."
"Of course," Cain said, his smile now wider, and much more unsettling. "I'll find him. And then, he and I will have a very long conversation. And for your sake, Marcus, you'd better hope I like what he has to say."
Thorne turned to leave, a chill running down his spine despite his training. As he walked down the long corridor, Aris's voice came from his side.
"You've unleashed him, Marcus."
"I did what was necessary."
"Remember what I told you once," Aris said, stopping to look at him. "We've kept him on the bare minimum of energy to survive. Now you've released him into a world that's full of it. He won't stop. He won't know how."