The constant hiss of the negative pressure systems was the only real sound in Metroville Penitentiary's isolation wing. It was a white, industrial noise, designed to make sure no one thought about what it was trying to contain. Added to that hiss was the slow, spaced beeping of a heart monitor that sounded more like a countdown than a sign of life.
Agent Thorne observed the scene through the thick laminated glass panel of the quarantine cell. The Level Four HAZMAT suit felt heavy and cumbersome. He looked at his own hands, covered by white polymer gloves, and felt disconnected from reality, like a diver looking at the world from the bottom of the sea.
"Any change, Doctor?" Thorne asked through the internal communicator. His voice sounded muffled, filtered by the respirator.
Inside the cell, Dr. Blark, a man who looked like he had aged a decade in the last twelve hours, shook his head without taking his eyes off his patient. Around the bed, two nurses in identical suits moved with silent efficiency, changing a fluid bag that served no purpose.
"None indicating improvement, Agent," Blark's metallic voice replied. "In fact, I'd say we're witnessing systemic collapse in real-time. Tissue necrosis is accelerating. Whatever he has isn't just killing him; it's unraveling him at a cellular level. It's like watching a super-fast nature documentary about decomposition."
"Still no idea what it is?"
"It's not a virus. It's not bacteria. It's not any known prion. We've analyzed his blood, his tissue, his saliva… There's no pathogenic agent. It's as if his own cells have been ordered to self-destruct in the most grotesque way possible."
Inside the cell, the man on the bed convulsed. He was no paramilitary soldier from Fractal's gang; he was a map of horror. His skin, once healthy, was now a canvas of dark pustules oozing a thick, blackish liquid. His breathing was a wet rattle, the sound of lungs drowning in themselves.
"I need to go in," Thorne said.
There was a pause on the communicator. "Excuse me?"
"I need to speak to him before it's too late," Thorne repeated. His tone left no room for negotiation.
"Agent, with all due respect, that's insane," Blark retorted. "He's delirious half the time, and even if we don't find a pathogenic agent, it doesn't mean it's not contagious. It could be something we don't know how to detect."
"That's why I'm wearing this nearly ten-thousand-dollar suit, Doctor. If it can't protect me from this, then we have much bigger problems. Open the door for me."
"I don't think you'll get anything coherent from him."
"Let me try. Every second we argue is a second he loses."
A sigh of resignation came through the communicator. "Understood. Opening the airlock. You have five minutes. If his vital signs drop below the threshold, we're pulling you out, whether he's talking or not."
The cell door slid open with a heavy hiss of pressurized air. Thorne entered, and the sound of the heart monitor became sharper, more personal.
He approached the bed. The man's eyes snapped open, bloodshot, pupils dilated with terror and pain. He tried to pull away, but his body barely responded.
"Who… who are you?" the prisoner croaked. His voice was a broken whisper.
"I'm the man who needs to know what happened to them," Thorne said, keeping his voice calm, almost conversational, so as not to scare him further.
The man let out a dry laugh that turned into a violent coughing fit. One of the nurses moved to help him, but Thorne raised a hand to stop her.
"What happened to us?" the man repeated when he caught his breath, a crazed look fixed in Thorne's eyes. "He… he happened to us."
"Are you referring to Gamma Jack?" Thorne pressed, leaning in slightly. "Did he do something to you during the confrontation at the Vermonth mansion?"
"No… no, it wasn't during the fight," the man whispered, his eyes darting frantically around the room, as if expecting to see something in the corners. "There he just beat us. Broke our bones. That's normal. I understand that."
"Then when was it?"
"It was afterward. In the provisional detention cells. We were all in a line, waiting for transfer to this dump. He walked down the corridor. He was with some agents, talking. He didn't even look at us. Not once. He just… walked past us."
Thorne frowned inside his helmet. "And what did he do? Did he say anything? Did he touch you?"
The prisoner began to tremble. It was not a tremor from cold or fever, but from a terrifying memory.
"Nothing! That's what no one seems to understand!" he suddenly screamed, his voice breaking into a choked sob. "He did absolutely nothing! He didn't touch us, he didn't speak to us, he didn't even turn his head."
He paused, struggling to breathe. "I just felt… cold. Suddenly. A cold that wasn't of this world. It wasn't like winter cold. It was like the warmth was draining from my body, from my bones. As if something inside me was starving to death. As if he was… eating away at life from afar."
Thorne leaned in even closer, his helmet's visor now only inches from the dying man's disfigured face. He could see every detail of the broken veins in his eyes, every oozing pustule.
"What is he?" Thorne asked, his voice barely a whisper.
The man's eyes sought Thorne's, a final, desperate plea to be believed, to transfer the truth before it extinguished.
"He's not a hero…" he whispered, and each word seemed to cost him the last ounce of his life energy. "He's not a man… He's… he's a plague… a disease with a pretty face… Tell everyone… He saves no one… he just decides who rots slowest…"
His back arched in a final, violent spasm. The pustules on his neck visibly swelled and burst in a horrible effusion of dark liquid that stained the sterile sheet. The heart monitor beside him, which had been beeping slowly, let out a long, sharp, continuous shriek.
The silence that followed was absolute, heavy, more overwhelming than any scream.
Thorne remained motionless for a moment, the echo of the man's last words reverberating inside his helmet. "A disease with a pretty face."
"Agent, you need to get out. Now," Blark's voice said in his ear, urgent.
Thorne straightened slowly and left the cell without a word. The door closed behind him, sealing death inside.
****
The news broke. By mid-afternoon, local news channels interrupted their regular programming.
"MYSTERIOUS PLAGUE SWEEPS THROUGH FRACTAL GANG AT MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON."
Then came the more sensational headlines.
"THE SUDDEN DEATH OF MARCUS VERMONTH: A HEART ATTACK OR SOMETHING MORE SINISTER?"
In Captain Miller's office at Metroville Central Station, the atmosphere was tense. Detective Henderson, a burly man with a mustache that had seen better days, set a steaming cup of coffee on Miller's desk.
"What the hell is going on, Captain?" Henderson asked, nodding towards the TV screen on the wall, which showed images of biohazard teams in yellow suits surrounding the penitentiary. "First the billionaire philanthropist drops dead from a supposed heart attack right after Gamma Jack saves him, and now all of Fractal's thugs are rotting in their cells. Coincidence?"
Miller took a sip of coffee. It was bitter. "I don't believe in coincidences, Henderson. Not of this size."
"The internet forums are on fire," the detective continued, looking at his tablet. "Some say it's a government bio-weapon gone out of control. Others, that Vermonth and Fractal were involved in something with an experimental virus. And half of them… half of them blame Gamma Jack. They say this is what happens when you let a guy with godlike powers act unsupervised."
"Half of them are right to be scared," Miller murmured, his eyes fixed on the screen. "But they're pointing at the wrong problem. It's not lack of supervision. It's him."
"You think he did this to them? To all of them?" Henderson asked, lowering his voice. "But… how? Preliminary reports say there are no signs of anything."
"I don't know," Miller admitted, and that was what frustrated him most. "But I know wherever this guy shows up, people end up dead in strange ways. And he always comes out smelling like roses."
****
In the penthouse that served as their base of operations, the air conditioning maintained a perfect temperature, a stark contrast to the panic brewing in the city below. Yuls, dressed in comfortable civilian attire, watched the news on the massive screen that dominated one of the walls.
"This is horrible," she said, hugging herself as images of the biohazard teams reappeared. She turned to Jack, who stood by the panoramic window, observing Metroville like a king surveying his domain. "What do you think could have caused something like this?"
Jack turned slowly. There was no trace of panic on his face, only an expression of serene, calculated concern.
"Fear, Yuls. Fear is the cause, and panic is the result," he said with his deep, reassuring voice. "People are scared. They see shadows where there are none. They connect unrelated dots because they need a narrative, a story that makes sense of the chaos."
"But they're connecting the dots to you, Jack," she insisted, her brow furrowed. "They're blaming you. They say you're dangerous."
"And it's natural that they would," he replied, approaching her. He placed his hands on her shoulders. "We are new. We are powerful. The unknown always generates fear. It is our responsibility to guide people through that fear, not to resent it."
His phone vibrated on the glass coffee table. A private number. Only a handful of people in the world had it. He moved away from Yuls and answered the call, his tone shifting to a more professional one.
"Sarah."
He listened in silence for almost a minute, his eyes never stopping their scan of the city's skyline.
"Yes, I'm seeing it. It's chaos… No, I don't agree. This is not the time to hide. You're absolutely right… People don't need silence. They need to hear a reassuring voice. Someone who can bring some clarity amid all this static…". He paused. "Yes, of course. I'll be there in an hour."
He hung up the call and turned to Yuls, a calculated smile on his lips.
"That was Sarah Vance. From Channel 8. She wants a live, exclusive interview."
Yuls looked at him, her eyes wide with surprise. "You're going? Now? With all this panic, they'll tear you apart. They'll blame you for everything."
"Of course I'm going," Jack replied with absolute calm, as if the idea of not going were unthinkable. "A leader doesn't hide in the basement when his people are scared, Yuls. He stands up, in front of the cameras, and reminds them who's in charge and why they have nothing to fear."
He headed to his room to change.
****
Channel 8's studio was a hive of controlled tension. Camera operators moved in silence, producers whispered into their headsets, and production staff avoided eye contact with the guest.
Sarah Vance felt a cold drop of sweat trickle down her neck, despite the studio's air conditioning. Across from her, in the other designer armchair, sat Gamma Jack. In person, his charisma was overwhelming. He was a force field, a presence that filled the room and, somehow, seemed to calm the nerves of everyone around him. He was magnetic. And terrifying.
"...and we're back live with our exclusive guest, Gamma Jack," Sarah said, her voice a model of professionalism that masked the pounding of her heart. She looked directly into camera three. "Jack, thank you for being here on a night like this. The city is on the brink of panic. The sudden death of such a prominent citizen as Marcus Vermonth, followed by this… epidemic, as some are calling it, at the detention center. People are scared, and they're connecting these events to you. What do you tell them tonight?"
Jack nodded slowly, his face a picture of empathy and seriousness. He did not look like a man on the defensive. He looked like a leader about to reassure his nation.
"And it is completely understandable that they would, Sarah," he began, his voice resonating with unwavering sincerity. "People see chaos and they look for patterns. They look for answers. It's human. But sometimes, the truth is simpler, and at the same time, far more tragic."
He leaned slightly forward, his gaze directed not at Sarah, but at the camera lens, at every person watching him from the safety of their living rooms.
"The death of Marcus Vermonth is a terrible loss for this city. He was a brave man who confronted evil to protect his own, and his death reminds us how fragile life is. Sometimes, we can appear healthy, we can feel strong… and from one moment to the next, without a clear explanation, the body simply fails. It is one of the painful and tragic truths of being human. And my heart, and I know Apogee's as well, is with his family in these very difficult times."
His words were so compassionate, so filled with solemn gravity, that it was impossible not to believe them. In the control room, the producer whispered into Sarah's earpiece, "He's good. Damn, he's really good." Sarah felt the tension in her own shoulders loosen.
"A tragedy, no doubt," Sarah conceded. "And the prisoners? Fractal and his men. Reports speak of an unknown, incredibly aggressive disease. What happened in there?"
Jack's expression darkened. The charisma was replaced by the weight of a great burden, the look of a man forced to make impossible decisions.
"That… that's the hardest part of what Apogee and I do," he said, his voice dropping to a more confidential tone. "It's the part that doesn't make it into heroic headlines or get shown in pictures of smiling people."
He took a deep breath, as if gathering the courage to admit a painful, personal truth.
"When you face the forces we face… there are unforeseen consequences. Energies are released. Chain reactions are created at a subatomic level that are difficult to fully predict and control. We do everything in our power to protect the innocent. It is our number one priority. But the guilty… sometimes, they get caught in the crossfire. It's the terrible weight a hero must carry on his shoulders. The acceptance that there will be collateral damage."
He leaned back in his seat, his gaze lost for a moment, as if reliving a painful memory. "It's an ugly reality, Sarah. You have to be willing to accept that, sometimes, to save the flock, some of the wolves attacking it may sicken in the process. Not by direct action, but by simple proximity to a power they cannot comprehend or withstand."
He looked at the camera again, his eyes shining with steel conviction. "I don't like it. I hate it. Every life lost, even a criminal's, weighs on me. But it's a sacrifice I'm willing to bear to keep these people, and their city, safe."
****
In the penthouse, Apogee watched the screen. She nodded to herself. She believed every word. "Collateral damage" was a tragedy, yes, but it was the necessary price of progress, the inevitable cost of building a better, safer world under the protection of those strong enough to defend it.
****
In his dark office, Captain Miller heard the phrase "collateral damage" and felt a wave of nausea. Without thinking, he grabbed the half-empty whisky glass from his desk and hurled it against the wall. The glass shattered, and the amber liquid slid down the cream-colored paint. The lies, so smooth, so convincing, so perfectly packaged for public consumption, sickened him. He poured himself another glass, this time filled to the brim.
*****
And in his underground command center, Agent Thorne watched the interview on a dozen screens, each showing a different angle of Jack's serious, compassionate face. He felt no anger. He felt a glacial cold, an absolute clarity. He was watching a master propagandist, a genius of manipulation in full command of his art, painting a massacre as an unfortunate workplace accident.
The dead prisoner's last words echoed in his head, overlaying the charismatic voice coming from the speakers.
"He's not a hero… He's a disease with a pretty face…"
With a movement of his hand over the console, Thorne turned off all screens. Jack's smiling, heroic face disappeared, but his voice seemed to linger in the air, a ghost of persuasion.
He turned to the large tactical screen that dominated the room. It showed a detailed map of Metroville. On it, a single red dot blinked silently, moving slowly through the eastern districts: the Zero Asset tracker.
He pressed a button on his console. "Control, Thorne here."
"Control here, sir," the impersonal voice replied through the speaker.
"I want an update on the Asset's progress."
"It's on the move, sir. It's been active since the news about the penitentiary went public. It seems to have found a trail that interests it."
"Good," Thorne said. His voice was a deadly calm whisper. He watched the red dot as it moved across the city map, heading inexorably towards the skyscraper district, where a false god was delivering a sermon to his credulous followers. "I want all units in its trajectory to withdraw. Clear the streets. Close roads for alleged gas leaks, accidents, whatever is necessary. I don't want anyone getting in its way."
"Understood, sir. Should we offer support?"
"Negative," Thorne replied. "Do not stop it. Do not help it. Just ensure the path is clear and monitor its progress. I want to know exactly when and where it will make contact."
"Yes, sir."
It was no longer about capturing Jack. Nor about exposing him to a public that was eating out of his hand. It was about eradicating a plague.