Chapter 1 : SECOND SUNRISE
The gasp tore from my throat like I'd been drowning.
I jackknifed upright in bed, sheets tangled around my legs, heart hammering against my ribs hard enough to crack them. Cold sweat plastered my t-shirt to my skin. My hands—
My hands were wrong.
Too smooth. No calluses from the warehouse job. No scar across the left thumb from the box cutter accident three years ago. I turned them over in the weak morning light filtering through cheap blinds. Younger hands. Stranger's hands.
"Okay." The word came out rough, my voice—not my voice. Deeper. "Okay. Okay."
Not helpful. I needed information.
I threw the sheets off and stumbled toward a door that my legs seemed to know was the bathroom even though I'd never been here before. The linoleum was cold under bare feet. I slapped at the wall until I found the light switch.
The mirror showed me a dead man's face.
Mid-twenties. Dark hair that needed a cut. Brown eyes that were definitely not mine—mine had been blue, the only thing I'd inherited from my father besides his inability to keep a job. This face was leaner, jaw sharper. A small scar through the right eyebrow. Decent looking, in a forgettable way.
I gripped the sink until my knuckles went white.
Two sets of memories existed in my skull. The first: twenty-eight years of a mediocre life in a world where superheroes lived on movie screens. Working the warehouse. The late shift. Walking home because my car was in the shop again. The truck running the red light. The impact—
I flinched away from that memory. The sound of screeching tires. The weightlessness. The nothing.
The second set of memories was shorter, fuzzier. Jake Mordered. Orphan. Foster system survivor. Odd jobs and a cramped apartment in Los Angeles. Strange feelings around certain people. A growing certainty that something was wrong—or right—with him.
With me. I was Jake Mordered now.
I laughed. It came out slightly hysterical, echoing off the bathroom tiles.
Because the Marvel Cinematic Universe was real. And I was standing in it.
The memories clicked into place like puzzle pieces. Jake—the original Jake—had been experiencing strange sensations for months. A pull toward certain people. An awareness he couldn't explain. He'd thought he was going crazy. Started keeping a journal about it.
I was pretty sure he'd been an Inhuman. A dormant one, his genes activated somehow, his powers manifesting as something his conscious mind couldn't process.
And then I'd arrived. Taken over. Overwritten him.
The guilt hit like a second truck. Some poor kid had been living his life, struggling to understand what was happening to him, and now he was just... gone. Replaced by a guy who'd seen every season of Agents of SHIELD and knew exactly what those strange feelings meant.
I met my own eyes in the mirror. Jake's eyes.
"I'm sorry," I said. "For what it's worth. I didn't ask for this either."
The reflection didn't answer.
---
The apartment was small. One bedroom, a kitchenette, a living space that doubled as everything else. I searched it methodically, letting the new body's muscle memory guide me to the important spots.
Wallet in the jacket by the door. Sixty-three dollars in cash, a fake ID that wouldn't survive serious scrutiny, and a library card. The library card was somehow the most depressing thing.
A burner phone on the bedside table, prepaid, half its minutes gone. The contacts list showed nothing but a pizza place and an employment agency.
And the journal.
Jake had kept it hidden in a hollowed-out hardcover of Moby Dick—either paranoid or clever, depending on perspective. I sat on the unmade bed and read his cramped handwriting.
October 3rd. Felt the pull again at the grocery store. The woman at register four. Couldn't stop thinking about her. Not attraction—something else. Like she was humming at a frequency only I could hear.
October 7th. Three more today on the bus. It's getting stronger. I know which people are different now. I just know. What does that make me?
October 15th. Touched one of them by accident. Brushed hands when she gave me change. Something happened. Can't explain it. Felt like electricity, but warm. Like something reaching into me and finding a slot to fill.
October 20th. I'm faster now. Dropped a mug yesterday and caught it before it hit the floor. That's not normal. That's never been normal.
I closed the journal.
Inhuman detection. The ability to sense others who carried the genetic potential for powers. And if I was reading this right—power copying. Somehow, through physical contact, Jake had been absorbing fragments of other Inhumans' abilities.
I knew these powers. Not from any canon source I could remember, but something about them felt right. A trinity of connected abilities: detection, replication, adaptation. The detection to find other Inhumans. The replication to copy their powers. The adaptation to integrate them into my body.
The powers were weak now. Baby steps. Jake's journal mentioned enhanced reflexes and a sense of durability that might have been wishful thinking. Nothing dramatic. Nothing that would draw attention.
But the potential...
I stood and walked to the window, looking out at Los Angeles. Somewhere in this city, a woman named Skye was living in her van, hacking corporations and chasing ghosts. In a few months, she'd join Coulson's team. In a year, she'd undergo Terrigenesis and become one of the most powerful Inhumans on the planet.
I could feel her. Just barely—a whisper at the edge of perception, like catching a familiar song from three blocks away. A pull that said there, go there, she's important.
My detection ability, already active. Already hunting.
The timeline was late 2012. The Battle of New York had happened months ago. Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, the Hulk—all real. All out there, somewhere. SHIELD was at the height of its power, Coulson newly resurrected, his team about to be assembled.
And HYDRA was rotting inside SHIELD like a cancer no one could see.
I knew what was coming. The betrayals, the deaths, the disasters. I knew who the villains were, who the heroes were, and who would break under pressure. I had a cheat sheet to the apocalypse, and I was standing in a crappy apartment with sixty-three dollars and a fake ID.
What was I supposed to do with that?
The question answered itself almost immediately. I'd watched this show. I'd loved these characters. I knew what happened to them, and most of it was preventable. Ward could be stopped. Trip could be saved. The Terrigen crisis could be mitigated.
But I couldn't do any of that as a nobody with barely-functional powers and no resources.
I needed to get inside SHIELD.
---
The kitchen yielded instant coffee and bread that was one day from growing mold. I made toast, burned it, and ate it anyway. The coffee tasted like sadness.
But it was hot. And real. And I was alive to drink it.
I sat at the cramped kitchen table—really just a folding card table with two mismatched chairs—and started writing.
What I know: - HYDRA exists inside SHIELD - Major events: Thor 2 (convergence), Winter Soldier (HYDRA reveal), Ultron, Terrigen, etc. - Key people: Coulson (good), May (good), Ward (HYDRA), Garrett (HYDRA), Hand (good, dies), Skye (Inhuman)
I stared at the list. Seeing it written out made it feel more real. These weren't just characters anymore. They were people I could save. Or fail.
What I have: - Inhuman detection (weak but functional) - Power copying (requires contact, slow process) - Some enhanced reflexes (5-10%?) - Some enhanced durability (barely noticeable) - Meta-knowledge
What I need: - Resources - Training - Access - Time
SHIELD was the answer to all four. Get inside, build trust, prepare for what's coming. The team Coulson was forming would be the best possible position—close to the action, close to Skye, close to the decisions that mattered.
The only question was how to get noticed.
I pulled the burner phone closer and searched for local news. Video results populated. Superhuman sightings were still making headlines post-Avengers. Half of them were hoaxes, but the genuine ones drew SHIELD's attention fast.
A plan began to form.
Not something dramatic—that would look suspicious. But something visible enough to get flagged. A good samaritan with unusual abilities. Someone who wanted to help.
I finished the terrible coffee and rinsed the mug. Outside the window, Los Angeles sprawled in the morning light, full of dormant Inhumans I could barely sense and dangers I could name but not prevent.
Jake Mordered was dead. The original one, the kid who'd been confused and scared and slowly discovering his powers. He was gone, and I was wearing his life like a borrowed coat.
The least I could do was make it mean something.
I grabbed the jacket and headed for the door. Somewhere out there, Skye was waiting to be found. Coulson was waiting to be convinced. The future was waiting to be rewritten.
I had work to do.
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