The squad had fallen back to the perimeter, following Jason's last order. Now, it was just him and the thousand-foot spire of glass and steel rising into the black sky.
He didn't look for a door. He looked at the beams running up to the outside of the building.
"If he wants a show," Jason whispered, "I'll give him one."
He bent his knees and jumped.
On Earth, climbing a skyscraper without ropes was suicide. On the Moon, where gravity was weak, Jason weighed less than thirty pounds. He didn't climb; he shot upward. He leaped twenty feet in a single bound, his fingers digging into a narrow ledge for grip.
He pulled himself up another ten feet, moving with a smooth rhythm. To anyone watching below, he didn't look like a soldier. He looked like a spider, defying the laws of physics.,
As he climbed, he felt the isolation. It wasn't just distance from his team. It was something else and he knew what it was.
Suddenly, Calvin's voice blasted from the speakers, echoing across the silent crater.
"Captain Jason. long time no see,
You didn't expect this , did you, that we will meet again like this in just five years"
The voice wasn't mocking anymore. It sounded fanatical, almost religious.
"The Commander of the First Special Forces Battalion..."
"And the first Perfect Element survivor..."
"The first Superhuman!!"
Jason didn't stop. He kept climbing, his heart rate steady even with the effort. He knew what was coming. It was the classified history he had hidden even from his own men.
"You know why the rich built this place, right, Jason?" Calvin's voice crackled through the air. "They wanted what you have. But they were cowards. They knew the Perfect Element killed adults. So they started with babies.",
Jason gritted his teeth. He reached the 20th floor, swinging from a beam to launch himself higher.,
"Phase One," Calvin continued, his voice reading from the file like scripture. "One hundred thousand fertilized eggs from gene banks all over the world. They injected them all with the element. And do you know what happened? They died. Every single one.",
"But their greed didn't die," Calvin went on. "They started Phase Two. A million embryos. Throwing lives into the fire hoping for a gold.",
"And then... a miracle. One survived. Just one."
"That was, You."
"Cellular metabolism, three times faster than a normal man," Calvin listed the stats that defined Jason's existence. "Reaction speed, ten times faster. Immune to almost every disease known. And most important of all ... a lifespan twenty times longer. That means you, Captain Jason, will live in this universe for almost fifteen hundred years.",
"Fifteen hundred years!" Calvin screamed, the audio distorting. "You are proof that immortality is real! But the universe played with them... a cosmic joke... the old men who paid for this base couldn't survive the process. Only one in a million succeeded. Only you.",
Jason reached the 44th floor. The window was open, just like the broadcast said.,
He swung his legs through the frame and rolled onto the floor, bringing his pistol up in one smooth motion.
He wasn't in the office. He was in the server room.,
Banks of screens covered the walls, humming with power. It was a control center, watching every part of the base. But Jason looked at the main screen in the middle of the room.
It showed a wireframe map of the Central Building. It was covered in bright red dots.,
"Is this... a map of the explosives?" Jason whispered.
If the map was right, every support pillar, every air vent, and every exit was rigged.
Then he looked at the biggest monitor on the wall. It showed a live feed of the main Auditorium on the ground floor.,
Twenty thousand hostages were packed into the room. They looked terrified, huddled together in the dark. A blonde woman was speaking on a stage, but Jason wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the digital overlay.,
Beneath the floor of the lobby, the schematic showed fifty red dots.,
The hostages were sitting on a bomb.
"Welcome, Jason."
Jason spun around. At the other end of the server room, behind a thick glass wall, stood Calvin.,
The cult leader looked crazy, his face red. In his hand, he held a black remote with a screen on it.,
"I know what you're thinking," Calvin said, his voice muffled by the glass. "Why threaten them?"
He pointed at the screen showing the hostages.
"Because they are unworthy! We are all born equal, but the elite built this ark only for themselves. They wanted to live forever while the rest of us burned on Earth! But God has a sense of humor. He destroyed their world and gave the gift of forever to a soldier.",
Calvin looked at the detonator, his thumb over the button.
"But I have a theory, Jason. I believe only the true Savior can save them. If you are really the chosen one, you'll be fast enough."
Click.
The lock on the glass door opened. It slid open.,
"Come on, Jason. Let's see what a god looks like."
Calvin backed away, holding the remote up high.
"If you can catch me in five minutes, I'll give you the detonator. If not... boom.",
He turned and ran down the hallway.
"Stop!" Jason roared.
He didn't wait. He launched himself forward.
The hallway was a hundred yards long. Calvin had a head start. Even though he was insane, he moved fast because he knew the building.,
But he was human. Jason was something else.
Three seconds, Jason thought. I can close the gap in three seconds.
He sprinted, his boots hammering the floor. He was a blur, reducing the distance. He was fifty feet away. Then thirty. Then ten.,
He reached out to grab the madman when his instincts screamed.
A side door opened on his left.
Two metal spheres, the size of basketballs, rolled out into the hall, blocking his path.,
They stopped. With a mechanical sound, they opened up to reveal eight sharp, metal legs. They looked like mechanical spiders.
On the front of each sphere, a sensor moved. An electronic eye glowed red.
"Spider Drones," Jason cursed, sliding to a stop as the guns under the sensors started to spin.,