[UNKNOWN MEDICAL FACILITY — OBSERVATION ROOM 4A]
Light.
Sharp. Unwelcome. Real.
He didn't want to wake up.
But pain didn't care.
His body twitched, or tried to. Restraints caught him. Ankles. Wrists. Chest. Tight. Unforgiving. Cold steel bit into swollen skin. No slack. No mercy.
He couldn't move.
Hissss—tchk.
A valve?
A door?
Couldn't tell. Everything was muffled.
Muffled and sharp all at once. Like sound came from inside his skull.
Ears rang. Not the dull hum from earlier, sharper now. High-pitched. Piercing.
His mouth opened. Nothing came out. Just a broken breath. A wheeze.
Air met blood on the way down. The burn in his chest reminded him what breathing cost.
Every inhale jabbed his ribs.
Not just bruised, broken. Bone shifted inside him, brushing lung.
He felt it. He heard it.
He opened one eye. Just one. The other refused.
Ceiling. White. Flat.
Lights too bright.
Buzzing faintly.
Walls… seamless. Sterile. No vents. No shadows. No handles.
Not built like a room. Built like a trap.
Click. Above.
A camera shifted.
"Neurological activity returning. Pupils responsive."
"Ocular swelling consistent with orbital fracture."
Another voice. Older. Dryer. "He's conscious already? That… shouldn't be possible."
He blinked. His vision swam.
Cold sweat coated his neck.
Tried to move his hand. Didn't work.
Everything hurt. But not equally.
The shoulder, the one he slammed back into place with a dumpster, felt like fire and gravel.
Nerves sparking wrong. The joint was half there, maybe.
The ribs under it shifted with every breath.
White hot pain.
His knee throbbed constantly. Not sharp anymore. Dull. Swollen.
Face pulsed repeatedly. One eye sealed shut. Cheek numb in places. Too hot in others.
The blood had dried sticky at the corners of his mouth.
There were voices behind a wall.
Thin.
Muffled.
Close.
"…extensive blunt force trauma… multiple fractures, soft tissue damage, internal bleeding…"
"…should have gone into shock… blood loss significant before retrieval."
"He ran on this. Fought on this."
The ringing climbed. Piercing. Almost angry.
"…rotator cuff torn… intercostal muscle damage…"
"…bilateral hand trauma. Knuckle fractures. Metacarpals cracked."
"Adrenaline masked most of it. That and—well. Him."
His foot twitched. Pain shot up his spine. Something popped.
He gasped, or tried.
Air caught halfway.
He choked.
His back arched against the table. White burst behind his eyes.
He remembered the alley. The crash. The fist in his ribs. The shoulder pop.
The moment he thought: I'm going to die.
He remembered not knowing if the girl under the bench had made it to the Guards or not.
He remembered Diaz's helmet tearing off.
He remembered his hands, split and raw, smashing into bone.
He flinched.
Footsteps above him. Voices closer now.
He drifted in and out.
The ceiling blurred. The light flickered. Or maybe that was his eyes.
His chest ached with every breath.
His ribs weren't ribs anymore they were lava.
His hearing pulsed in and out, flooded by a high, endless ringing that cut through everything like feedback.
Voices. Distant. Then close. Then gone again.
"…shouldn't be alive. Compound fractures. Skull impact. Rib collapse."
"…internal trauma… and yet stable."
He flinched. Just slightly.
The restraints didn't move. The pain did.
Someone else spoke, but he missed most of it. Just enough to catch:
"…healing initiated… muscle reformation… closed fractures… shoulder aligning… no sedatives administered."
No sedation.
That explained the clarity. And the pain.
Mostly the pain.
He heard a different voice. Younger. Sharper. Fainter.
"Genome panel confirms X-gene active… no outward mutation…"
The ringing swelled. Pressure behind his eyes. Like his brain was full of static.
X-gene?
He blinked hard, trying to force the world into focus.
"…biological optimization… enhanced healing, durability… nothing projective. Just ... efficiency."
Mutant?
He lost a few seconds. Words blurred.
The noise surged. Cotton in his ears.
He tried to breathe deeper. Regret followed instantly.
Pain flared sharp and white across his ribs.
His back locked. His shoulder flinched.
His whole body rebelled.
Somewhere beyond the haze, someone was speaking again.
"Strength.... Sub-Rogers...."
His throat clicked as he swallowed.
Something tasted like blood.
Another burst of static drowned the voice out.
He clenched his teeth. Regretted it instantly.
His thoughts stuttered. Jumped tracks.
Dublin rooftops.
Wet brick. Cold wind. Light pollution.
The thump of bass in his ears from a borrowed pair of headphones.
Anything but here.
Another voice. Closer. Crisp.
"…density… Rogers…
…ligaments… strain resistance…
…enhanced range… flickers… not stable…"
He tried to count the seconds between their words.
One. Two. Three. Four...
Wait. Was that four again?
Start again.
"…healing rate… double baseline… minor injuries—hours… fractures… day or two…"
Pain bloomed under his left eye. His cheekbone felt wrong.
He sucked a breath through his nose. Regretted that too.
"Height… five-eight…
Mass… eighty-two… maybe...
No… no hypertrophy…
…hyper-efficient muscle… something…"
"External wounds sealing already. Bone knit visible on scan."
"…stress… …burnout… risk… elevated…"
"Reflex… latency… hundred… twenty-five… maybe.
…delay… stress… fatigue threshold…"
"Neuromuscular... trained... not.... Boxing.... Thai...."
His vision went grey at the edges.
Then his vision sharpened again.
Then the click of a stylus. Clipboard.
"Hill wants a brief by morning."
Who?
His eye throbbed again. He squeezed it shut. Too hard. Regretted it immediately.
"Not indexed."
"He is now."
They were still talking.
His eye fluttered closed.
Only for a second.
Just to stop seeing that ceiling.
Just to stop hearing.
To stop hearing them talk like he wasn't there.
Pain flared again down his jaw, neck locking up for half a beat.
They were still talking.
He blinked. Slow. Heavy.
Everything burned.
His ribs. His leg. His face.
Even breathing felt like trying to move glass around inside his chest.
They didn't stop.
Didn't care that he was awake.
Didn't care that he could hear them.
Didn't care that he was still in the room.
"… Isolated strain. No vector."
"…spontaneous X-gene expression. No serum.."
His pulse thudded behind his eyes. Every beat felt like pressure building.
"Can it be copied?"
"No. He's an anomaly. It's his alone."
He tried to speak. Only a whisper came out:
"Where… am I?"
No response.
Just monitors. Machines.
He twitched again. The restraints pulled.
Click.
A voice filtered in from overhead. Tinny. Flat. Almost bored.
"Don't strain. The restraints are calibrated for someone twice your strength rating. Sit tight, your handler'll be with you soon."
Rating?
How strong did they think he was?
And what the hell is a handler?
He wanted to laugh.
Instead, he blinked, slow, sticky, and let his head fall back.
He was shaking.
His heart raced.
His skin felt too tight.
His brain wouldn't stop, jumping. Darts of fear. Flashes of red.
The dumpster. The cracked pole. Diaz's eyes.
The breath that didn't come.
Something deep inside him wanted to scream.
But he didn't.
Couldn't.
Too tired.
Too broken.
Too much.