Carl Lucas, due to his most trusted friend, ended up in Rikers Island Prison. His parents had passed away, leaving him alone. Since he wasn't a high-profile criminal, had no influential connections, and no money, he naturally didn't get a good cell and had to squeeze in with most of the other inmates.
Rikers Island Prison wasn't a private facility; it was a federal prison, so inmates didn't have long working hours. But that didn't mean you could do nothing all day. On its 1.67 square kilometers of land, there were tens of thousands of inmates and over five thousand guards. Due to lax supervision and internal corruption, fights, brawls, and assaults on guards were common occurrences.
While Carl Lucas himself was young and strong, he wasn't serving time "for" a gang, so he was isolated and vulnerable in prison. He was often ganged up on, but perhaps because of this, he surprisingly honed a set of combat skills in prison.
"And just when I was about to give up hope, one day a group of people came. They specifically selected some inmates... I don't know what their criteria for selection were."
Luke Cage recalled that day, sighing involuntarily. He remembered a military officer standing before the selected prisoners, saying to them:
"You are the scum of society! You are trash! You are a pile of dog st! But you should feel lucky, because even dog st can be useful!"
"Today, we have chosen you, you useless, good-for-nothing individuals, to give you an opportunity! An opportunity to dedicate yourselves to the country! The nation plans to create another Captain America, and he might have the honor of being born from you trash!"
Carl Lucas would probably never forget that officer's roar. He bellowed, forcing each inmate to choose: either receive a $5,000 medical subsidy and participate in a new super-soldier serum experiment, or go back to their squalid cells.
Carl, perhaps not thinking straight at the time, blurted out a question on a whim.
"If it succeeds, can I get a reduced sentence?"
The officer then sneered and glanced at him.
"Have you ever seen a Captain America locked in prison?"
Matt, listening, frowned: "So, you voluntarily joined the super-soldier program, despite the hint of coercion."
"If I had known what would happen, I wouldn't have joined even if you killed me," Cage sighed, but before he could continue, Matt interrupted him: "Did you sign any agreement, statement, or contract with the military?"
"No... it was just a verbal inquiry." Cage seemed to realize something: "Is that important?"
"Perhaps very important. Continue."
So Luke Cage took a sip of water and continued his story.
Once they joined the program, the inmates' treatment improved. They were moved to a separate floor on the island, each with a private cell. Carl Lucas began to wonder why these prisoners were chosen. He started interacting with the other selected inmates and unexpectedly deduced a pattern.
These prisoners were all physically strong, had no history of drug addiction, had not committed federal felonies, and generally had no gang or other affiliations.
In other words, the chosen ones were all "clean."
This relaxed Carl somewhat, but what happened over the next two days chilled him to the bone. One by one, inmates went off to participate in the so-called experiments, but none of them ever returned. He asked the guards, but the answer he received was, "The skin test was unsatisfactory, so they were sent back to their original prison."
What a joke! Why couldn't the skin tests be done together? Why did they have to be tested separately, and only one or two people per day? At this point, Carl Lucas knew very well that he was probably going on a one-way trip, but there was nothing he could do. He was just an ordinary, strong Black man, powerless to act.
The most despairing thing is never death itself, but waiting for death.
Even more despairing is not knowing how you will die.
Matt heard the trembling voice of the formidable man with bulletproof skin before him and couldn't help but offer comfort: "Are you alright?"
"I... I'm fine. I remember the person who left two days before me, and the others. I don't know what happened to them, but I remember everyone's face. After about a month and a half, everything finally ended. It was my turn."
Carl Lucas was led to the entrance of a basement on the island, but unexpectedly, the guard didn't take him inside. Instead, he unlocked the door and told him to go in by himself.
As soon as he opened the door, Carl smelled a terrible stench of blood. He cautiously moved forward. The basement was lit by white wall lamps all the way, casting a pale, eerie glow. There was only one one-way path, leading to a fixed spot in the corridor.
It was like hell.
Carl walked to the laboratory's main door. As he pushed it open, he nearly vomited. All of his fellow inmates were there, every single one of them. They had been disemboweled, all their internal organs removed, their skulls sawed open, their brains missing, and then they were hung on hooks like slaughtered pigs.
They were lined up in two rows, like an honor guard.
Row after row of internal organs were labeled and placed in different small jars. They were neatly arranged in glass cabinets on both sides. Some organs showed severe mutations; some even glowed green, and others had grown abnormally large.
Carl heard Japanese—because he had seen Japanese people at the dock, he recognized the rare Japanese curse words.
Then he saw an elderly Japanese professor, holding a freshly severed head, smiling at Carl as he walked closer, and greeted him in English with a Japanese accent: "You've arrived."
"I tried to escape, but out of nowhere, a group of masked people in black clothes appeared, knocked me out, and tied me to their operating table. Then I don't know what happened. When I woke up again, I was being exposed to bright lights. It hurt so much, and then... then I just broke free from the shackles on the operating table."
The men in black came to stop Carl, but their katanas shattered against his body. In the panic, Carl, now with bulletproof skin and superhuman strength, escaped the prison, smashed through the prison walls, and jumped into the Hudson River.
"And then, I knew they were definitely looking for me. So I changed my name to Luke Cage. I've heard your name... you might be the only one who can help me."
Matt silently nodded. But illegal human experimentation by the US military, Japanese scientists, super-soldier serum...
These were matters he wasn't suitable to handle. But, as it happened, he knew an Avenger.