Make sure to check my Patre.on out if you want to support me and want to read advanced chapters: Patre.on.com/VQuintessence
[15 Chapters in Advance on Patre.on]
...........
Chapter 3: Let The Show Begin III
...........
The fight was less a battle and more a brutal, surgical dissection. Blood sprayed in languid, beautiful arcs across the white walls.
Bodies crumpled in slow, graceful collapses.
[Ohhh, Gore. Spiritual successor to the Punisher]
[Ahh, I missed that shit]
[Yeah, we psychos, violence is the only way to our hearts]
And when it was over, the stolen speed did not vanish with the death of its original owner. It remained, a permanent addition to his reservoir til or if he decides to switch the prime curse.
He was a thief of attributes, and death did not void the transaction.
Adam tried to keep the confrontation close ranged, simply because his expertise in guns is purely theoretical, having never used one before.
He might miss, and that would be a fatal mistake; thus, even when he used guns, it was right in their faces.
He moved on. He didn't avoid cameras; he destroyed them, even the ones he controlled.
He was creating a narrative, a breadcrumb trail of chaos leading directly toward the main vehicle exit.
He wanted them to believe he was making a desperate, linear dash for freedom.
In the central command hub, Dr. Pryce watched the feeds go dark, one by one, a line leading straight to the exit.
A thin, smug smile stretched his lips, fanatical almost. "I knew there was more to you, my dear rat... He's heading for the garage. Send everyone. I want him contained, unharmed!"
"He is the key to everything; to the end, to my promotion, to Hydra's new world order! Do not fail me!"
The order went out. Sirens finally blared.
Squads of guards, the bulk of the facility's security, converged on the exit routes, setting up choke points and ambushes, waiting for a ghost who was no longer coming.
Meanwhile, Adam, having looped back through a maintenance shaft, emerged right into the heart of the facility, the administrative and research wing.
The corridors here were quieter, populated by a few confused scientists and a skeleton crew of guards.
He moved through them like a scythe. Slow. Fade.
A guard raising a pistol found his arm moving through molasses; Adam was already beside him, seizing the weapon, turning it.
Bam! And firing twice into the chests of his companions before the first guard's brain had even registered the threat.
It was a ballet of blood and broken physics. He was no artist, and he was not trained; thus, his 'art' was now a mess.
He left a trail of broken bodies in his wake, a gallery of the dead and dying.
He was bleeding himself, a shallow gash on his cheek from a stray ricochet, a bullet graze on his thigh.
But the stolen speed and heightened perception allowed him to turn what should have been crippling blows into minor scratches.
He finally reached his destination: Dr. Pryce's personal office and monitoring station.
The door was reinforced steel. It didn't matter. It's already under his control. Adam placed his hand on the keypad.
With a touch, the locks disengaged with a series of heavy, satisfying clunks.
Pryce was inside, frantically trying to wipe a hard drive. He spun around, his face a mask not of fear, but of utter astonishment.
Before he could speak, Adam was on him.
There was no fight.
A swift, brutal strike to the jaw stunned him, and Adam efficiently zip-tied the doctor's hands behind his back with a plastic tie he'd taken from a guard's belt.
Pryce, spitting out a tooth, began to laugh, a wet, gurgling sound. "Magnificent! Truly magnificent, Adam! I always knew you were special, but this... this is beyond our projections. How did you do it? How have you controlled our systems?"
"A latent technopathic aspect we never detected? Hahaha! You are truly wonderful!" There was no fear in Pryce's eyes, only zealousy.
Adam ignored him, turning to the room's central computer terminal.
He placed his palm flat on the cool metal of its casing.
Telepathic connection was one thing, but touch... touch was a superconductor.
Through his Cyberpathy, he could feel the entire facility's digital heartbeat; the security protocols, the research data, the communications array.
He began downloading everything. Every file, every experiment, every dirty secret Hydra had buried here.
And fortunately, or rather, it was expected, there were plenty of storage devices in the facility for him to use.
Pryce never stopped talking. He was fanatical, ecstatic. "You see, Adam, you must understand! None of it was personal. The pain, the surgeries... it was for the greater good! For the benefit of all humanity!"
"Hydra is not some cartoonish villain; we are the necessary surgeons for a sick world. We cut away the weakness, the chaos, to build a stronger, ordered tomorrow."
"Your suffering is a down payment on a paradise of peace! Join us. Truly join us! With your power and our vision, we could usher in that dawn! Think of it!"
Adam continued his work. The fanatic behind him was truly befitting of Hydra.
He saw the files on the "space fracture." He saw the names of other test subjects, now deceased. He saw Pryce's personal notes, his ambitions, his casual cruelty.
Finally, the transfer was complete. Adam removed his hand from the terminal, then took out the storage devices.
He turned slowly to face the bound doctor.
Pryce was still smiling, his eyes gleaming with missionary zeal. He had seen Adam broken, screaming, catatonic.
He believed the man before him was an emotional void, all but lobotomized by trauma.
He could manipulate him.
Then Adam smiled back.
It was an unsettling, foreign expression on his usually impassive face.
It was a weird smile, for he had forgotten how to smile; it was downright horrifying.
The smile felt like a crack in old porcelain, a foreign and unsightly strain on facial muscles long atrophied from disuse.
It wasn't a gesture of joy, but a rictus of grim triumph, and it vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
The act of smiling itself was somewhat uncomfortable for his stiff face. It's been a long, long time since he last smiled.
It was only recently, after he'd covertly accessed a junior technician's personal laptop, that he'd comprehended the full, crushing weight of the calendar.
Twelve years.
A dozen revolutions around the sun spent in a sterile hell of white walls and screaming silence.
His previous life had been short, squandered in the clinical confinement of a hospital, fighting a losing battle against a body that had betrayed him.
And now this?
This was somehow a crueler punchline from a universe with a sick sense of humor.
It made the very concept of 'life' seem like a malevolent joke.
He turned from the humming terminal, his boots making no sound on the polished floor as he approached the bound doctor.
Pryce looked up, his initial terror subsiding back into a fanatic's curiosity, seeing Adam's pensive expression.
Adam's first words were not threats, but a soft, genuine murmur of existential wonder.
"I have doubts, Doctor. Serious ones. Is any of this worth the effort? The running, the hiding, the inevitable pain if; when; they catch me again. They'll make the last twelve years feel like a spa retreat."
He tilted his head, his eyes distant, "Perhaps the most logical choice is to simply end it. Deny them the satisfaction. Spare myself the future suffering. Should I even give life another chance?"
Dr. Pryce's eyes lit up, sensing an opening, a crack in the subject's resolve.
The salesman in him, the true believer, took over. "Neither, my boy! Neither flight nor that tragic, final fall. The third path!!"
"Join us! Work with us! Your power, your intellect… combined with Hydra's vision and resources? We wouldn't just rule the world; we would save it from itself. We would be saints."
Honestly, Adam wouldn't be surprised if the man meant every word. Some evil people do not believe themselves to be evil.
They believe they are doing the right thing, or at least have deluded themselves into believing that.
[Damn! That's twisted.]
[What's Hydra's goal anyway?]
[World Domination, right? I think some authoritarian bullshit.]
[Wasn't it something about Inhumans? What Marvel universe is this anyway?]
Adam raised a single eyebrow, a flicker of dark amusement in his gaze. He muttered, almost to himself, "I recall a saying. There are no permanent enemies, and no permanent friends, only permanent interests."
Pryce nodded vigorously, his head bobbing like a buoy on a wave of excitement. "Yes! Precisely! You see it! It's all a calculus of power and benefit!"
"I do see it," Adam agreed, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
"And it makes me wonder… why, then, are my most permanent, most deeply felt interests right now centered entirely on deriving pleasure from the suffering of you and every other member of Hydra?
Adam blinked and continued, "It seems my interests are fundamentally, irreconcilably opposed to yours."
Pryce's eager expression shattered, replaced by a condescending sneer. He threw his head back and laughed, a harsh, barking sound that echoed in the sealed room.
"You foolish boy! You have no conception of the entity you're taunting! Hydra is a system, an idea, a hydra in truth! Cut off one head, and two more take its place! To think you can even scratch us is the delusion of a broken mind. Your dream is hopeless."
Adam didn't retort with anger. Instead, he let out a low, weird chuckle, the sound dry and brittle.
He changed the subject so abruptly that it left Pryce mentally stumbling. "Do you believe in souls, Doctor? An ethereal essence, a consciousness that persists after the body is rendered to ash?"
Pryce blinked, confused. "What? That's… that's superstitious nonsense. We are meat and electricity. Nothing more."
"A fascinating perspective," Adam mused, his tone conversational, as if discussing the weather.
"I promise you, I will kill you today. But worry not. In the future, when my power has grown, I will make a point to look for yours."
"I will scour whatever realms exist for your particular spark of 'meat and electricity.' And if I find it, I will make certain you never, ever see the light of day again. Consider it a long-term project."
With that, he set to work, efficiently and without fanfare.
He used multiple sets of plastic cuffs, threading them through a heavy conduit pipe on the wall, securing Pryce in a kneeling position, his arms wrenched painfully behind him.
The doctor struggled for a moment, then stilled, watching Adam with a mix of fury and morbid fascination.
Satisfied with his handiwork, Adam stepped back, raised his hand, and snapped his fingers.
The effect was instantaneous. A blaring, robotic female voice echoed through the entire facility, from the deepest sub-level to the highest observation deck.
"Self-destruct sequence initiated. Authorization: Alpha. T-minus five minutes. All personnel evacuate immediately. This is not a drill."
The message began to repeat, the cadence relentless and terrifying.
Pryce's composure finally broke, but not in the way Adam might have expected.
Fear for his own life seemed secondary.
"You idiot!" He screamed over the klaxon. "This is a tantrum! A wasteful, petulant tantrum! Think of the research! The data! Your own potential!"
"Don't throw it all away! Join us! For the greater good! You are too perfect a specimen to be wasted in this blaze of insanity!"
Adam looked at the raving man, tied to the wall like a sacrificial offering, and a genuine, amused laugh escaped his lips. It was a cold, clean sound.
He shook his head in mock despair. "You know, Doctor, I truly hadn't made a decision. I was leaning towards the bullet. But your words… your unshakable, lunatic conviction… you've convinced me. I should give life another chance."
His eyes grew hard, like chips of flint. "Life, that fickle bitch, has tried to bring me down too many times. Fortune, too, has been a cruel mistress. Though, to be fair…"
He trailed off, the words [Information] remaining a silent, powerful secret in the vault of his mind. "…I've had my lucky breaks."