Chapter 5: The Vault Reveals Itself
Justin hadn't slept properly in four days.
He'd been running on stimulants and stubbornness, dividing his time between board meetings, lab work, and late-night coding sessions with AEGIS. The AI was evolving faster than he'd anticipated, asking increasingly complex questions about human behavior and strategic planning. Maya's prosthetics division was producing prototypes that made military contractors drool. The Ghost Network was taking shape—he had twelve assets placed in strategic positions, all feeding him information they didn't understand the value of.
And the void marks had spread to his elbows.
He noticed them while transmuting a new batch of Prometheus Steel—the geometric patterns glowing brighter, creeping higher, embedding themselves deeper into his flesh. His Scientific Intuition calculated that at current progression rates, he had maybe eighteen months before the corruption became actively dangerous. Maybe two years before it killed him.
Better make them count.
But tonight, his body had simply given up. He'd collapsed into bed at 2 AM, fully clothed, too exhausted to even take off his shoes. Sleep hit him like a freight train.
The dream came immediately.
He stood in darkness.
Not the void—this was different. More structured. Intentional. Justin could feel walls around him, though he couldn't see them. The air hummed with potential energy, making his skin prickle.
"Where—"
Light bloomed.
Fifteen pedestals rose from the floor in a perfect circle, each one carved from something that looked like obsidian but felt alive under his gaze. They pulsed with a rhythm that matched his heartbeat, synchronized with something deep in his chest.
The pedestals were empty.
Justin walked to the nearest one. It was about waist-height, its surface covered in the same geometric patterns that marked his arms. He touched it, and knowledge flooded into him—not through his Scientific Intuition, but through something older, something the void had burned into his soul.
This was his vault.
Each pedestal could hold a power. A supernatural ability extracted from another person, stored here in this mental space, ready to be used or redistributed. He could personally wield two powers at once—maybe three if he was willing to risk severe physical damage—but the vault could hold fifteen total.
Fifteen chances to become something more than human.
Fifteen ways to survive what was coming.
"The vault awaits," a voice whispered.
It was his voice, but deeper. Touched by something ancient and wrong. The same presence he'd felt in the void, the thing that had changed him during those subjective centuries of darkness.
"Fill it," the voice continued. "Take what you need. Take what they offer. Take what they waste. You have the power to claim divinity from those who squander it."
Justin turned in a slow circle, looking at the empty pedestals. His mind was already racing through possibilities. Enhanced individuals existed in this world—mutants hiding their abilities, failed experiments locked in government facilities, villains with powers they used for destruction.
He could take those powers. Store them. Use them to build an army, to prepare for threats that wouldn't emerge for years. To survive.
"But at what cost?" he asked the darkness.
The voice laughed, and it sounded like breaking glass.
"Everything worth having costs everything worth being. You know this already. The void marked you. Changed you. Made you into something that can hold power without breaking. Use it, Justin Hammer. Or die human and forgotten while gods destroy your world."
The dream shattered.
Justin woke gasping, his heart hammering against his ribs. His hands flew to his chest, feeling for the pedestals that had seemed so real. Found only flesh and bone.
But something had changed.
He could feel it now, even awake. A presence in the back of his mind, a mental space that existed just below conscious thought. The vault was real. Empty, hungry, waiting to be filled.
And he had a new sense, sharp and intrusive, that made him acutely aware of something wrong in his peripheral vision—
His bedroom door was open. He'd locked it before sleeping.
Someone was in his penthouse.
Justin rolled out of bed silently, his body moving on pure instinct. He grabbed the only weapon in reach—a heavy glass award from his desk—and crept toward the door. His heart was still racing from the dream, adrenaline sharp in his veins.
He could hear footsteps in the living room. Careful. Measured. Professional.
Not a burglar, then.
Justin peered around the doorframe and saw a man standing by the window, silhouetted against the Manhattan skyline. He was examining the view with the calm confidence of someone who belonged here.
"Frank Morrison," Justin said. "Hammer Industries security. Third shift."
The man turned, and Justin saw his hand drop to the gun at his hip. But he didn't draw it.
"Mr. Hammer." Morrison's voice was carefully neutral. "I saw your lights on and wanted to check—"
"Through my front door? Using what, telepathy to bypass the locks?"
Morrison's jaw tightened. "The door was open."
"It wasn't."
They stared at each other. Morrison was maybe forty, built like someone who'd spent years in the military. His personnel file said he'd done two tours in Iraq before taking contract security work. Clean record. Excellent performance reviews. Nothing remarkable.
Except.
Justin's new sense was screaming at him. This man wasn't normal. Something lived inside him, something that hummed with energy Justin could almost taste.
Enhanced.
"How long have you had it?" Justin asked quietly.
Morrison's expression didn't change, but his hand moved fractionally closer to his weapon. "I don't know what you're—"
"The healing. The reflexes. I'd guess accelerated tissue regeneration and enhanced neural processing. Nothing flashy. Easy to hide. But definitely there."
Morrison went very still.
Justin set down his makeshift weapon slowly, keeping his movements non-threatening. "I'm not SHIELD. I'm not the government. I'm not interested in exposing you or experimenting on you."
"Then what do you want?"
"To offer you a job. A real one."
"I already work for you."
"You work third shift security," Justin corrected. "You patrol empty hallways and check doors. I'm offering something else. Protection. Resources. A place where you don't have to hide what you are."
Morrison's eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"Because the world is about to get very strange very quickly," Justin said. "And people like you—enhanced, capable, disciplined—are going to be valuable. I'd rather have you working with me than for someone who sees you as a threat."
"People like me." Morrison's voice was flat. "You mean mutants."
"I mean anyone with abilities beyond the baseline human. Mutants, experiment survivors, genetic anomalies. The labels don't matter. The capabilities do."
Morrison studied him for a long moment. "You're serious."
"Completely."
"And what makes you think I have anything worth your interest?"
"I saw you recover from a fall last week. You were inspecting the roof access on Building 3, lost your footing, dropped eight feet onto concrete. Should have broken your ankle. You walked away without a limp."
Morrison's expression didn't flicker, but his silence was confirmation enough.
Justin continued: "I'm not asking you to do anything illegal or immoral. Just to work for me openly, without hiding your capabilities. Better pay. Better resources. And when things get complicated—and they will—you'll have protection."
"From what?"
"From whatever comes next. Aliens. Enhanced criminals. Government registration programs. The future's going to be hostile to people like you. I'm offering shelter."
Morrison was quiet for another moment. Then: "What do you get out of this?"
"Someone I can trust. Someone capable. Someone who understands what it's like to be different."
The last part was true in ways Morrison couldn't understand. Justin wasn't enhanced like him—he'd been changed, fundamentally altered by forces beyond human comprehension. But the isolation was the same. The fear of exposure. The weight of being something other.
"I need to think about this," Morrison said finally.
"Take your time. But Frank?" Justin met his eyes. "The offer's genuine. And when you're ready, there will be others like you. You won't be alone."
Morrison left without another word, moving with the quiet precision of someone trained to be invisible.
Justin waited until he heard the elevator descend, then slumped against the wall.
His new power was already active. He could feel it now, that strange awareness of the supernatural. It would make recruitment so much easier—walk past someone in a crowd and know if they were enhanced. No more guessing. No more wasted time.
But it also meant the vault was real. The pedestals were waiting.
And eventually, he'd need to fill them.
Justin returned to bed but didn't sleep. Instead, he lay in the darkness and thought about Frank Morrison.
The man had accelerated healing and enhanced reflexes. Useful, definitely. But not something Justin desperately needed—his own regeneration would come eventually, if he could find the right source. And there were dozens of enhanced individuals in this world with far more impressive abilities.
But loyalty mattered more than power.
"I won't steal from willing allies," he promised the darkness. "Not unless there's no other choice. Not unless it's that or let the world burn."
It was a line in the sand. Probably one he'd cross eventually, when the stakes got high enough. When Thanos arrived with his army and his stones, when the choice became steal a few powers or watch billions die.
But not yet. Not today.
Today, he'd build a team the right way. Find people who wanted to be part of something larger. Offer them resources and protection and a chance to matter.
And if some of them happened to have powers that could fill his vault later, when they died heroically or agreed to pass them on voluntarily?
Well. That was just good planning.
The void marks on his arms pulsed faintly in the darkness, geometric patterns glowing like dying embers. Two powers active, one revealed. Fifteen slots waiting to be filled.
The race had begun.
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