The doors to Mordrek's compound slammed shut with a seismic clang that echoed through the halls.
The silence that followed was worse.
Not even the guards dared to breathe.
Mordrek stood in the center of the war room, soaked in dust, blood, and humiliation. His coat was scorched. His mechanical eye flickered erratically, trying to recalibrate after the energy surge that had slammed him into a concrete wall.
He hadn't felt that kind of power since the Quake Wars.
And it had come from a kid.
Deek limped in after him, face stitched, ribs broken. Lano followed, walking like he was afraid of making eye contact. They tried to stand at attention then thought better of it.
Mordrek didn't speak for a while.
He just stood there. Breathing.
A faint buzz of electricity crackled under his skin. He walked to the reinforced table in the center of the room and slowly placed the artifact's black container on it. The lid had been pried open and now rested crookedly atop the box, a gaping, hollow thing.
Useless.
He turned his head, slowly, toward Deek.
"You opened the box."
Kriv nodded, slowly. "Yeah. Like he told us to. The kid buried it…"
"And you didn't check his body afterward?"
There was no yell. No sudden burst of anger.
Just that low, deathly tone.
Kriv hesitated. "We did. We stripped him, turned out his bag, his pockets. Even his shoes. There was nothing. I swear on…"
"Then explain to me," Mordrek interrupted, walking toward him with deadly calm, "how a sixteen year old runt, with no record, no mods, and barely a mouthful of food to his name, turns into a walking bomb."
Kriv stammered. "I… I don't know. Maybe it was some kind of implant,"
"No." Mordrek turned away. "There was no wiring. No tech. The boy bled when I hit him. He screamed. He was human."
He walked back to the table and slammed the box closed.
"This wasn't a weapon. Not in the way we understand."
Silence.
Then Mordrek looked toward the far wall, where a high-security vault waited, unassuming, quiet. The contents of that vault had kept him alive through two uprisings and three assassination attempts.
He pressed a button on the side panel and a reinforced drawer slid out, revealing a white envelope with a seal: two rings encircling a crescent sun.
His contact.
The official.
A man who called himself Vael.
The rendezvous point was a private suite deep in the Old City's bureaucratic underlevels, a place too clean, too cold, too full of order for a man like Mordrek. But it was where power flowed in this half-dead world, and he could stomach the marble floors and polished air for that.
Vael was already waiting. Thin, silver-haired, draped in a long coat with gold trim. His hands were folded neatly, eyes sharp behind amber lenses. The very image of a man untouched by dirt, blood, or consequence.
"You're late," Vael said without looking up from his tablet.
Mordrek dropped the artifact's box on the glass table with a heavy thunk.
Vael's lips curled into a smile. "Excellent. And here I thought you'd lost it."
He reached forward eagerly and opened the lid.
His smile faltered.
The color drained from his face.
"…Where is it?"
Mordrek said nothing. He watched.
Vael's hand shook slightly. "Tell me this is some kind of joke."
"I'd love to laugh," Mordrek replied, "but I don't find failure funny."
Vael stood up. The air shifted.
"You were explicitly told what this artifact meant. You promised results. You're lucky I don't…"
"Spare me the threats," Mordrek growled. "Your prize was stolen before I even knew what I was holding. If it was so valuable, you should've sent a damn army for it yourself."
Vael stepped around the table. "You think I could afford attention like that? Do you know how many eyes would've been watching? The only reason I trusted you was because you don't show up on scanners, because your operation is filthy enough to slip through cracks."
"Then it slipped."
Vael's jaw tightened. He looked down at the empty box again and exhaled hard.
"That item… wasn't just rare. It was forgotten. Pre-Collapse, pre-codec, pre-everything. The kind of power that doesn't follow the laws of nature anymore. It was buried for a reason."
Mordrek raised an eyebrow. "Buried... or hidden?"
Vael didn't answer.
Mordrek stepped forward, voice low.
"I watched that boy tear through my men without lifting a finger. Something came out of him, Vael. Something I haven't seen since the old experiments they buried out in the Wastes. His blood glowed. His skin burned cold. And then it was gone, like it had never happened."
"That's impossible."
"No, it's inconvenient. He died. Or should've. We killed him. But then I saw him again, walking. He was changed. I felt it. That thing… it's not just inside him. It became him."
Vael paled.
"Do you understand what you've done?" he hissed. "Do you have any idea what that artifact was meant to be used for?"
Mordrek leaned in, voice dark and edged with mockery.
"You tell me."
But Vael just shook his head, almost like he was grieving.
"You've created a catalyst. A wildcard. If what you say is true, then that boy is now bonded to a power that hasn't surfaced in centuries. Do you know what that means?"
Mordrek's eye glinted. "It means he's worth more alive than dead."
Vael scoffed. "No. It means he's dangerous. Unstable. He could tear apart this entire city if that thing inside him wakes up again."
"Then we hunt him down."
"No," Vael said. "We watch. Let the military take him. Let them study him. If he survives the program, he'll be shaped into a weapon we can eventually control. If he breaks, even better. That ends the risk."
Mordrek scowled. "So that's it. I clean up your mess, lose five men, get blown through a wall, and you just walk away?"
Vael adjusted his cuffs and headed for the door.
"I warned you, Mordrek. The artifact was priceless. Now it's lost. Be grateful I don't take your other eye."
The door hissed open.
Then paused.
Vael looked back. "But if you're smart… you'll keep your ear to the ground. Because when that boy resurfaces, and he will. He will be a target. To us. To the Lifted. To the Scourged."
"And the one who gets to him first?" Mordrek asked.
Vael smiled thinly.
"Might still have a piece to bargain with."
Then he vanished into the corridor.
Mordrek stood in the silence that followed.
For the first time in years, he felt cold.
Not fear, no, he didn't fear brats or ghosts or men in coats.
But he did feel the sting of something else.
Wonder.
The boy had come from the Ash Quarters. Born in gutters, stealing to survive. A nothing. A no one. And yet now… he was walking power. A living enigma.
Mordrek reached into his coat and pulled out a bloodstained rag.
Jax's.
From the tunnel.
He stared at it.
Not even scorched.
And the last thing Mordrek remembered before the blast, just a flicker was the way Jax had looked up at him:
Not afraid.
Awake.
Mordrek folded the cloth and tucked it into his coat.
"Jax," he whispered. "You're not done yet. And neither am I."