Chapter 1

REDACTED

Boredom was not good for the soul. Alexander Rooke reminded himself of that every morning, but his routine was a means of survival. Of keeping the intruding need to make decisions simple and sane.

Shower. Dress. Eat. Leave.

Making his way to work through the bustling city, he sidestepped a man about to slip on some wet trash. The dull thud of a body hitting the pavement behind him was proof of Alexander’s real problem.

He saw too much. All the little mistakes nobody else noticed. People’s lack of awareness, how negligence and laziness were the acceptable standard. He’d tried pointing things out to people when he was younger, knowing they would spiral into something worse.

Most didn’t appreciate being corrected and went on ignoring the problems. They called him paranoid and obsessive. He’d learned that life was easier when you kept your mouth shut and let people make their own mistakes.

Easier, but not better.

He passed a terminal screen on his way into the bustling hyperloop station.

“... some are calling it a glitch in reality,” the host joked. “But reports claim a nearly fifteen percent rise in unexplained fatal accidents over the past decade. Experts are baffled.”

Alexander turned away, already regretting his curiosity. He stopped just before a loose floor tile. Someone would trip on it eventually.

A shriek of metal announced the train’s arrival. He adjusted his footing, keeping behind the line, but a jolt ran through the crowd and someone knocked into him with their shoulder. His shoe caught the raised edge of the tile as he stumbled forward.

The platform blurred. He reached for anything to grab hold of and found only empty air, as the rest of the crowd moved to avoid the danger.

The last thing he saw was the light rushing toward him.

I knew someone would trip on it. Just didn’t expect it to be me…

Then everything went black.

Dying, Alexander decided, wasn’t any better for the soul than boredom. If anything, it was just another form of emptiness. Quieter, but no less final.

Except this time, it wasn’t.

Alert: Status update - Soul transfer complete.

Compatibility… 98%... Accepted.

Powers… [ REDACTED ]... Evaluating… Threat level extreme.

Alert: Santiago Systems extermination protocol in progress…

Calculating… Elimination preferable… Conflicts with First Law… Resolving… Complete.

Likelihood of subject self-destruction evaluated at 83%.

All outcomes are within acceptable limits. Reactivating implant.

Continue your Dream.

[ Santiago Systems A-1 Prisoner Brain-Computer Interface ]

New neural activity detected

Error 0404: Host signature mismatch

Link to Santiago Systems servers: Failed

Unauthorized local neural field interference detected

Motor control inhibition and cognitive containment protocols: Failed

Unidentified core firmware tampering in progress

Starting isolated operations protocol

Communications, monitoring, and control protocols: Disabled

Boot complete: Welcome to Santiago Systems A-1 Brain-Computer Interface

Host cognitive instability detected

Entering sleep mode

Pain returned first. He knew it should hurt; he’d been hit by a train, after all. But it was isolated within his skull. Cold air bit against his skin as he tried, and failed, to move.

He forced his eyes open and immediately regretted it.

White. Ceiling panels. Walls. Computer screens flashed unreadable charts. Painfully bright overhead lights. He inhaled reflexively and winced: chemicals from disinfectants and something burning clawed at his nose.

Turning his head clumsily, he could see he’d been strapped to some sort of metal tray. There were two men in clean white uniforms standing by a roaring furnace.

Oh shit, that’s not just a furnace. It’s a cremation chamber!

A tablet clattered to the floor.

“Shit!” the first technician explained. “He’s awake!”

The second tech stumbled back against a console. “He can’t be. That was a standard lethal dose!”

Alexander tried to speak and regretted that too. His throat felt raw, as if he’d been screaming for hours. Nothing came out but an unintelligible gurgle. He strained against the restraints to little effect, muscles barely responding.

The overhead medical arm hummed to life, joints whistling as it spun in erratic circles, tools snapping open and closed. Around the room, consoles flickered and buzzed with angry reds. Another blared a warning tone.

Both techs froze. Then they panicked.

“Redacted,” one whispered, then shouted to the other. “Hit the button! We've gotta shut him down!”

The other scrambled to a wall panel, slamming his palm against the emergency switch.

The door burst open. A guard in black combat armor strode in, visor reflecting the sterile light. “Class R? You idiots didn’t flag this?”

“He woke up on the tray!” the tech shouted. “Contain him!”

Alexander pulled against the restraints again. Metal shrieked and bent as something gave.

The guard cursed and leveled a weapon. The crack of the weapon discharging filled the room. An energy bolt slammed into Alexander’s chest, pain tearing through him. His body seized, and darkness swallowed his thoughts.

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It wasn’t enough.

Unconscious, his body convulsed. Lightning crawled across his skin, arcing to the walls. Consoles screamed with corrupted alerts and strobing lights. The medical arm spun wildly, slamming against its own frame.

Across the room, things lifted. Instruments, trays, chairs, tablets. Nearly everything that wasn’t bolted down spun in the charged air. Even the guard staggered upward, boots dragging across the floor before lifting clear.

“Shit, shit!” He fired again, another bolt slamming into Alexander’s body.

The arcs of lightning died. Gravity exerted its hold as everything crashed back down, shattering screens. Metal objects clattered and spun across the tiles. The air stank of ozone.

Alexander didn’t feel the third hit.

Minutes later, the guard wheeled Alexander through a barracks. Even this late, a few guards were awake, some of them watching a superhero rom-com, others playing games on tablets. He kept his stride steady, refusing to let the tremor in his hands show.

The techs had begged him to take the prisoner to the deep cells. They’d whispered promises about clearance that would never come, about there being no record. That the man was Redacted, so he did not know of his powers, and Legal would never hear about it. How the only other option was to shove him into the furnace alive. He still heard the panic in their voices when he closed his eyes.

Pushing the gurney toward a bulkhead, the man ignored the ribbing from the others and punched in another code. Hydraulics hissed, and the thick steel door rolled open to reveal the only entrance into the prison. On the other side of the bulkhead were several more guards, though these were clad in full combat attire: black armor and helmet, with reinforced exoskeleton suits.

They were on duty, unlike the ones in the barracks.

Sitting at a console with his back to the bulkhead sat the single on-duty superhero. Even seated, he radiated a casual sense of power and authority that some superhumans were known for. The hero was focused on his tablet, not paying any attention to what was going on around him. He was just another safeguard in case the inmates below tried to become something more than just numbers in a file.

“Who’s that?” one guard called out.

“Permanent resident,” the escort replied, not slowing. “Headed for the deep cells. That’s all I know.”

The others lost interest. The superhero didn’t even glance up from his entertainment.

Making his way into the prison proper, the path twisted into a spiral. The prison was designed like a massive silo. It was a vast cylindrical abyss running downward, each level a ring of cells stacked around the central shaft, with short corridors branching off at intervals like spokes on a wheel. Every cell was self-contained, tucked behind heavily reinforced doors.

There were no shortcuts. No elevators or stairs. Just the single spiralling pathway, winding all the way down through the prison.

It was almost fully automated and was one of many spread across the worlds occupied by humanity. Over sixty percent of the prisoners would never see the sun again. Every mega-corporation had at least one, built to meet strict government regulations holding each corporate entity accountable for its own superhuman experiments.

No prison was perfect, of course. That was why a contingent of superheroes was stationed above, along with a battalion of cybernetically enhanced guards spread amongst several strategically placed barracks within the Santiago Systems Research & Development facility built atop the underground prison.

Just in case.

As the guard approached the bulkhead that separated the main prison from the deep cells where sixty percent jumped to one hundred, he saw a single guard. He wore the same black armor as the rest, but had his helmet tucked under one arm.

The escort’s gaze slid across the guard’s face for a moment, as if his features refused to come into focus.

Then the sensation passed, replaced by easy familiarity.

“Hey, Robert!” the guard called out. “Didn’t know you were down here.”

Robert gave a lazy shrug. “Just filling in,” he said, eyes flicking to the gurney. “What’s this, then?”

“Redacted prisoner,” the guard said. “No paperwork.”

“Huh…” Robert said, thoughtful. “Interesting. He might be worth adding to the list.”

“What list?”

Robert smiled at him. “Nothing you need to worry about,” he said, stepping aside and punching in a confirmation code on the wall panel.

The guard hesitated for a heartbeat, then shrugged and pushed the prisoner into the darkness beyond. As the bulkhead sealed shut behind him with a heavy thud, dim, evenly spaced lights began flickering to life ahead.

He frowned. Who was that again?

The thought slipped away before he could catch hold of it.

Pain, heat, and weakness blurred together.

Alexander drifted in and out of consciousness, thoughts snaking and dancing around each other like twin dragons locked in combat. A corner of his mind dutifully informed him he was experiencing a fever.

He couldn’t tell when or where the dreams began. Maybe they had started the moment the serum hit his veins, or maybe it was when the train crushed his body. Perhaps they’d always been there, simply waiting for him to let them in.

He was six again, cross-legged on the living room floor. Familiar, but off. Same frayed couch, same cluttered shelves, but now a sleek black screen projected a lesson on the Telashi Consortium. 2046: the year humanity joined the galactic community.

His mother called from the kitchen. He turned, expecting to see her as he remembered her—hair pulled back, tired, but smiling. She always smiled for him. Instead, she looked younger, healthier. Her left arm replaced with gleaming chrome from shoulder to fingertip, flexing with the precision that only cutting-edge cybernetics could.

The memory faded like mist before the early rays of the sun. He was thirteen now, standing in front of a holographic display at school. It was replaying the first successful injection of the newly developed superhero serum. The woman on the news lifted a burning car with one hand, cameras flashing all around her.

Alexander felt something ignite in his chest. Ambition so great it shoved every dream, every thought he’d ever had aside.

The fever burned to match the dream. Chills ran up and down his spine, while sweat beaded on his forehead.

Fifteen now. Home again, but not the same. Smoke. Sirens. Their apartment building half-collapsed, walls scorched and torn by powers that defied reality. His father’s jacket hung from a stretcher. A woman’s quiet voice telling him how sorry she was for his loss. He remembered this… remembered the woman’s voice even. But in his memories, in his world, it had been a gas pipe explosion, not a battle between superhumans.

Sixteen. Jules. Her laugh was the same even in this reality. The way she tucked dark hair behind an ear whenever she was excited. How she understood him, his quirks, with no need for an explanation.

But when she looked at him across the diner table, a few years older now, her eyes were wet. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t put it off anymore. My family… This is what we do now. I have to try.”

He remembered a different version of himself saying they understood. And he had, because they shared the same dream. That of being superheroes.

Nineteen now. Frank’s Kits & Fix-Its. His workplace. The shelves weren’t sagging in this version, but bright and polished with rows of cybernetics displayed behind clean glass. Frank stood at the counter grinning, the same dumb grin he always wore, holding up a shiny Santiago Systems prosthetic arm. “One day, kid,” Frank said. “One day you’ll make even me look like an amateur.” Alexander had believed him. For a moment, it felt possible.

There’s a sudden feeling of movement. Falling. Disorientation. A sudden flare of pain up one side of his body, followed by the seeping sensation of cold from the floor below.

Twenty-two now. A clinic room. His own hand signing a waiver on a highly advanced tablet. Being hooked up to a device that is supposed to analyze his powers as they’re born, to help them develop a proper training routine. A nurse enters the room in a crisp white uniform, holding a vial filled with liquid gold.

Hope and fear war inside him.

The injection. A rush of unimaginable pain, pushed aside by the sweet succour of power. He looked at the display, waiting for it to analyze and tell him his future.

Hope wins out.

The screen clears, then flashes once with an angry red:

REDACTED.

Then… nothing. His memory ends.

Reality returns. Alexander opens his eyes, already knowing everything is wrong.

He’s dressed in a traditional medical gown, feet bare, lying on his side within a dimly lit cell. Built into one wall is a basic slab for someone to sit or lay on, though it does not look long enough to stretch out. Opposite that, the wall has a small cubicle cut into it, containing a toilet. The third wall has a slim tube that runs down from the ceiling, ending with a small opening less than a pinky-finger’s width, and with an equally small drainage hole in the floor below.

The last wall has a doorway. A reinforced polymer door rests in the frame, the gap barely visible to the naked eye. Above his head, the ceiling out of reach, is a single source of light emanating from some metal-shielded contraption.

Alexander stood carefully, weakness twisting from his stomach and out into his limbs. He rotated in place, checking and rechecking.

None of this makes sense.

Then he noticed it. The cold sensation at his neck, the slight tug of something that shouldn’t be there. It took him a moment to process, but his hands didn’t wait to reach up and confirm his suspicion. A band of smooth, seamless metal sat snug around his throat, sized perfectly as though handcrafted just for him.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t coming off.