The low hum of fluorescent lights buzzed steadily above the lab, casting long, sterile shadows across the cold floor. Every surface gleamed with antiseptic perfection, untouched by dust or time, a quiet testament to the First Sons' obsession with control. In the heart of it all, Damian—currently wearing the skin and title of "Dr. Alex Smith"—sat still, reading the screen with a calm precision that belied the storm behind his eyes.
Outside, the underground complex pulsed with mechanical life. Within, it was a masquerade—scientists played their roles, unaware that one among them was a predator in the shape of a man.
Across the lab, Grace Walker stood with her back to the central console. Five metallic spheres floated in perfect synchronization around her, suspended by invisible threads of psychokinetic will. They orbited with increasing speed until she snapped her fingers, and the spheres stopped mid-air—silent, unmoving, defiant of gravity.
A hint of a smile played on her lips. "Better?"
Damian didn't look away from his screen. "Balanced. That was clean. Your output seems stable now."
"Much cleaner than yesterday."
He allowed himself a slight nod. "You're stabilizing faster than expected."
She stepped closer, the faint scent of ozone trailing behind her. "That's not what surprises you. You expect results. What you don't expect is that I can feel your mind now—edges of it. Texture. Pressure. Like a wall wrapped in glass."
He finally turned to face her. His expression was neutral, but his gaze sharp. "And what happens when you press your mind too hard against glass?"
Grace blinked, thoughtful. "It cracks."
"Exactly," Damian said. "And what's behind it may not welcome the intrusion."
Grace gave him a look that was more intrigued than afraid. "You're not like the others here."
"No," he said. "I'm not though I don't think you mean my personality."
At that moment, the door slid open with a muted hiss, and Rachel Vaughn entered the lab. She moved with a dancer's quiet grace, subtle and unnoticed until you found her already in your blind spot. Without breaking stride, she flipped a coin into the air.
"Heads," she called.
Grace caught the coin and turned it in her palm. "Heads."
Rachel smirked. "Lucky streak continues."
On the other side of the room, Jason Holt stood by the reinforced window, arms folded, brow furrowed. His gaze was sharp, always scanning, always judging. The kind of man who trusted nothing that came easy—including the growing calm in this lab.
"Luck won't help us when the guards come for round two," he muttered.
From her stool, Marissa Tate tapped her fingers on a hollow pipe, producing a haunting, syncopated rhythm. "Then maybe don't jinx it. Every battle starts in the mind."
Jason snorted but didn't respond.
Elliot Mercer, small and nervously eager, tried again to lift a desk bolt using gravitational distortion. The bolt rose—hovered—then flung itself across the room, clinking off a wall and hitting the floor.
"Sorry!" he called out.
Damian let out a long, measured breath. They were ready—but raw. Capable—but volatile. Each of them was a weapon that hadn't yet learned who to aim at. He had to pull a lot of strings just to get this group in the same room. Luckily Kessler was out at the moment so Damian found this opportunity to coach the group and lie that the lab figure out their abilities. He gave them enough insight to use their ability rather than fumble around in the dark trying to figure out what their power could be.
Later, in the quiet of his personal quarters—quarters claimed from the real Dr. Smith's now-dissolved life—Damian opened a secure comm line.
The voice on the other end was low and smooth. Sasha.
"All systems are blind. I have four looped feeds cycling the west and south wings. Infiltrators are in place. Security windows begin at 04:00 and end forty-eight hours later."
"Understood," Damian said. "No deviations."
"None," she confirmed. "The false Sasha is in position. Tomorrow... is extraction."
"Stand by."
He closed the channel and stared at the far wall, where a fading blueprint of the facility's layout flickered on his monitor. Each red dot represented a guard. Each blue line a surveillance corridor. Every moving piece mapped to the second.
In the silence, a memory surfaced—an older lab, another experiment, another girl with powers she didn't ask for. That one had died in a fire when containment failed. Damian blinked.
The next morning arrived like a held breath. Too still. Too normal.
Damian walked the halls of the facility with the confidence of a man who had nothing to hide—and everything to lose. He passed technicians checking biometric scanners, scientists scribbling notes, and interns half-asleep with coffee-stained clipboards. All of it ordinary. All of it disposable.
The test subjects were gathered in the common space—an intentional deviation from routine. Damian watched from the threshold as Grace casually manipulated metal, Rachel toyed with chance, Jason seethed in silence, Marissa hummed a tune in B minor, and Elliot bounced between all of them like a charged particle.
Grace caught sight of him and approached. Her expression was guarded.
"I had a dream," she said. "We were outside. Together."
He waited.
"In it, you were smiling."
He raised an eyebrow. "I don't smile often."
"You did then," she said. "Do you dream?"
His pause was long enough to be an answer.
"Dreams are the mind, testing possibilities," he said. "But I prefer certainty."
"Do you trust us? Do you think we'll get the right outcome?"
"I don't trust outcomes," he replied. "I engineer them."
Grace stared at him a moment longer before walking away.
That night, Damian stood alone beneath the flickering overheads, looking down from the observation deck. Sasha's signal pulsed once in his earpiece—three short tones. It was time.
He exhaled, finally allowing himself a moment of truth. Tomorrow, the lab would erupt. Tomorrow, the First Sons would scramble to contain something they couldn't predict. Tomorrow, a network of Conduits would walk free—and every blueprint in this building would belong to him.
He walked the corridor in silence, pausing outside each test chamber. Jason, pacing. Marissa, still humming. Rachel, flipping her coin. Elliot, asleep against the wall.
Grace stood in the center of her room, back straight, spheres floating again around her like orbiting moons.
She met his gaze through the reinforced glass.