Something New
The heat of the Los Angeles sun pressed against Zeke’s shoulders while he sat on a park bench. Children screamed somewhere behind him. Cigarette butts littered the ground by his shoes. He lit another, exhaling smoke and frustration in equal measure.
“Go outside and enjoy the sun,” he muttered, mocking a receptionist.
He checked his watch — twenty minutes, long enough to pretend he tried.
The children’s laughter faded, replaced by the hum of traffic and distant horns. Zeke slipped through the crowd, shoulders hunched, brushing against strangers who didn’t look up. One clipped his arm. He almost said something — then changed his mind.
“Hey kid, wanna make some money?”
A man with a clipboard blocked his path, the Nova skyscraper towering behind him.
“Not interested,” Zeke replied automatically, already pulling another cigarette from the crushed pack.
“You look like the perfect candidate for our clinical trials. Pays well.”
“Perfect candidate?” Zeke glanced up, counting what few cigarettes he had left.
“You’re young. You look like someone who could use a win.”
Zeke smirked. “You don’t know anything about me. I could be living the dream.”
“Oh, I imagine you just might be, but do you ever think there could be more than just...” the man gestured outward, “this?”
Zeke thought for a moment. “Okay. Okay fine. But uh, I’m not gonna be a Guinea pig, right?”
“Follow me inside. You’re about to do something special my friend.” Zeke blinked, confused, but followed him into the Nova skyscraper, sitting beside a man in a military uniform.
Boots forward. Back straight. The grin contrasting his professional posture while he studied Zeke.
“Hey, you told us this was a professional military operation. This pussy-fuck hardly seems fit,” he shouted at the receptionist.
The girl beside him leaned forward. “Jack, chill. He’s just pissed he’s not the centre of attention.”
Zeke’s foot tapped without rhythm against tile, offering a weak smile.
Jack scoffed. “That why your hair’s blue?”
Before she could fire back, a man in a lab coat stepped into the room.
“Jack Morgan. Olivia Romero, follow me please.”
Olivia stood and gave Zeke a soft smile before slipping through the door behind Jack.
Zeke offered a faint smile, then resumed bouncing his leg, fingers fidgeting with the cigarette pack in his pocket as he debated stepping outside.
“You with the black hair, fill out this form,” the receptionist called.
Zeke stepped forward and grabbed the pen. “That army guy was a bit of a dickhead, huh?”
“Don’t mind them — we’ve got a group of those army types here today. I think they’re pissy because they’ve been ordered to do this,” the receptionist replied.
“Okay Mr. Adler, someone will be out shortly and you’ll get a cheque when you’re done,” the lady continued with a smile.
“Uh huh,” he muttered, twirling the pen between his fingers.
The urge to leave nagged at him.
He placed a cigarette between his lips and stood, noticing a man approach before he could leave.
“Zeke?” The man held the door open, waiting. Zeke looked at the exit but slid the cigarette behind his ear before following.
Led down white hallways lined with rooms that looked more like hospital wards than offices, he couldn’t help but stare. At the end, an elevator opened. They stepped inside, Zeke’s foot tapping anxiously as they descended.
Lights blinked, each floor taking him further underground.
He trailed behind, arriving at a room that mirrored those upstairs. He lifted himself onto the bed, noticing the wires dangling above as he lifted his legs.
He exhaled and lay back.
“So are you testing some kind of medication or something?” He rambled nervously. “You gonna ask if I have any allergies?”
The man said nothing. He stepped forward and strapped down Zeke’s legs with tight, deliberate pulls, then moved to his arms.
“Whoa, wait—” Zeke jerked slightly. “You didn’t say this was gonna be dangerous.”
The man stayed silent as he secured the final restraint, his focus faltering when the overhead lights began to flicker. Two scientists sprinted past the doorway — one clutching his wrist, bone protruding, blood soaking through their lab coats.
“It worked,” the man whispered, his eyes shining with unshed tears. Zeke’s brow furrowed.
He winced. “Fuck, man.” A needle forced its way through his skin.
“Finally.” The man giggled, Zeke watched, unnerved.
A sudden urge to vomit overwhelmed him. Dizziness and blurry vision followed soon after while the man sat in his chair, giggling to himself, still holding back tears.
Lights continued to flicker and he could feel himself drift in and out of consciousness.
Zeke’s awareness faded — drifting — until a harrowing scream tore down the hallway, followed by the shatter of glass.
More scientists sprinted past as his vision warped. A figure in green drifted down the hall behind them — laughing softly, almost floating. A streak of blue trailed behind before everything faded to black.
“Lock it down now,” a voice shouted over the intercom.
“Jack, let’s go,” a female voice pleaded.
“Look how scared they are,” he laughed.
Zeke awoke some time later, dressed in a hospital gown on a bed in a glass cell. The cold glass offered some relief for his burning hands as he looked around, his vision still hazy. The cell opposite housed an old man who was sitting, petrified, staring at his hands.
The cell on the left was empty. The one on the right held a girl with white hair, sitting quietly, almost doll-like.
Zeke squinted through the blur, trying to focus. She looked young — early twenties, maybe — and striking in a way that felt out of place. Her pale hair curled gently around her face, softening the sharp lines of her expression.
Without warning, a chorus of desperate, screaming voices exploded in his skull.
He clutched his hair and collapsed to his knees.
The voices drowned out any thoughts of his own while the white-haired girl watched in shock.
She looked around, searching for a reaction, anything from the scientists.
Zeke panted, rolling onto his side just as the screams stopped as suddenly as they started.
“What did you do to me?” he whimpered.
The white-haired girl watched as he recoiled, seeing his mouth move but hearing no sound.
He pushed himself upright, unsteady, using the glass for support. His vision cleared enough to see the old man still staring at his hands. Zeke watched his lips form the word no, again and again.
Then the glow began and Zeke stumbled back.
The man screamed in silent agony as his hands burned bright behind the glass. He slammed them against it, desperate for help, leaving bloodied handprints smeared across the surface.
Two scientists approached without a word, quietly taking notes. Seconds stretched into minutes until a gas hissed into the room, choking the man into unconsciousness and smothering the flames.
“Interesting, he seemed to have no control over it,” a scientist observed.
“Not like it matters, what use is that? Another party trick.”
“What are we gonna tell the boss?” the other replied.
“Not exactly Supersoldier material. Want to put him down?”
“Me? It’s your turn, I did the last one.”
“Come on, it was a kid, not exactly difficult. Rock paper—”
Suddenly, Zeke’s hands flared bright, bursting into flames, interrupting their bickering.
“Whoa, there’s no way they have the same ability right?”
“So now we gotta tell the boss we have two of them. Great,” the scientist replied while Zeke watched his hands in awe.
“He’s not screaming. The other one was screaming.” The other observed as Zeke waved his hands around in an attempt to douse the flames.
Unaware of his new strength, he slammed his hands on the bed, effortlessly ripping it off its hinges.
They watched as Zeke’s mouth moved, arms flailing, but it didn’t take long for the fire to die out.
Zeke’s hands were blistered and bloodied but he felt no pain. Instead he watched absently as the blisters slowly faded and the burns healed. His eyes locked with the men.
“He’s copying abilities.” The scientist gasped.
“We don’t know that.”
“The fire, the strength, the—” he started, cut off by the other.
“And which one can heal, huh?”
“I don’t know, could be any—”
“Wait, what is he doing?”
As Zeke moved his hands to admire his healed blisters, the pillow beside him began to shift. With a gentle motion, it lifted into the air. He stared in a trance-like daze at the hypnotic spinning of the pillow, then flicked his hand again, sending it crashing into the glass.
His gaze dropped to the bed.
“I’m gonna call Kenji, maybe he—” The bed’s metal support slammed through his chest.
Zeke awkwardly climbed through the jagged hole, his legs and wrists sliced by the broken glass. He stumbled forward, hands too slippery to catch himself.
He lifted himself slowly, watching the scientist try to pull the metal from the other’s chest. Limping slightly, with a dead expression, Zeke stumbled past the cells. The white-haired girl watched him, a faint smile on her lips.
“S...stop or I’ll shoot,” the scientist panicked, aiming a pistol at him.
Dizzy and bleeding, Zeke raised his hand. The man floated, limbs flailing, rotating like the pillow. Zeke flinched as the gun discharged before the voices flooded his head again
“Kill him.”
“Don’t make a scene.”
“Rip him apart.”
“Kill him.”
“I miss my mommy.”
“The lights are so pretty.”
“Let me go.”
Zeke shook his head. “Shut up. Stop. Please.”
His eyes locked with the scientist. “You did this to me. Clinical trials? You’ve turned me into — That prick upstairs — you’re making soldiers with abilities? I’m not your weapon.”
He waved his hand, hurling the man with brutal force into the glass wall of the white-haired girl’s cell, cracking the window.
The scientist’s lab coat was soaked red, his body trembling as he choked on blood, barely able to move.
The girl’s eyes locked onto the spiderweb crack in the glass, then shattered it with a simple punch. The elevator chimed as a squad of gunmen filed in, their weapons locked steadily on Zeke. She stepped from her cell, cold and merciless, staring down at the broken man.
“You did this to me,” she whispered before holding his head and twisting with so much force it barely remained attached.
“Please don’t try to fight my Enforcers. Put your hands behind your backs and lay on the ground, lets not turn this into a massacre.” A voice ordered over the speakers.
The white-haired girl stood next to Zeke, face to face with a group Nova Enforcers. She held his wrist, hiding behind him slightly.
Each soldier was dressed in armour, carrying automatic weapons, not an inch of skin to be seen. She took a step forward, then another before stopping and looking up as two Enforcers floated slowly into the air.
Zeke’s nose bled, trickling over the grin as he moved his arms together rapidly. Blood rained over the Enforcers, the wall and the floor. With a sickening crash, the two men slammed into each other - nothing recognizable remained.
The girl — shocked, disgusted and burning with rage — charged the remaining Enforcers as bullets tore into her. She kept moving, relentless, until she leapt at one and drove her fist through his face.
More bullets ripped into her, draining her strength, and she crumpled to the floor. A stray shot caught Zeke in the neck, knocking him down as he gasped, struggling to breathe.
The Enforcers stepped aside as the elevator chimed and the doors slid open. An old Asian man emerged, walking slowly between the soldiers, stepping around the blood.
He looked down at the girl writhing in pain, then surveyed the carnage with a blank expression before shifting his gaze to Zeke and the fallen scientists.
“You would have done just nicely, wouldn’t you, Miss Monroe?” he smiled thinly. “Take her downstairs.” He nodded toward the Enforcers before turning his attention to Zeke.
“And Mr. Adler— I was watching you on the cameras. Who would have thought someone as useless as you would be my Supersoldier?”
“Fuck you.” Zeke sputtered, clutching his neck.
“There’s a man downstairs who can do all kinds of things with people’s minds. An interesting side effect is that he can transplant abilities too. But you can do that all on your own it seems — which makes you one of our strongest.” His voice cold as Zeke tried to shake his head.
“Save your strength, my new Supersoldier. You, Jack and Olivia will make a great team I’m sure. And you’ll be part of something—” His attention turned.
“Don’t let her touch your gun.” Kenji barked.
The white-haired girl weakly pulled a pistol from an Enforcer’s holster, raised it to her own head, and pulled the trigger.
