CLASSIFIED LEVEL: ECLIPSE RED — EYES ONLY
Subject: William Bonnet
Date of Incident: August 12, 2005
Location: Bonnet Labs – Research Dome Theta, Nevada Desert
At first, they believed it was the serum's fault—too strong, too fast, maybe even flawed. But over time, it became clear: William Bonnet was different.
Unlike the other test subjects from GEN 1 and 2, his cells didn't just heal—they rewrote the aging process itself. Day by day, scan by scan, his biological markers began to stall, then reverse. At 31 years old, William's physical age stabilized and hasn't shifted since.
Internally, his body operated like a machine rebuilt from quantum schematics—efficient, impossible to poison, and increasingly immune to time.
But it wasn't just age that set him apart.
It was gravity.
That year, in a chamber designed to simulate black hole pressure—lined with neutron-grade alloys and reinforced by magnetic suspension—William chose to test the limits of his newfound ability.
He stepped inside alone.
What followed nearly wiped out everything within a 5-mile radius.
Event Log Excerpt:
14:32 — William initiates gravity compression. Sensors register increased field strength equivalent to Jupiter's pull.
14:36 — Local mass begins to warp. Light curves visibly. Two researchers report temporary vertigo and nausea.
14:40 — A micro-singularity is detected forming at the chamber's core. Alarms triggered. Evacuation ordered.
14:42 — William halts the compression. Singularity collapses in on itself. Structural damage minimal, but EM pulses knock out all comms for 48 seconds.
Had he not pulled back, the world might have gained its first man-made black hole—and lost its first gravity manipulator in the same breath.
But the gravity incident wasn't the only anomaly that year.
Shortly after the event, William began reporting something new: moments of vanishing. At first involuntary—his body flickering out of sight under stress. Eventually, he learned to will it. His gravity control allowed him to bend the very space light travels through.
Invisibility was not just bending light—it was altering its path.
He was no longer bound by ordinary physics. He didn't just move through the world. He reshaped it around him.
In private, he withdrew. Research grew quieter, more focused. And then came his greatest decision—he would stop pushing the limits... for now. He called it "respect for the edge."
But even back then, whispers started.
That William Bonnet had stepped beyond humanity.
That he had seen something—when he almost made the world blink out of existence.
That the man who no longer aged... was building something for a time when others would need to catch up.
Silver Stream wouldn't be born for another four years.
But the legend of the Man Who Bends the World had already begun.
In the Quiet of Night (2006)
Location: Upper Mesosphere – Unlisted Coordinates
Mission Name: DAWN SEED
Objective: Manual Drone Deployment – Orbital Network Phase Alpha
The stars above were clear that night, the Earth below a sleeping sea of shadows. There were no thunderous rocket launches, no crews in suits, no crowds or cameras. Just one man drifting silently in low Earth orbit—William Bonnet—defying everything the world believed was possible.
He wasn't in a craft. He was the craft.
Using gravity like a tether and a shield, he soared beyond the atmosphere, rising in soft spirals, wrapped in a field of pressure that cushioned him from the cold and vacuum. It wasn't flight. It was weightless walking through the heavens, step by invisible step.
Above him, a cluster of DAWN-SEED drones hummed silently. Designed by Leena Chen, then a rising prodigy fresh from her GEN 3 Trials, they were lightweight, modular satellites meant to form the backbone of what would become the Silver Stream Surveillance and Communications Array.
But automated launches were too risky. Rocket tech was still crude. Leena needed precision.
And William?
He was precision incarnate.
From her station on the ground, Leena's voice filtered through the comms.
"Drone 4B needs to hold position at 125.9 km altitude. Slight drift correction west by 0.3 degrees."
William adjusted, his hand outstretched.
Without touching it, the drone floated, paused, and slid gently into place—like a leaf caught in a quiet breeze. He smiled. No strain. Just intent.
"Next?"
"Node 6A—hold at 130 km. That's the last of Alpha Grid."
Piece by piece, William hand-placed twelve orbital drones, each one fitted with ion cameras, energy sensors, and a miniature AI relay. Together, they would monitor upper atmospheric phenomena, climate shifts, and—eventually—unidentified anomalies.
He floated there for a moment once the final unit locked into position, a lone figure in the emptiness above the world.
Earth curved beneath him. Stars stretched overhead. Gravity bent quietly around his skin, obeying his breath, his heartbeat. He was both anchor and storm, still learning how deep his power could go.
"Alpha Grid complete," Leena confirmed. "William... it worked. You did it."
He didn't respond right away. His gaze lingered on a faint flash of aurora in the northern hemisphere. Beauty and danger, always dancing.
Finally, he whispered, almost to himself, "One day... others will join us up here."
Then, folding gravity around his form, he sank back toward the Earth like a falling feather—faster than light would have allowed, yet slower than time required.
And down below, Silver Stream's foundation quietly expanded, built not with steel and rockets, but with vision, patience, and a man who made the universe itself step aside.