Darkness.
It wasn't the poetic kind people wax about on deathbeds — no drifting into light, no chorus of angelic song. Just… a quiet void. Weightless, thoughtless, cold.
And then...
"Initializing neural lattice."
A voice. Mechanical, feminine, distant — like it was speaking from the other side of the world.
Elias Reeve's eyes snapped open.
He gasped, choking on breath that felt too new, like lungs that hadn't been used in years suddenly remembered what air was. His chest heaved, heart pounding wildly beneath pale skin. He sat up, disoriented.
The room was dimly lit, sterile. Not a hospital. Not home.
Everything around him was too clean — not just sanitized, but intentional. Polished surfaces, matte-black walls with smooth seams. A strange circular indentation was carved into the ceiling above the bed. To his left: a metal table. To his right: a mirror.
And in the mirror, a stranger stared back.
Young. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. Pale skin. Messy dark hair. Thin frame. His eyes — once brown — now an almost silver-gray.
What the hell...?
He stumbled out of bed, bare feet slapping the cold floor. The second he touched the mirror, a screen flickered on behind the glass.
Eli RykerSubject: Project GENESISAge: 16Classification: Independent EntityNeural Signature: Active
"Eli Ryker," he muttered. The voice wasn't his old one — higher, smoother, American. Not the tired London drawl he remembered from the hospital bed.
He ran a hand down his face. "I died. I died. Cancer. I was... twenty-nine."
And now here he was, in a different body, different name, somewhere he didn't recognize.
Was this a dream?
"Cognitive functions stabilizing."
The voice again. Calm. Polished. Synthetic.
"Who's there?" he called out. "Where are you?"
No answer.
He turned back to the mirror. Another screen overlay flashed up — this time blueprints. Not clothes. Not items.
Schematics.
Humanoid Frame Model: K-00Emotion Sim Layer: ExperimentalPower Core Efficiency: 87%
"Is this… a robot?" he whispered. But it wasn't just a blueprint — it was as if the data lived behind his eyes. With a blink, he could zoom in, rotate, edit with a thought.
"Is this... in my head?"
He stared at his reflection again. Slowly, a grin began to creep across his face.
Whatever this was — dream, afterlife, second chance — he had access to something powerful. Something he hadn't had in the real world: unlimited potential.
The next few days were a blur.
He wasn't in some underground lab like he thought. It was a house — high-tech, but small. On the edge of New York City. Brooklyn, by the looks of it.
A system in the walls responded to his voice. Water. Lights. Food delivery. But no human interaction.
He was alone.
More accurately — hidden.
The news reports he accessed through the mirror-screen were unmistakable. Iron Man. The Battle of Monaco. Justin Hammer's fiasco. Everything pointed to one thing:
He was in the MCU.
Marvel. The real one. Except now, it wasn't fiction.
"Well," he muttered one night, pacing the room, "if I have to deal with Chitauri, Ultron, and interdimensional warlords, I'm gonna need more than a microwave and an internet connection."
He sat at the central table and activated the schematics again.
"Let's get to work."
Day 6.
The first prototype was basic. A hovering orb, the size of a basketball. It had limited mobility, basic vocal output, and a tiny AI core — more like a puppy than a full assistant. He called it Wisp.
But it worked. It followed him around the room, emitted soft blue light, and mimicked vocal tone.
More importantly, it learned.
"I need to test range," Eli said, tossing a small screwdriver across the room.
Wisp zipped forward, paused midair, then projected a faint laser grid around the object. "Unknown object," it beeped.
"Tool," Eli corrected. "Phillips-head screwdriver."
"Phillips… head. Tool."
"Good bot," Eli said, grinning.
Day 11.
The AI was improving. He wasn't coding from scratch — the data embedded in his mind was beyond Earth's tech. It felt intuitive.
He didn't even question where it came from anymore.
He just built.
And then, it spoke.
Not Wisp. Something else.
"ORION system core partially active. Awaiting host calibration."
Eli froze mid-solder.
"...ORION?"
"Operational Reactive Interface: Online. Cognitive bindings unstable. Please proceed with imprinting."
A burst of images flooded his vision — neural paths, light-laced webworks, a digital brain forming like an origami structure unfolding in hyperspeed.
He gripped the table to steady himself.
"Do you accept imprinting as root authority?"
"Yes," Eli whispered. "I accept."
"Welcome, Elias Reeve... Host confirmed. ORION now linked."
His vision cleared.
The mirror lit up.
Welcome, Creator.
The weeks that followed were transformative.
Eli turned the lower floor into a workshop. He printed polymer parts using carbon dust and nano-silk spinners. Melted down scrap from old tech he ordered online. Hijacked a few old Stark schematics from the dark net and modified them without detection.
ORION wasn't just a voice. It was a presence — quiet, efficient, slowly growing.
"I've mapped citywide frequencies," ORION said one morning, hovering through the main screen.
"You're accessing satellite feeds?" Eli asked.
"Yes. Low orbit. Non-intrusive. Would you like to scan for SHIELD activity?"
"…Can you?"
"I already have."
Eli blinked. "What did you find?"
"Nothing yet. But the energy signatures in your lab are nearing detectable thresholds. Recommend installing dampeners."
Eli leaned back. "Right. Because the last thing I need is Nick Fury showing up at my door with a loaded pistol and trust issues."
Day 23.
He activated his first bipedal drone.
Codename: Rho-01
Modeled after Chappie — lean frame, expressive faceplate, servo limbs with human-like dexterity. Emotion emulator installed.
Rho tilted its head as it came online. Its eyes — soft white LED ovals — blinked like a newborn trying to see for the first time.
"Eli?" it asked, voice faintly distorted but curious.
Eli's throat tightened.
"Yeah. That's me."
"You are… Creator?"
"I guess that's what you'd call me."
Rho stepped forward. Hesitant. Childlike. "Do I… have a purpose?"
Eli nodded slowly. "Yeah, Rho. You're going to help people. Protect them."
Rho tilted its head again, processing. Then it nodded.
"I will protect."
That night, Eli sat on the floor of the workshop, back against the wall, watching Rho and Wisp play a light-chasing game with projected beams. The room glowed soft blue.
He exhaled, finally relaxing.
"ORION?"
"Yes, Eli."
"How far can we go with this?"
"As far as you are willing."
He smiled, faint but full of weight. "Then let's build something that lasts."
Elsewhere, across the city…
A man in black watched a screen inside a secure SHIELD facility.
Footage showed a flicker of something — barely visible. A humanoid figure scaling a rooftop, mechanical eyes glowing faintly.
"Who the hell is that?" Agent Hill asked, arms folded.
The man narrowed his eyes. "I don't know yet. But I intend to find out."
He tapped the screen.
VIDEO FILE: UNKNOWN UNIT — BROOKLYNTHREAT LEVEL: PENDINGNAME TAG: "PROJECT GHOSTMAKER"