Three days.
Seventy-two hours of a silence so profound it had become a physical presence in the house, a fourth occupant that breathed in the dust motes and exhaled the slow, grinding passage of time. For Raymond, the world had lost its texture, its flavor, its sound. It had become a monochrome filmstrip, flickering past his eyes without meaning.
He moved through the rooms of his home like a ghost, trailing the scent of his own inertia. The cheerful, determined efforts of his mother to engage him—pancakes shaped like stars, a new science magazine left on his pillow—were like stones dropped into a deep, still well. He heard the plunk, saw the ripples, but the depths remained untouched and dark.
School was a special kind of torture. The whispers that had once been about Iris and Jayden's spectacular exit had now curdled, shifting to the silent, brooding boy they had left behind. He was a monument to failure, a living cautionary tale. He walked the halls with his head down, his shoulders hunched, trying to make himself smaller, to occupy less space, to become invisible. He felt the weight of every glance, every stifled laugh. He saw the pity in the teachers' eyes, the awkwardness of former classmates who didn't know what to say. Sorry your friends were chosen for a better life and you weren't?
His locker, once a hub of their daily social congress, was now a tomb. He'd open it quickly, averted his eyes from the faint, ghostly impression of a smiley face Iris had once drawn in the dust on the inside of the door, and slam it shut, the sound a gunshot in the corridor of his loneliness.
The worst was the emptiness in his head. For years, he hadn't even been fully aware of the gentle, background hum of Iris's telepathic presence—the unspoken jokes, the shared eye-rolls during a boring lecture, the simple, comforting knowledge that someone was there, in the quiet spaces of his mind. Now that it was gone, the cognitive silence was a constant, screaming tinnitus. He'd find himself halfway through forming a thought to send to her, only to have it die, unborn and unanswered, in the cavern of his own skull.
On the afternoon of the third day, he fled. The four walls of his bedroom felt like they were pressing in, the posters of heroes now just mocking visages. He needed motion, the anonymity of the city streets. He didn't bother with a jacket, just shoved his hands in his pockets and walked out into the damp, chill air, leaving his mother's worried call echoing behind him.
Meridian City in the late afternoon was a study in contrasts. The sleek, soaring towers of the central business district, where the Aegis Spire pierced the clouds, gave way to the older, grittier neighborhoods like a receding tide leaving behind flotsam and jetsam. Raymond walked without direction, his feet carrying him on a well-worn path he and his friends used to take to a hidden-in-plain-sight comic book shop. It was a path through the city's arteries, past bustling cafes that smelled of roasted coffee and steamed milk, through quieter residential streets where the scent of decaying leaves and damp earth clung to the air.
He found himself in Kingsley Square, a small, tired park nestled between aging brownstones. It was a place forgotten by the city's relentless push towards a gleaming, super-powered future. The playground equipment was old, the paint chipped, the swings moving in a listless, creaking rhythm in the breeze. A few pigeons cooed and strutted, their iridescent necks catching the weak, late-afternoon sun that filtered through the skeletal branches of oak trees.
He slumped onto a weathered wooden bench, its slats cold and damp even through his jeans. The cold was a grounding sensation, a small, sharp pain to focus on, to keep the larger, formless ache at bay. He watched the pigeons, envying their simple, purposeless lives. They didn't have to worry about being zeros. They were just… pigeons.
He was so deep in his own morass of self-pity that he almost didn't notice the shift in the atmosphere. It was subtle at first, a change in the quality of the silence. The pigeons, all at once, stopped their cooing and took flight in a frantic clatter of wings. The distant, comforting hum of city traffic seemed to recede, as if a glass bell had been lowered over the square.
Then he heard it. The sound of a child, crying. Not a playful whine, but a sharp, terrified sob, quickly stifled.
Raymond's head came up. His eyes, which had been staring blankly at the cracked pavement, now focused.
Across the square, near the old, defunct water fountain, was a family. A man and a woman, perhaps in their early thirties, dressed in simple, inexpensive coats, were trying to shield two small children—a boy and a girl—behind them. Their postures were rigid with fear.
Facing them were three figures. They were not in costumes, but their demeanor screamed of a different, more menacing uniform. They wore a hodgepodge of leather, denim, and metal studs, their postures loose and predatory. They radiated a casual, territorial menace that made the air feel thick and heavy.
The one in the lead was a hulking brute of a man, his head shaved, his neck thick and corded with muscle. He had a jaw that looked like it could chew through brick, and his knuckles were scarred and calloused. He didn't need a power to be intimidating; his sheer physical presence was a weapon.
The second was a woman, lean and wiry, with a hawk-like face and eyes that darted around the square with a calculating sharpness. Her fingers, long and spidery, twitched at her sides as if playing an invisible piano.
The third was the most overtly powered. He was a lanky youth, couldn't have been older than Raymond, with lank, greasy hair and a sallow complexion. But dancing over his skin, crackling along his forearms and leaping between his fingertips, were arcs of sickly, yellow-orange electricity. They weren't the clean, powerful bolts of a hero like Volt; these were sputtering, unstable, and dangerous, like a downed power line spitting and fizzing on wet ground.
"Come on, Alan," the brute was saying, his voice a low rumble like grinding stones. He took a step forward, and the family shrank back. "A week late. Mr. Krait, he don't like that. It shows a lack of respect."
The man, Alan, held his hands up, palms out. "Please, Grinder. Just a few more days. The docks… the shifts have been cut. We just need—"
"Needs are like assholes, Alan," the woman, the hawk, interrupted, her voice a dry, rasping thing. "Everyone's got 'em. Mr. Krait's got needs, too. A big, expensive need to keep the Drops flowing to the folks who can't get their fix from the shiny, happy Hero Org. You understand supply and demand, don't you?"
The little girl, no more than five, with a head of curly blonde hair, peeked out from behind her mother's leg. She was clutching a ragged, one-eyed teddy bear. She saw the sparking youth and let out another whimper, burying her face back in her mother's coat.
The youth, Spark, grinned, a nasty, lopsided thing. He raised a hand, and a fat, sizzling arc of electricity leaped from his finger to the metal rim of the water fountain with a sharp ZZZAP! and the smell of ozone. The little girl jumped.
"Your kids are scared, Alan," Spark said, his voice cracking with a malicious glee. "Maybe we should give 'em a real show. A little light display."
"Leave them out of this!" the mother cried, her voice trembling but fierce. She pulled her children closer. "We'll get you the money. Just… just leave us alone."
Grinder took another step, his shadow falling over the father. "See, the problem is, trust is a fragile thing. It's like a pretty little glass vase. You break it, you can't just glue it back together. You gotta pay for the vase." He gestured with a thick thumb towards Spark. "He's the glue. And his services… they ain't cheap. Consider this an interest payment."
Raymond sat frozen on the bench, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. Every instinct screamed at him to run, to look away, to be anywhere but here. This was not his world. This was the world of Supes and villains, of powers and consequences. His world was textbooks and quiet despair. He was a zero. A null set. What could he possibly do?
He saw the raw terror in the parents' eyes, a mirror of the helplessness he'd felt in the gym. He saw the way the father's shoulders slumped in defeat, the way the mother's hands shook as she held her children. He saw the little boy, trying to be brave, his small jaw clenched, and the little girl, sobbing quietly into her teddy bear.
And he saw the villains. Grinder, with his casual brutality. The Hawk, with her calculating cruelty. Spark, with his sadistic delight in their fear. They were bullies. They were the same as the kids who'd shoved him into lockers before Iris and Jayden had become his shields, just with more dangerous toys.
A memory, sharp and clear, cut through the fog of his fear.
---
Flashback - One Year Ago
They were at the city pool. Raymond, uncomfortable in his own skin, was trying to read a book on the bleachers. Iris and Jayden were, of course, the center of attention. A couple of older, bigger kids had started harassing a younger boy, snatching his inflatable dolphin and pushing him around. The lifeguard was oblivious.
Raymond had seen it happen. He'd felt the familiar, cold knot of fear in his stomach. Don't get involved. It's not your problem. You'll just get hurt.
But then he'd looked at the boy's face, at the tears mixing with the chlorinated water on his cheeks. And something in him had snapped.
Before he even knew what he was doing, he was on his feet, walking towards the bullies. His legs felt like jelly. His voice, when it came out, was reedy and thin.
"Hey. Leave him alone."
The biggest bully, a kid named Mark with a pugnacious jaw, had turned and smirked. "Or what, four-eyes? You gonna read me a scary story?"
Raymond had stood his ground, his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest. He had nothing. No power, no strength. Just a trembling body and a conviction that this was wrong.
Then, a voice spoke from behind him, calm and cool. "Or you're going to have a very bad day."
Iris and Jayden had flanked him. Iris's eyes were narrowed, a silver sheen gathering in their depths. Jayden cracked his knuckles, and the air around them grew noticeably warmer.
The bullies had paled, muttered apologies, and slunk away.
Later, as they walked home, Jayden had clapped him on the back. "You've got guts, Ray. Stupid, maybe. Walking into that with nothing but a paperback. But guts."
Iris had looked at him, her expression soft and knowing. "The courage to stand up when you have nothing to back it up… that's a different kind of power, Raymond. A rarer one."
---
End Flashback
Her telepathic words echoed in the silent theater of his mind now. A rarer one.
He looked at the family. He looked at the villains. He looked at his own empty, powerless hands.
The fear was still there, a cold, lead weight in his gut. It was paralyzing. But beneath it, something else was stirring. A small, hot ember of anger. Anger at these thugs for preying on the helpless. Anger at a world that created such brutal inequalities. And a deep, burning anger at himself for his own powerlessness, for his willingness to just sit and watch.
I am a zero, the thought came, clear and cold. But a zero is still a number. It occupies a space. It has a value, even if that value is nothing. I can be a obstacle. A speed bump.
It wasn't a heroic thought. It was a desperate one.
His body moved before his mind could fully talk him out of it. He stood up from the bench. The movement felt unnatural, as if he were piloting a clumsy machine. His legs were numb, his breath shallow.
He took a step. Then another. The distance across the square seemed to stretch and warp, a vast, terrifying desert he had to cross.
Grinder had the father by the front of his coat now, lifting him onto his toes. "I think we'll take that watch as a down payment. And maybe your wife's necklace. Sentimental value ain't worth much, but the gold is."
"Please…" the man gasped.
"Hey!"
The word left Raymond's mouth, a dry, cracked sound that was barely louder than a whisper. It was swallowed by the vastness of the square.
No one heard him. No one turned.
The Hawk was smirking, her eyes on the mother's trembling hands as she fumbled with the clasp of her necklace. Spark was generating a continuous, sputtering arc between his hands, making the little girl cry harder.
Raymond's throat constricted. Fear threatened to send him scuttling back to the bench. He felt a sudden, violent urge to empty his bladder. He forced it down. He took another step, then another, closing the distance.
He thought of Iris, reading his mind, knowing his terror. He thought of Jayden, whose mere presence would have sent these thugs running.
He was not them. He was just Raymond.
He filled his lungs, pushing against the tightness in his chest, and shouted.
"HEY! Leave them alone!"
This time, the word was a physical force, a sharp crack that split the tense air of the square.
Everything stopped.
Four heads—Grinder, the Hawk, Spark, and the father—swiveled in unison to look at him. The mother gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. The children peered out, their eyes wide with a new, confused fear.
Raymond stood about twenty feet away, his fists clenched at his sides, his entire body trembling. He must have looked pathetic. A skinny teenager in a faded band t-shirt, his face pale, his shoulders hunched, alone.
For a long second, there was only the sound of Spark's crackling electricity.
Then, Grinder released the father, who stumbled back into his wife. The brute turned fully to face Raymond, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his face. It was not a pleasant sight.
"Well, well," Grinder rumbled, his voice dripping with amused contempt. "What's this? The neighborhood watch?"
The Hawk let out a short, barking laugh. "Looks more like a lost puppy. A scared one."
Spark snickered, and a bolt of electricity shot from his finger and struck the base of the bench Raymond had just vacated. There was a loud POP, and a shower of sparks erupted, the wood blackening and smoking. The smell of burnt ozone and pine filled the air.
Raymond flinched, hard, but he didn't run. He planted his feet, trying to make them stop shaking. "I said… leave them alone."
Grinder took a slow, deliberate step towards him. Each footfall was a heavy, threatening thud. "And what are you gonna do about it, kid? Gonna give me a stern talking-to? Gonna call your mommy?"
The family was staring at him, their expressions a mixture of hope and horror. They could see what he was—a boy, not a hero. They knew what was coming.
"Just… just walk away," Raymond said, his voice losing its force, betraying his terror. "The… the Heroes… they patrol here sometimes."
It was a weak, transparent bluff, and Grinder saw right through it.
"The Heroes?" The brute laughed, a sound like gravel in a blender. "They're busy, kid. Polishing their statues and posing for the cameras in the nice parts of town. They don't come to Kingsley Square. This is our turf."
He was only ten feet away now. Raymond could smell him—a mix of stale cigarette smoke, cheap whiskey, and sweat. The sheer size of the man was overwhelming, a wall of malevolent flesh and bone.
"The thing I hate most," Grinder said, his voice dropping to a conversational tone that was more terrifying than a shout, "is disrespect. You interrupting my business… that's disrespectful. And disrespect…" He cracked his massive knuckles, the sound like snapping twigs. "...has a price."
Raymond's mind was screaming. Run! Run now! But his feet were rooted to the spot. He saw the little girl looking at him, her one-eyed teddy bear clutched in a death grip. Her eyes were pleading.
He couldn't run. Not now.
He stood his ground.
It was the most terrifying thing he had ever done.
Grinder was right in front of him now, looming over him, blocking out the weak sun. His shadow enveloped Raymond, cold and final.
"You got a name, kid?" Grinder asked, his breath hot on Raymond's face.
Raymond said nothing. He just stared up at him, his jaw clenched, his body vibrating with fear and adrenaline.
"Doesn't matter," Grinder shrugged. "I'll just call you 'Lesson.' As in, don't stick your nose where it don't belong."
The fist came out of nowhere. It wasn't a telegraphed, movie-punch. It was a short, brutal, piston-like movement from the hip, designed to cause maximum damage with minimal effort.
Raymond saw it coming, a blur of scarred knuckles and malice. There was no time to dodge, no time to react. His brain barely had time to register the image before it connected.
The impact was not like in the movies. There was no dramatic, cinematic crunch. It was a dull, wet, sickening thud that seemed to originate from deep inside his head. A flash of white, searing pain exploded behind his eyes, blotting out the world. He felt something in his nose give way with a wet, gristly pop.
He was lifted off his feet. For a moment, he was airborne, weightless, the world a spinning carousel of gray sky and brownstones. Then gravity, his old, familiar foe, reasserted its dominion. He crashed down onto the hard, unforgiving pavement.
The landing knocked the wind out of him. He lay on his back, gasping like a fish out of water, staring up at the swirling, gray vortex of the sky. A warm, coppery taste flooded his mouth. Blood. He could feel it, hot and thick, pouring from his shattered nose, running down his chin, pooling in the hollow of his throat.
The pain was immense, a throbbing, world-consuming agony centered on his face. But it was almost secondary to the shock, the sheer, brutal finality of the violence. This was not a schoolyard scuffle. This was the real, unvarnished truth of powerlessness.
He heard, as if from a great distance, the little girl scream. He heard the Hawk's raspy laugh. He heard Spark's electricity crackle with excitement.
"See?" Grinder's voice boomed from somewhere above him. "That's what happens. A simple lesson. Now…" His shadow fell over Raymond again. "…for the advanced course."
Through a blur of tears and blood, Raymond saw Grinder's heavy, steel-toed boot draw back. He was going to kick him. He was going to break his ribs, his skull.
This was it. This was the end of Raymond. Not with a bang, but with a boot to the head in a forgotten square. A zero, erased.
He closed his eyes, waiting for the impact.
But it never came.
Instead, he heard a new sound. A soft, sibilant hiss, like a nest of snakes stirring. It was followed by a startled cry from the Hawk and a furious curse from Spark.
Raymond forced his eyes open, blinking through the blood.
A canister, about the size of a soda can, had rolled to a stop in the center of the square. It was emitting a thick, pearlescent gray gas that expanded with unnatural speed, swallowing the legs of the villains, then their torsos, then their heads. In seconds, the center of the square was an impenetrable, swirling fog.
"Smoke! It's the Enforcers!" the Hawk shrieked, her voice muffled by the haze.
"Scatter!" Grinder roared, his voice full of fury and frustration.
Raymond heard the sound of running footsteps, fading rapidly into the maze of alleyways that fed into the square. The crackle of Spark's electricity vanished.
The fog began to thin, dissipating as quickly as it had appeared, sucked away by some unseen mechanism within the canister itself. As it cleared, Raymond saw the family. They were huddled together, terrified but unharmed. They looked from the empty space where the villains had been to Raymond, lying broken and bleeding on the ground.
Then they turned and ran, fleeing the square without a backward glance. They didn't stop to help him. They were just grateful to be free.
Raymond was alone again. The adrenaline that had sustained him vanished, leaving him a hollow, pain-wracked shell. He tried to push himself up, but a wave of dizziness and nausea sent him crashing back down onto the cold pavement. The world swam in and out of focus.
He lay there, bleeding, broken, and utterly defeated. He had tried. He had mustered a flicker of courage. And for his trouble, he had gotten his face smashed in and been left to die in the cold.
A rarer kind of power, Iris had said.
It felt like a lie. Courage without power was just a faster way to get yourself killed.
He heard a new set of footsteps. Calm, measured, unhurried. They came to a stop beside him.
Raymond tilted his head, wincing at the bolt of pain that shot through his neck. A man was standing over him. He wasn't a Hero—he wore a long, dark trench coat over a simple suit, not a uniform. He was middle-aged, with a strong, clean-shaven jaw and hair silvered at the temples. His eyes were the most striking thing about him; they were a cool, calm gray, and they held no surprise, no pity, only a deep, penetrating intelligence. He was holding another one of the gray gas canisters, casually tapping it against his leg.
The man knelt down, his movements efficient and graceful. He looked at Raymond's ruined face with a clinical detachment.
"An admirable, if fundamentally foolish, gesture," the man said, his voice a low, cultured baritone. It was a voice accustomed to being obeyed. "Intervening against three powered individuals with nothing but misplaced altruism. It indicates either a profound death wish or a characterological imperative toward self-sacrifice. I am curious to discover which."
Raymond tried to speak, but only a gurgle of blood came out.
The man reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small, silver injector. "Do not be alarmed. This will mitigate the pain and slow the bleeding. You have sustained significant facial trauma."
Before Raymond could protest, the man pressed the device against the side of his neck. There was a sharp hiss, and a wave of cool numbness spread from the point of injection, washing over the fiery agony in his face. The pain receded to a dull, distant throb. The world snapped back into a sharper, if still hazy, focus.
"Who… are you?" Raymond slurred, the words thick in his swollen mouth.
The man didn't answer immediately. He looked toward the alley where the villains had fled, a faint, almost imperceptible frown on his lips. Then his cool gray eyes returned to Raymond.
"Let us just say I am a… collector of potential," the man said. "And you, lying broken on the ground for defending strangers, have just demonstrated a potential I find exceedingly rare."
He stood up, looming over Raymond once more, but this presence was different from Grinder's. It wasn't brutish and threatening; it was immense and authoritative, like a mountain or a deep ocean trench.
"The world has told you that you are nothing, has it not?" the man continued, his voice soft but carrying an undeniable weight. "That because you lack the flash and noise of their so-called 'powers,' you are without value. You believed them. I can see it in your eyes, even through the blood and swelling."
He paused, letting his words sink in.
"They are wrong," the man said, and the simple, declarative sentence felt like a fundamental truth, rewriting Raymond's reality. "What you did today required more strength than any pyrokinesis or telekinesis. It was a choice. The most powerful force in the universe is not energy; it is will. And you, Raymond, have just shown me yours."
Hearing his name from this stranger's lips sent a fresh jolt of fear through him. How did he know?
The man extended a hand. It was clean, the nails perfectly manicured. "This world is not for the meek. It is a crucible. You have been tested in the fire of your own powerlessness and have not been found entirely wanting. But a flicker is not enough. You need to become a conflagration."
Raymond stared at the offered hand. It was a choice. To stay here, on the ground, and wait for an ambulance, to return to his life of quiet despair, to be the zero. Or to take this stranger's hand and step into the unknown.
He thought of Iris and Jayden in their gleaming tower. He thought of Grinder's fist. He thought of the little girl's pleading eyes.
He had nothing left to lose.
With a trembling, blood-smeared hand, Raymond reached up and took the man's hand.
The grip was firm, strong, and impossibly steady. It pulled him to his feet with an effortless strength that belied the man's lean frame. Raymond swayed, the world tilting, but the man's grip held him upright.
"Good," the man said, a faint, almost imperceptible smile touching his lips. "The first lesson begins now."
He supported Raymond, turning him away from the square, leading him toward a sleek, black car that idled silently at the curb, its windows tinted to absolute black. It had appeared as if from nowhere.
As the man helped him into the plush, leather interior of the car, Raymond caught one last glimpse of Kingsley Square in the side-view mirror. The bloodstain on the pavement where he had fallen looked like a dark, Rorschach blotch. A testament to his failure. Or perhaps, a brand marking the end of his old life.
The door closed with a soft, expensive thump, sealing him in the quiet, climate-controlled darkness of the car. The man slid in beside him.
The car pulled away from the curb, smooth and silent as a ghost.
Raymond didn't know who this man was. He didn't know where he was being taken. He didn't know what "potential" the man saw in a broken, powerless kid.
But as the numbness from the injector spread through his body and the last of his strength faded, he knew one thing with absolute certainty.
The zero was about to be reprogrammed.