"You're not my nephew, you're a goddamn ghost made of iron and glass."Thomas raised his trembling sidearm, his finger white against the trigger. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and wild with a jagged, unhinged terror as he backed against the marble platform of the empty golden pod.Ethan didn't even draw his rifle. He stood motionless before the heavy lead-lined vault door hidden in the shadow of Sector Zero's rear wall, his hands slick with cold sweat. "Lower the gun, Thomas. I am standing right in front of you.""No! No, you're not!" Thomas shrieked, his voice breaking into a ragged, hysterical sob. "My nephew died in the snow outside the mansion! I saw the casualty reports from the perimeter patrol! You were frozen, Ethan! Your heart stopped a year ago!""I am breathing, Thomas," Ethan said, taking a slow, measured step across the polished floorboards, his voice eerie in its absolute lack of warmth. "Touch my arm. Feel the blood on my coa

 "You look like a corpse that forgot how to lie down, Ethan."Thomas pulled a stainless steel tray across the examination table, the sharp scrape of metal echoing through the damp, sterile air of Lab Three. He didn't look Ethan in the eye as he reached into his tactical vest, pulling out a small glass vial filled with a clear, synthetic solution.Ethan sat on the edge of the steel table, his shoulders slumped, his chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged beats. "The migraine isn't going away, Thomas. It feels like someone is hammering a hot spike into my left temple.""Hold still," Thomas said, his voice dripping with an almost theatrical, soothing warmth as he fitted a pressurized needle onto the syringe. "This is a high-grade neuro-blocker from Arthur's private stash. It will slow down the cellular decay in your optical nerve.""Are you sure about that?" Ethan asked softly, letting his head droop forward as if he barely had the strength

 "I watched you freeze, Ethan, and I would do it again to save this country."Thomas smashed his palm onto the emergency manual override, his face contorted in a mask of desperate, wild conviction.Heavy lead isolation barriers slammed down from the ceiling with a deafening metallic crash, sealing the biological isolation unit shut. A hum of high-voltage magnetic energy flared around the perimeter, locking Ethan inside a thick, lead-reinforced glass containment field.Ethan didn't run for the door. He didn't even flinch when the blast shields locked into place."You can't shoot through four inches of ballistic quartz!" Thomas yelled through the intercom console outside the cell, his hands flying across the control keys of the experimental extraction rig. "So don't even try!"Ethan stood in the center of the isolation pod, his arms hanging loose at his sides. He stared directly through the pristine glass at his uncle, his single open ey

 "I am going to erase every single thing you ever built, Father."Ethan slammed his bloody palm onto the central command terminal in the lower lab, his voice hoarse and raw. The console whirred to life, bathing his pale, sweat-slicked face in a sickly green light.Behind him, the radiation engine below the floorboards emitted a deafening, rhythmic thrum."System override initiated," the terminal's automated voice chirped, flickering erratically. "Arthur Vance's master files unlocked."Ethan leaned heavy against the steel desk, coughing violently into his sleeve. Dark purple blood stained the fabric. "Show me the deployment logs. Show me how he weaponized the atmosphere."Before the terminal could render the data, the ambient air in the lab cracked like dry ice hitting hot water.A wave of localized temporal feedback washed through the chamber, turning the air dense and violet."Ethan, watch out!" a ghostly voice shrieked

 "I am going to force this sky open, even if it tears my hands off."Ethan slammed his palm down onto the heavy steel housing of the vault's deep-range communication array. The metallic taste of copper filled his mouth, but he spat the dark fluid onto the floor, refusing to look down."Satellite link offline," the terminal's mechanical voice flatly reported. "Severe atmospheric interference detected. Frequency jammed by polar pulse.""Bypass the jamming!" Ethan screamed, leaning his body over the glowing primary console, his eyes bloodshot and wide with desperate focus."Manual override impossible," the automated voice replied. "Signal attenuation exceeds maximum transmission threshold.""It doesn't exceed mine!" Ethan roared.He reached out with his mind, driving his spatial void straight through the floor, upward along the copper wiring of the main transmission mast. He forced a microscopic tear in space directly into the cent