: THE MAKING OF A MONSTER
The screaming stopped at 3:17 AM.
Dr. Elizabeth Warren looked up from her clipboard at the metal table where Subject 47 lay strapped down. The boy was twelve years old, though the files said he might be younger. Street kids often lied about their age. It didn't matter now.
"Vitals are stable," Nurse Henderson reported. Her voice was flat, empty of emotion. After three years working in the facility, she had learned not to feel anything for the subjects.
Dr. Warren nodded and made notes on her chart. The third round of bone density treatments had been successful. Subject 47's skeleton was now forty percent stronger than a normal human's. His muscles would need time to adapt to the changes.
"How many more treatments?" asked Dr. Marcus Cole, the facility's director. He stood behind a thick glass window, watching the procedure through cold eyes.
"Six more rounds for the physical modifications," Warren replied. "Then we begin the psychological conditioning."
"Timeline?"
"If he survives, eighteen months for full transformation."
"And if he doesn't survive?"
Warren looked down at Subject 47. The boy's eyes were open now, staring at the ceiling. No tears. The pain medications made it impossible to cry, but she could see the terror in his young face.
"Then we start over with Subject 48."
Dr. Cole made a mark in his own file. "The government wants results, Dr. Warren. We've lost eleven subjects already. Congress is asking questions about the budget."
"Science requires sacrifice," Warren said. She had said it so many times that she almost believed it.
"Make sure the sacrifice isn't our funding."
Warren returned to her work. Subject 47 was different from the others. He had survived treatments that killed stronger, older children. His body adapted to changes that should have been impossible. His mind stayed clear when others broke completely.
She didn't know that she was looking at the future. She didn't know that Subject 47 would one day hunt down everyone involved in Project Mirror. She didn't know that the terrified boy on the table would become the most dangerous man in America.
All she knew was that the screaming had stopped, and that meant the treatment was working.
The facility was buried three hundred feet underground in the Nevada desert. Above ground, it looked like a military research station. Below ground, it was a hell designed by scientists and funded by politicians who never came to see what their money bought.
Project Mirror had been running for five years. The goal was simple: create super soldiers who could become anyone, go anywhere, and eliminate any threat to American security. The method was less simple: take children who nobody would miss and turn them into living weapons.
Subject 47 had been homeless in Chicago when they found him. No family, no friends, no records. Perfect for their needs. The facility doctors had given him a new name, a new identity, and a new purpose. They just forgot to ask if he wanted any of it.
"Subject 47," Dr. Warren said. The boy's eyes moved to look at her. "Can you hear me?"
He nodded once.
"Good. The treatment is complete for today. You did very well."
She was lying. The treatment had been agony. The boy's bones had been injected with experimental chemicals that made them stronger but caused incredible pain. His muscles had been given electrical shocks to force them to grow faster. His nervous system had been flooded with drugs that would make his reflexes superhuman.
"Tomorrow we begin cognitive enhancement," Warren continued. "This will help you think faster and remember everything perfectly."
What she didn't say was that cognitive enhancement also destroyed normal human emotions. Love, fear, joy, sadness - all the feelings that made people human would be burned away. What remained would be a perfect killer who could feel nothing for his victims.
Subject 47 tried to speak, but his throat was too damaged from screaming. Warren saw the question in his eyes anyway.
"Why?" she said for him. "Because your country needs you. Because there are bad people in the world who want to hurt innocent Americans. You're going to stop them."
It was the same speech she gave to all the subjects. Most of them were too young to understand. Subject 47 was different. She could see him thinking, processing, remembering every word.
That should have warned her. Children who remembered everything were dangerous. Children who thought too much asked questions. Questions led to problems.
But Dr. Warren was focused on her research, not on the consequences. She was creating a monster and calling it patriotism.
"Rest now," she told Subject 47. "Tomorrow will be harder."
The boy closed his eyes, but he didn't sleep. How could he sleep when every breath hurt? How could he rest when he knew tomorrow would bring more pain?
Instead, he lay still and planned. Even at twelve years old, even drugged and broken, Subject 47 was learning to think like a weapon. He memorized the faces of everyone who hurt him. He counted the guards, noted their schedules, mapped the facility in his mind.
Someday, he would use that information. Someday, he would make them pay for what they were doing to him and the other children.
But not yet. He was still too weak, too small, too human.
That would change.
The facility held forty-seven subjects when Project Mirror began. By the time Subject 47 was ready for release, only one remained alive.
Him.
Dr. Warren retired from the project when it was shut down five years later. She moved to Seattle and got a job at a children's hospital, thinking she could make up for her past by helping sick kids instead of creating broken ones.
She was wrong.
Dr. Cole died in a car accident three months after Project Mirror ended. The police called it bad luck - his brakes failed while driving through mountain curves. They never found evidence of sabotage.
They weren't looking hard enough.
Nurse Henderson disappeared one night while walking to her car after work. Her body was never found. The police had no leads, no witnesses, no suspects.
They never thought to look for a ghost.
Subject 47 had become something new. Something that didn't exist in any government file or military handbook. He was a shadow with a mission: hunt down the people who had destroyed his childhood and make sure they could never destroy another child's life.
But first, he had other work to do. The government had trained him to eliminate threats to American security. They just never imagined that one day, they would be the threat.
The facility in Nevada was destroyed in what officials called a gas explosion. The underground levels collapsed completely, burying all evidence of Project Mirror forever.
Or so they thought.
Subject 47 had taken everything with him when he escaped: files, photographs, medical records, financial documents. He knew the names of everyone involved, from the scientists who tortured him to the politicians who funded the program.
He had a list, and he was checking it twice.
But that was still years in the future. Tonight, Subject 47 was just a terrified boy strapped to a table, enduring unimaginable pain because adults had decided his suffering was worth less than their ambitions.
Tomorrow would bring more treatments, more pain, more steps toward becoming something that was no longer entirely human.
The screaming would start again at 8:00 AM sharp.
Dr. Warren would take notes and mark her charts and tell herself she was serving her country.
Subject 47 would endure and remember and plan his revenge.
And somewhere in the darkness between victim and weapon, between child and monster, the man who would one day be called Marcus Grey was being born.
The facility hummed with machinery and electricity. Computers monitored vital signs, cameras watched every corner, and air filters worked overtime to remove the smell of antiseptic and fear.
In Cell 12, Subject 47 stared at the ceiling and waited for morning. His bones ached with new strength. His muscles twitched with artificial growth. His mind raced with thoughts that came too fast and too clear.
He was becoming what they wanted him to become.
But he was also becoming something they never expected.
A judge.
A jury.
An executioner who would one day hold them all accountable for their crimes against children who had no voice, no choice, and no hope of rescue.
The transformation was beginning, and there would be no going back.
For any of them.