The next morning Gabriel woke early. He jumped out of bed and set to work on his suit. First, he would get the hardest task out of the way. Designing a new coolant system for his AntiGrav generator turned out more tedious than he assumed.
After some time spent sketching out ideas, he decided to create a secondary coolant system on top of his original - instead of starting from scratch.
The upper system would be more efficient than the other, and he would fill in the gaps with heat absorbent gel to optimize cooling. When it was done he would be able to fly while firing his Cannon. He'd have 5 or 6 consecutive constructs in his repertoire rather than a measly 3.
It took him a few hours to do this, so he missed having breakfast. Luckily the genetic mutations didn't need as many calories as he had the day before, but he still got hungry. He decided to take a break and head for the cafeteria.
He grabbed lunch from the mess hall near the training room and head back to his lab. Gabe was surprised to find Jimmy sitting at one of his tables when he entered.
He wasn't typing on anything, odd.
Jimmy was always working on something. Especially when he was alone and waiting, that was when he did his best work - or so he said.
Gabe himself preferred to meditate when there was nothing else to do.
Nearing him, Gabriel noted that he sat hunched over, his head looking down, a distraught look on his face. Closing the gap between them Gabriel spoke up, "Hey Jimmy, is everything alright?" The scientist spooked upright.
After regaining his composure Jimmy glanced at Gabe with glistening eyes, looking like he was about to burst into tears. "The scientists from lab 132 are all dead... Professor Holmes... he killed them an hour ago."
Gabe's jaw dropped as Jimmy kept going. "He said they died for suggesting a course of action that put you in danger of unnecessary death." A tear fell from his left eye. "I don't think they knew what they were being accused of. The looks on their faces when he told them were too genuine. I'm almost sure Harold made up a lab number when he gave Holmes his excuse. He framed them, Gabe, and they all died for it..."
Hearing this rocked the Super, he had never seen or heard of anyone getting executed for a mistake in Iodine. Then again, no one had ever placed him into a situation where death was as certain as he had been during that final test. Had Iodine always been such a ruthless place?
It had. Of course, it had. They designed weaponry and advanced combat software. They sold it on the black market to the highest bidders, many Villains among that list. All while pretending to be a pharmaceutical firm. There was nothing cuddly or fluffy about the inner workings of Iodine Incorporated.
Holmes had made an empire. When someone threatened to make a mess of things, he would rather kill them with his bare hands than risk a problem. It worried Gabe to see how callous the man was with human life.
All the people around Gabriel had been expendable tools to the man in charge all along. He wasn't all too thrilled to know that he was a possession either, even if Holmes implied he was irreplaceable.
Did Harold actually set up a random lab team to take his fall, though? Gabriel wouldn't put it past him to take credit for someone else's work. Dumping his mistakes on someone else might be right up his alley - but would he do that knowing he was handing out a death sentence?
Gabriel needed to get away from Iodine. His suit was finished, for the most part. He could fight his way out of the building and into the outside world. The Houston Sentinels or the Police could help.
The first thought he had of stepping foot into the open air, surrounded by people, terrified him into momentary silence. Cursing his weakness, he set his mind back on the conversation.
"I... don't know what to say, Jim. That's a very serious accusation. Do you think Harold knew what Holmes would do?" He asked.
Jimmy took on a pensive look for a few moments, the sadness falling away from his face as he started working on the question.
"No." He almost whispered, "I don't think Harold knew. I've never heard of Holmes killing a single worker, let alone an entire lab team. Harold is a wreck too. Holmes had him watch... It was like he knew Harold lied and was punishing him. The look on his face when I passed him in the hall... He went straight to his room and won't answer any messages, not even the work ones."
Seeing one of the two scientists who had raised him so worried made Gabriel start to do the same. "Look, why don't you keep trying to contact him? He's bound to answer sometime, I mean he does have to go home, right? Take him out somewhere and get his mind off things. Whatever you do, don't mention this incident, that'd be a horrible idea."
Jimmy perked up at the prospect of a plan and nodded vigorously. The water glistening in his eyes drying, his eyes setting with determination. "I'll do that, and if he doesn't come out soon then I'll hack his door and force him to come out for drinks with me. I can just tell him that I need to drink after today. Maybe he'll open up to me?" This thought he finished aloud while walking out of the lab, still nodding his head.
The pep in the step of the person Gabe considered the closest thing to family he had at Iodine brightened his mood. Humming, he continued working on his armaments. His concentration broke when the newsfeed playing on one of the holo-screens started streaming breaking news.
The MechaBlitz had demolished the city of New Seattle, which the humans had retaken only weeks earlier in a bloody and costly battle. The Sentinels were faltering against the onslaught of Exo-Suited reptiles that had harassed the planet for years.
Thinking of the brutality that took place near his very lab hours before put his mind in a dark place. Gabe cringed, remembering what he knew of the beginning of the invasion. As well as the horrible circumstances that allowed humanity to fight back.
In the early decades of the 21st century, the "Gene Corruption" spread throughout the entire living population. This corruption did nothing to the bodies of those it infected. What it changed was their offspring.
Almost overnight women began to suffer almost surefire stillbirths.
Close to 80% of people seemed to have lost the ability to bear healthy children. A lucky few did not seem affected at all. That's what they believed in 2027, at least.
Such a large drop in population left serious power vacuums around the world. As such, the new territorial alliances tended to focus on population procreation and protection. Militarisation came about from serious fears of getting wiped out.
This resulted in a strange discovery. It seemed that the first healthy generation born after the Gene Corruption was remarkably gifted - physically speaking. They were leaps and bounds faster and stronger than the average human of the previous generation. We believed it to have been a result of only the strongest genes surviving the corruption. This was wrong, although it wasn't until 2134 that we learned the Corruption hadn't caused the strongest to survive at all.
The survivors had adapted to it.
With the third generation, supernatural abilities appeared in humans. Powers like telekinesis and flight, and even greater levels of physical strength and speed. The general public dubbed these people "Supers".
The Supers continued to grow in power every generation. The mutations started to plateau around the time everyone was quicker and stronger than the Olympic athletes of the early 2000s. Those with more gifts rose to even higher peaks.
As one would assume, with such abilities, many people chose to benefit themselves by whatever means necessary. Super Crime became an unavoidable fact of life. The normal person could outrun a lion in a footrace, yet there were still many casualties.
Many tragedies involving high-powered Supers slaughtering mass numbers on a whim led to society becoming a feudal system. The strongest and most socially-minded Supers -"High Heroes"- were put in charge of the governments and policing the Supers. Villains or otherwise.
That all changed in 2525.
We discovered a colossal mass headed straight for Earth in 2514. At first, we thought it to be an asteroid. Half the size of the moon and moving at a speed that implied a direct hit in ten years. This was a threat the Earth had never faced.
The governments of the planet scrambled to create weapons powerful enough to destroy the asteroid. When the object neared in 2525, the leaders of Earth readied their weapons and awaited the proper range. They were confident.
Alarm bells went off in their heads when the object began to slow down. Actual alarms blared when the so-called asteroid fragmented into three distinct objects. Visuals revealed the truth. These were not space rocks, but space invaders. They reached outer orbit and changed course towards the Pacific ocean, seeming to have a target in mind. The three green, lobster-like crafts bull-rushed into the atmosphere.
In a panic, most countries unleashed their full salvos of asteroid-obliterating weaponry at them. Summaries of the strikes all agree that the ship's shields barely flickered after the smoke and fire had cleared. They continued on their way, splitting up and heading towards the east coast of Australasia as well as the west coasts of North and South America.
The aliens intended to establish base sites, which they did with impunity. Their landing ships fired building-sized beams of what we now call pulse lasers. These lasers were more than enough to flatten cities for their bases.
The dozens of Heroes that responded to the initial landings didn't fare much better. Their mere Grunts were more than a match for even the mid-ranked Heroes. Not to mention the giant mechanical creations that dropped with the ground forces.
Thousands of humanity's greatest defenders breathed their last. Seattle, Seoul, Lima, Los Angeles, Bogota, Tokyo, and Beijing fell. Each one a battle for the ages. Legends like Domina and Raptor made last stands there, fighting to their last breaths.
Though hope yet held, logic didn't. All seemed lost for the human race. Their most powerful champions fell like stalks of wheat at the harvest before this intergalactic scythe.
It was Quantum that saved the Earth.
He was the strongest Super ever officially recorded. Quantum was able to change the very molecular composition of the world around him. Given sufficient willpower and energy, he could - in theory - do anything. This very strength meant the reluctance of the other High Heroes when he insisted to fight at the front lines from day one.
Losing Quantum would shatter the resolve of too many defenders to risk.
Outvoted, he relented and remained on the sidelines while one after another of his friends fell to the MechaBlitz.
After the Fall of Beijing and the death of the Battle Bitch, an immortal warrior thought to be undefeatable, Quantum saw no alternative left but to break his word. It was either fight and risk death or watch the world burn around his friends from a throne.
He flew out into the middle of the Pacific - toward the Mechablitz craft stationed off the west coast of the North American Territory. With his metaphysical abilities, he created energy waves of every spectrum and interfered with technology across the globe. He was trying to short out their systems. The Blitz's response was swift and unexpected.
Using advancements still unknown to man, the MechaBlitz moved their entire fleet across the planet. They appeared before him in a flash of light, dashing his hopes. He knew he would be no match for the combined might of all three reptile-android invasion forces, his grave would be a watery one.
Yet still, he fought. Faster and harder than ever, but it wasn't enough. As the enemy's lasers pierced his defenses and disintegrated his body, Quantum surged his powers one final time. He overloaded himself.
The blast echoed across the planet. When the flash cleared the only trace of Quantum or the invasion fleet was a fracture in the crust of the earth deeper than the Mariana trench. A tidal wave circled the Earth twice from the explosion. Afterward, the fracture became known as Quantum's Deep
The world breathed a collective sigh of relief when the fleet was gone, but it didn't last long. Testing the area around Quantum's Deep, High Hero Dr. Atomic found temporal particles that revealed that Quantum's blast did not destroy the aliens.
It had created a time rift, sending the ships back 15 light-years through space-time.
This didn't save human civilization from destruction, it merely delayed their execution. The invaders were going to come back, and next time they would do so with greater fervor. The remains of the Human alliances began to train, non-stop and with a vigor never before felt. Death was coming back, and they had to be ready to stop it.
After hundreds of years. The once warlike Humankind had found another enemy to see in black and white.
The formerly democratic territories, having elected domestic leaders for the first time in centuries, chose to form a new order of heroes. Called the Sentinels, they would take up the duties of the High Heroes, handling super-powered crime and international incidents. This organization was akin to the old-world's United Nations, but with more authority and reach.
The Sentinels did a better job at handling super-powered problems than the old system had. With inter-Super training - rather than closely guarded secret abilities - the Sentinels grew in skill and size. Their membership ultimately reached a peak of over 200,000 Heroes by the time the second wave hit.
Only ten years after the first wave, the second reared its ugly head from hyperspace in 2535. Estimates of the reinforcements the Blitz might bring fell short, far short. From three landing ships, the invasion fleet had grown to no less than nine.
That wasn't the worst news. It seemed that what had been called mother ships were nothing more than warships, as the presence of the colossal ship - larger than our moon - floating farther out in space revealed.
They hit the same areas as before, only fifty times as hard.
Humanity's enhanced Gauss weaponry did much better than our old projectile weapons, but they still proved insufficient to fight MechaBlitz grunts and war machines. It was only thanks to the Sentinels that the world stood a chance.
They suffered heavy losses, but their training and careful study of Blitz tactics gave Earth's mightiest the tools they needed to push back the ground forces. At least in the Americas and the Australian Territory.
It was now 2538, three years since the second planetfall, and humanity was starting to falter. Slowly but surely, the ranks of experienced Sentinels were thinning. The MechaBlitz's constant assaults left much of their membership green and untested.
More often than ever were raw recruits entering the front lines. The once overwhelming might of the Sentinels has whittled away as more and more Heroes did not make it home.
They were left even weaker with the failure of the Siege of New Seattle. PermaFrost and Harrier, two founding members of the Sentinels, had died taking a city that would only be snatched back days later. To most of the world, the Sentinels were on their last legs. Most shuddered to think what would happen if they fell.
The Blitz stopped their advance a few months prior, for unknown reasons. They did not advance further after taking New Seattle back from humanity. They were content to sit behind their walls. The movements of their forces were closely monitored and the world held its breath while it made the most of this surprising respite.
Gabe pondered this as he tinkered with his gadgetry in his lab.
Was this all meant to happen? He doubted a higher power at work, considering the horrific massacres and destruction. No god would want that, at least that was what his beliefs told him.
Working tirelessly he installed the self-repairing nanocarbon plating and hydraulic muscle strands he'd 3D printed earlier. Each muscle strand made of the same material as the defensive plates but was hollow and bendable with a cluster of filaments running through their centers.
After a nice black coat of paint, it was almost complete. Shaped like a medieval suit of armor it also appeared skin tight, the shapes of muscles outlined in the plating covering the suit's torso, arms, and legs. Now he wouldn't have to flirt with death the next time he faced a Super with abilities comparable to the training robot.
A spartan helmet finished off with a black, reinforced Intelliglass faceplate completed the armor. It also allowed him to create a more visual neural interface for his AM constructs, combining the image in his brain with the screen inside his helm.
Gabriel gave some serious thought to the extra defensive measures Holmes had suggested. However psychopathic the man might be, he tended to be right about combat tactics. Gabriel needed as much defensive capability as he could design.
Nanocarbon was his go-to choice for material, but the rest of Holmes' words confused him. How could he keep his enemies on their toes with defensive tech?
The answer hit him after about five minutes of doodling and brainstorming. "The best defense is a good offense" was a term used for centuries, but that didn't have to mean the offense in question couldn't defend equally well. Whatever he came up with had to be multipurpose.
His final idea ended up being nanocarbon wings. These wings would be flexible, they would protect the generator on his back and he could use them to shield himself in cocoon. While also being able to cut at his foes.
Gabe's favorite aspect of the plan was the fact that he didn't need wings to fly - he used anti-gravity for that - so, his enemies would be none the wiser. They would aim for his wings, hoping to cripple him and wasting their time. They'd be in for a nice surprise when they ripped his wings off and he stayed airborne.
Finally, he had toyed with the idea of spicing up his armament by adding lasers to his helmet, shoulders, and gauntlets before he built the suit. Holmes' suggestion that he do so convinced him of the need for varied weapon choices in combat.
The wiring on his gauntlets was too messy from the AM engines inside them for the extra space he needed for lasers. He made do with the shoulders and helm for now.
These lasers had two modular settings. The Hard Laser setting would heat and melt through solid objects. They could also bypass transparent energy shields. These were the lasers he would use to kill and destroy.
The second setting was the humane option. Soft lasers were more or less Super-tasers with a far extended range, with them he could incapacitate even Class 3 Supers without doing any permanent or serious harm. Gabe itched to try out his new additions soon.
The beep his Wrist-Pad gave off interrupted his daydreaming and told him it was 8 pm, his usual dinner time.
He had been working almost all day, but he'd achieved what he set out to do, even going so far as to streamline his operating system to hack systems remotely. He was satisfied and ready to relax for the rest of the evening.
He brought up the hard light display and deactivated the alarm on his Wrist-Pad. Gabe noticed a series of missed calls, unheard voicemails, and unread texts. They were all from Jimmy.
He checked the texts first since they had arrived last, and each one was less intelligible than the one before. It was obvious something was wrong. Jimmy needed to talk to him urgently.
He had tried reaching the Super while he worked, but since Gabe had locked the door and zoned away from his Wrist-Pad when he'd focused on tinkering he'd had no luck.
The last texts were a desperate attempt to beg that Gabe call him as soon as possible, but the final text revealed what was wrong. All it said was "Harold is dead".
Seeing this he called Jimmy immediately but wasn't able to reach him.
Gabriel left him a message apologizing for having locked his lab and asking Jimmy to come see him when he felt he could.
The super sat down to await a response, breathing rhythmically to destress his overclocked brain. His mind raced at the possible causes of Harold's untimely demise. It had to have something to do with Dr. Holmes.
It wasn't five minutes before Jimmy sprinted into the lab, tears streaking down his face.