Chapter 3: Whispers of the Future
The "funny bad luck" had run its course, and Adam was finally free from the tyranny of bird poop and spontaneously malfunctioning machinery. He had used the week to its full advantage, however, making a few hundred dollars through odd jobs that his enhanced agility made surprisingly easy. He'd also, during the calmer moments, been delving into the system's external data analysis function. It wasn't perfect, but it could parse information from nearby media sources—newspapers, news broadcasts, even overheard conversations—and categorize it by relevance to his own journey.
The results were chilling. The words "mutant," "Trask Industries," and "Sentinel program" were a recurring motif, a background hum of impending doom that had been all but invisible to him before. The timeline document he'd read in his past life was a ghost whispering in his ear, a grim shadow of the future. He knew what was coming. The Sentinel program, a government-sanctioned initiative to hunt and exterminate mutants, was a ticking time bomb, and it was getting closer every day. The news reports, once just static, now felt like a personal threat.
"It's like being a backseat passenger in a car driven by a drunk, and you know there's a cliff ahead. You want to scream, to grab the wheel, but you're just a voice in the dark," he thought, watching a news report on a small, contained mutant incident in rural Kansas. The news anchor, a chipper, perfectly coiffed woman, spoke about the "threat to public safety" and the need for "proactive measures" with a smile that was all the more terrifying for its nonchalance.
Adam's motivation had shifted from simple survival to something more ambitious, more… proactive. He was a survivor, yes, but he wasn't a sheep. He wasn't going to let himself be hunted and exterminated. His transmigration had given him a unique advantage, a foreknowledge of what was to come. He knew the players, the dates, the major conflicts. He knew that in a few short years, the world would be on the brink of an all-out mutant war.
He started to use his domain for observation, a more controlled and subtle use of its power. He would sit in public parks, on buses, in coffee shops, letting the system scan the people around him. He wasn't looking to steal powers, not yet. He was just looking for data. He was building a database of mutant signatures, a mental library of genetic potential. He found dozens of minor mutants, people who didn't even know they had a power: a man who could change the color of his beard, a woman who could make her fingernails grow slightly faster. These were the ghosts in the machine, the people who were completely unaware of the target on their back.
"It's a sick game. The lottery of life, but the prize is a target on your back and the penalty is a cage, or worse," he mused, watching a young boy with a mischievous glint in his eye, a faint signature of localized probability manipulation—the ability to make things go slightly his way. The system flagged him as a potential threat in the wrong hands, but for now, he was just a kid playing with a coin.
The system's data analysis also provided a grim, unblinking look at the world's anti-mutant sentiment. The rhetoric was getting more violent, more hateful. Trask Industries was a name on every politician's tongue, the name of a company promising a "solution" to the "mutant problem". He knew what that "solution" was. The Sentinels. He knew that the government, in its panic, would eventually greenlight a program that would lead to the extinction of his new species. He had to do something.
His mind began to race, a whirlwind of new ideas and ruthless pragmatism. The system, he realized, wasn't just a tool for survival. It was a weapon. It was a foundation. It was the seed of a new organization. He had no illusions about becoming a hero. He wasn't a savior, a righteous warrior fighting for a just cause. He was a survivor who had been given an unfair advantage in a very unfair world, and he intended to use it to its full potential.
"Right. New plan. I'm not just surviving anymore. I'm building. I'm going to build a new family. A new army. And it's going to be better than what Charles Xavier or Erik Lehnsherr are offering. No cheesy uniforms, no soapbox speeches. Just security, power, and a 10x return on any perceived slight. It's time to build Finex. The name sounds like 'phoenix,' but with an 'f.' A phoenix rising from the ashes, but with a slight, sarcastic spelling mistake. Perfect," he thought, a grim smile on his face. The seed of an idea had been planted, and it was already starting to grow roots.
He left the park, a new sense of purpose driving his steps. The world was a chessboard, and he was finally ready to start moving his pieces.