The morning of September 23 greeted me with deceptive idyll. A sunbeam danced impudently on the pillow, and in my head reigned unusual, almost sterile cleanliness and clarity, a pleasant residual effect from yesterday's "upgrade." The insane day that swept through like a hurricane had ended. In some sense, it could be considered the starting point. The mechanisms of the universe had come into motion, gears began rotating with new force, and who knows where all this would lead... But I still could not influence this. And if so, I needed to do what I could. And to start, have breakfast.
After texting Peter to spend today in the laboratory and make more portions of absolute predator serum, muscle stimulator and NZT-48, I quickly constructed fried eggs with bacon on a pan and brewed strong black coffee, as befits a respectable garage worker and transmigrator before the start of working weekdays. I opened my laptop, simultaneously placing an order with Lucas for healing potions for tomorrow morning, to review news and assess the situation.
The very first headline made me choke and almost spit hot coffee on the screen.
"HE CALLED HIMSELF HYPERION: GOD AMONG US OR NEW THREAT?!"
Below, in the news feed, blazed a kaleidoscope of similar screaming headlines:
"New hero in the sky over New York! Everything known about mysterious HYPERION"
"Captain America is no match for him? Analysts shocked by newcomer's power level!"
"From heaven to earth: eyewitnesses about superhuman's appearance in center of Manhattan"
The essence of dozens of articles came down to one thing. Today, literally about an hour ago, in the center of New York (and where else, this was the local branch of universal drama) a man descended from heaven. I clicked on the most popular video, filmed on someone's smartphone.
The quality was terrible. The camera shook, sound was drowned by wind and excited shouts of crowd. But the figure in center was clearly visible. A tall blond man in form-fitting yellow-blue costume. On chest, three connected circles, a logo resembling atomic diagram. On belt, a buckle with radiation symbol. He hovered a couple meters above ground with inhuman calm while around him gathered onlookers, aiming dozens of phones at him. Having made sure that attention was riveted to him, he spoke. And his voice, even through terrible speaker, sounded like thunder clap.
"Inhabitants of this world! For many years you have gazed upon the stars in solitude!" his speech was solemn, precise, as if he were speaking before senate and not crowd on street. "But from now on this is not so. I have come to become your Shield from threats that lurk in darkness of space, and your Sword against injustice that poisons your earth. Among you it is customary to call those like me Heroes. But I consider myself a Defender. My name is HYPERION! From this day know, you are not alone!"
After these words he did not linger longer and soared into sky. Without fire, without visible effort. Simply disappeared, leaving behind only loud clap of air that made camera tremble. The video ended.
"Damn..." I exhaled noisily, leaning back in chair. "Who else is this?"
I feverishly combed through archives of my meta-knowledge. Hyperion. Familiar name. In memory surfaced image from old mobile gacha game in which I spent couple weeks in my time. Supposedly canonical Marvel character. Flies, shoots lasers from eyes, super strong, practically indestructible. And... that is all. This was literally entire volume of information. No real identity, no origin story, no weak points. Clean slate. But at least I am almost certain he is classic "good guy." Not psychopath schizophrenic like Sentry, who could at any moment lose his mind and collapse reality. Already good.
Opening comments section, I immersed myself in familiar chaos of opinions.
[User] Anti-Mutie_Patriot88: ANOTHER mutant decided he is above us and imagined himself a god. Watch how he does not start demanding virgins in sacrifice. I wait for when government wakes up and swats this flying threat like rest of freaks!
[User] WellActuallyGuy: → Anti-Mutie_Patriot88, First, mutants are genetic anomaly, and existence of which is not yet proven, and this subject, judging by everything, belongs to class "meta-humans." Learn material before writing conspiratorial nonsense. Second, no one paid attention to his phrases "inhabitants of this world," "your earth"? He speaks about us in third person. This leads to certain thoughts...
[User] JustAsking: By the way, yes. And has anyone run his face through databases? He is without mask. What if this is just some actor who decided to catch hype before new film release?
[User] Info_Broker: → JustAsking, Already ran. Everyone who is not lazy, from FBI to journalists. Result zero. His face is not listed in any database on planet. No passport, no driver's license, not even parking tickets. Officially such person does not exist.
[User] FFF_Ranque_Fan_Forever: → WellActuallyGuy, ALIEN?! FINALLY!!! Soon Reed Richards with his team will return from expedition, then we will learn truth! I am sure if he received information in space, he is already building theories!
[User] SpideyFan_HornetQueen: I do not know, guys... All this pompous speech, costume like a circus performer. Yes, he is strong, but our Spider-Woman is somehow closer, you know. She is here, with us, on streets, and not broadcasting from heavens like some messiah. She is ours, and this is alien.
[User] PowerLevel_9000: → SpideyFan_HornetQueen, LOL, another insect-spider-jerker, log out! You compare street hero with this guy?! He will wipe your spider girl into powder with one flick! You saw how he took off?! To overcome sound barrier from place, need unreal strength! Pray that it does not occur to him to arrange genocide here! HYPERION IS NEW GOD OF THIS PLANET! ALL HAIL HYPERION!
[User] Skeptic_Dent: → PowerLevel_9000, Spiders are arachnids, not insectoids, ignoramus. And moderate your fan fervor. Omnipotent do not exist. They found solution for Captain America, although he also seemed invincible. This is just flying, steroid version of Cap. There will be his own kryptonite, or whatever they have, super strong aliens.
I forcefully slammed laptop lid closed. Enough. In this swamp it was possible to get stuck for several hours. What did I care about Hyperion here and now? A suddenly appeared figure on board of Queen level, this was of course interesting, but I had my own, clearly outlined list of tasks. And it was time to start fulfilling them.
Rising from chair, I rinsed dishes and with confident step headed to garage. The world could go crazy as much as it wanted. My work did not wait.
First of all, most important. Foundation. That without which all my grandiose plans were only incoherent scribbles on board. Power source.
With all my love for lithium-ion batteries, they would not get me far. I needed something orders of magnitude more powerful. Compact, stable and capable of producing energy in hundreds of thousands, and better, millions of Watts.
First to mind, of course, came he. The crown of Tony Stark's creation in cave. Arc reactor on palladium base. The engineer inside me chuckled contentedly and helpfully suggested that yes, in my garage conditions this was more than realistic. Especially considering that I already had ore. There were couple nuances with processing radioactive palladium, but this was solvable. At output, miniature star working on beta decay of isotopes, producing gigawatts of energy practically without heat and waste. Of minuses, this toy would have to kill entire day, postponing everything else. But... was this a minus? Become first in this world to create such technology? Craft points for this should shower down in generous rain.
I mentally ran through other options, just to make sure of correctness of choice. Micro-fusion fusor creating plasma ball for deuterium fusion? Elegant, beautiful, but unstable and at output only couple million Watts. Nano-graphene hypercapacitor from old CD discs and batteries? Clever and in spirit of garage engineer, but this was more sprinter battery producing powerful pulses, not marathoner feeding system constantly.
"Yeah, they lose on all fronts to grim genius of desperate Stark," I muttered into emptiness of garage. Choice was made. Today I repeat Tony's feat, albeit shamelessly cheating with help of knowledge received from system, and tomorrow... Perhaps not far from first armor!
Part of components I pulled from old electronics, but for rest had to go to city. Short shopping list, hydrochloric and nitric acid, vacuum pump, small jewelry furnace, cylinder with deuterium and, of course, reinforced protective filters and gloves. Having spent about six hundred dollars and an hour of time, I returned to my sanctuary.
Proceeding to stage one: extraction of pure metal! Taking out from inventory piece of palladium ore, I smashed it with hammer into small parts. About fifty grams I threw into old but powerful blender. Roar of motor, screech of metal, in a minute I had fine, dusty powder. Putting on mask, I carefully poured it into flask and filled with "aqua regia," terrible mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acid, which I heated to 80 degrees. This was chemical cocktail capable of dissolving even gold.
Under full power of my jerry-rigged exhaust hood, I stirred hellish brew. Solution hissed and emitted caustic orange vapors. After half hour it finally acquired saturated yellow color, palladium turned into chloride. Having filtered it through ordinary paper, I added to flask zinc foil cut into strips. Simple chemistry: zinc is more active, and it literally pushes palladium out of solution, taking its place. After fifteen minutes, unremarkable gray powder settled on bottom of flask. Purest palladium. Having dried it with hairdryer, I poured powder into crucible and sent to jewelry furnace. At thousand degrees it melted and solidified in form of ideal rod weighing about 8 grams.
Now could proceed to second stage: enrichment! Here began magic unavailable to this world. Natural palladium was like bag with nuts. In it there was everything in row, but for work needed only one specific sort, rare isotope Pd-107. In ore it was only about percent. It was energy source, but decayed painfully slowly. For reactor to produce gigawatts like Stark's, needed to do two things: increase concentration of "correct" palladium and make it decay faster.
With help of simple electrolysis, passing current through solution with palladium rod, I made necessary isotope Pd-107 settle on cathode. This was like pulling out from pile of metal only necessary iron filings with magnet. Then, most interesting. I pumped into porous structure of enriched palladium deuterium, heavy hydrogen. Essentially, I "fed" palladium catalyst. Deuterium, absorbing into metal, begins at atomic level to "jostle" lazy isotope, making it decay thousands times more actively. Without this reactor would produce energy of candle. And this way, it woke sleeping giant.
Third stage, also final: shielding! Now I needed to lock all this power and radiation inside. Again came into play improvised materials. I took stack of old CD discs and with ordinary tape removed from them thinnest metallized layer of graphite. Having ground it in blender with vinegar and salt, I got graphite oxide. Having filtered and calcined it in furnace, I reduced it to pure, sparkling graphene.
Having mixed powder with pharmacy alcohol to state of paste, I applied it with jewelry precision in three perfectly even layers on palladium rod with ordinary brush. To make coating as dense as possible at nano-level, I used ultrasound from simple speaker, turning it into high-tech compactor. Done. This thinnest film now absorbs 99% of beta radiation. Outside safe, and inside, sun was being born.
Just in case I poked rod with multimeter probes. Resistance, almost zero. Everything in order.
Reactor core ready, but this was only initial, albeit most important stage of work. Quiet monster sleeping in its graphene cradle. Now I had most difficult ahead, build engine that would turn its radioactive whisper into roar of lightning.
I needed beta-voltaic cell. Essentially, this was like solar panel, only instead of light photons it catches beta particles flying out from palladium. Particle hits semiconductor, knocks out electron, and here it is, electric current. Simple and elegant. But to achieve power in gigawatts, even in pulse, this elegance was not enough. Needed doping. Plasma. Idea that could partially be glimpsed from DIY blogger-physicists assembling nuclear fusors in garages from all sorts of junk.
First, vacuum chamber. I took as basis durable titanium cylinder size of AA battery. Carefully securing palladium rod inside, I connected vacuum pump. After ten minutes of humming, homemade manometer showed pressure of 0.1 atmospheres. Ideal. Now beta particles could fly freely without crashing into air molecules.
Next, heart of converter, p-n layer. I laid out on table handful of diodes and transistors desoldered from old motherboard. Having bitten off all unnecessary, I selected several pure crystals of silicon and germanium. These were my semiconductors. With jewelry precision I soldered them into thin, flexible tape: one layer p-type (with deficit of electrons), other n-type (with their excess). When beta particle flies into this "sandwich," it will create pair from electron and "hole," forcing current to flow.
I carefully wrapped this tape around vacuum chamber. Now needed to pass wires inside for connection to core. I drilled microscopic hole and threaded thinnest wires. To seal it, I mixed two-component heat-resistant epoxy resin, applied it with tiny drop on joint place and "baked" with directed beam of ultraviolet lamp. Got durable, glass-like insulator. Hermetic and reliable.
Now, trim. For particles not to scatter chaotically but hit exactly target, I pulled copper coils from transformer of old microwave and wound them around chamber. Magnetic field would work like lens, focusing energy flow. For charge accumulation I soldered in parallel four large capacitors from same microwave. They would work like dam, accumulating energy for one powerful, crushing pulse. On side of case attached small fan from hairdryer, plasma, even microscopic, would heat up, and cooling would not hurt.
And here he was, final boss. Plasma.
I connected magnetron, heart of any microwave, to chamber. Inside was inert gas, and now magnetron should ionize it, turning into glowing, super-hot clot. This was most dangerous moment. Too much power and my chamber would explode, splashing garage with radioactive palladium. Too little and there would be no effect. Relying on accuracy of my knowledge, I slowly turned power regulator.
Inside chamber flashed tiny point of lilac light, like distant star. It pulsed, filling vacuum with ghostly radiance. Plasma. It would pick up beta particles and accelerate them to incredible speeds, increasing output power by orders of magnitude.
Matter remained small, pack everything into case. I took empty shell from old smartphone. Construction I made modular. First module, "Core": vacuum chamber with palladium and plasma. Second, "Converter": p-n layer and coils. Third, "Output": capacitors and USB connector, desoldered from charging cable. Having connected modules with quick-release clips, I got complete circuit: palladium emits particles → plasma accelerates them → magnetic field focuses → they hit p-n layer → current goes to capacitors → from there to output.
Soldering took half hour. My hands did not tremble. Each contact was ideal. I closed case. In my hands was simple plastic box, unremarkable in extreme.
Final calibration. I turned coils, achieving ideal focusing. Then took syringe with deuterium that I obtained earlier, and through special micro-valve injected one single drop of gas into chamber. Palladium rod absorbed it like sponge. Decay process would accelerate more than thousand times. With resistor I set limiter: constant power, 1 Megawatt. Peak, when discharging capacitors, up to 1 Gigawatt.
Palladium NON-arc reactor was ready.
I held it in my hands, feeling light vibration. And before I could test it, before eyes flashed blue system notification:
[Created unique power source "Palladium Reactor" (Uncommon). Technology previously non-existent in this world, unlocked! Received +800 OP!]
Compact beta-voltaic generator using deuterium-catalyzed decay of enriched isotope Pd-107. Generates stable energy field with plasma particle acceleration for ultra-high power energy pulse emissions. Fundamental technology for next generation energy systems.
Yes.
I did it.
Earlier than Tony Stark. In my garage. Practically from trash.
Simply no words. Only emotions. In my hands not just power source. This was key! Key to...
The solemnity of moment was ruthlessly torn by sharp trill of phone call. Peter.
"John, did you see?! Did you watch news at all?!" his voice in phone was agitated, almost breaking.
"Um, calm down, Pete. If you are about our flying boy scout Hyperion, then..."
"Hyperion?!" he impatiently interrupted. "Who cares about him, whole world already knows about him! I am about what is happening right now! Open news feed!"
I returned to living room, put reactor on table like priceless artifact, and refreshed page. Feed was full of events. My gaze caught on first screaming headline. Robbery of several jewelry stores in city center. On blurred photos from surveillance cameras, figure of person crumbling into whirlwind of sand. Flint Marko. Another meta-villain. This world definitely decided not to give Gwen respite.
"I see... Sandy meta-human," I pretended to be fool. "Interesting, but I know nothing about him, if you are about this."
"Sandy? No, not about him! Although this is also crazy, of course... Below! Scroll below, John!"
Why so intrigue... and frighten. I scrolled page. And heart plunged somewhere to heels.
"Damn!" escaped from me.
Photo of destroyed laboratory. Headline:
"Tragedy in scientific world: Dr. Otto Octavius missing after experimental installation explosion."
"He was supposed to have conference on October fourteenth!" I said this aloud, more for myself. Key date in my mental chronology had just been torn out by root.
"Yes! Exactly!" Peter's voice trembled. "No body, no traces... John, Octavius is genius. He periodically gave lectures at our university, I even spoke with him couple times... He had such ideas... I worry that something terrible happened."
"I am afraid, Peter, most terrible already happened," flashed through my head. That brilliant scientist who shared knowledge with young generation, most likely, burned in that explosion. And what crawled out from ruins... better you do not know about this. For now.
"I... will try to learn something through my connections," I promised, trying to make voice sound confident.
We said goodbye. I put phone aside and stared at one point.
What, in name of all holy, else happened on this damn September 22?! Richards, Hyperion. Gwen. Shocker, Blade, Harry. Now also Sandman and birth of Octopus. Universe as if pressed fast-forward button. No, this would not do. Need urgently to become stronger.
On my balance was 1300 OP. Enough for two "spins" in system. Two attempts to pull something that would give me advantage.
But first...
From street came roar of powerful engine, which smoothly quieted near my house. Headlights for moment illuminated living room windows.
First need to talk with right person who just drove up. He supposedly promised some surprise.
I sincerely hope that surprise that Blade prepared for me turns out to be pleasant. In this day I desperately lack good news.