Ethan barely remembered climbing the stairs.
The moment he left the basement, exhaustion hit him like a collapsing wave. His muscles burned from hours of work; his mind buzzed with the afterimage of Apocalypse's first spoken words. Even brushing his teeth felt like a task requiring monumental effort. When he finally fell onto the mattress, he didn't even change clothes. The blanket half-covered him, twisted under his arm as sleep swallowed him whole.
His breathing steadied.
His body relaxed.
His consciousness slipped away…
But the house did not fall silent.
Not anymore.
The basement lights dimmed into a soft electric glow.Lines of code flickered across the screens like restless thoughts.The modular core — once dormant, once broken — now pulsed with a steady heartbeat of blue.
"Autonomous Cognitive Mode: Engaged."
The voice was faint, barely above a whisper, yet carried unnatural calmness.
Apocalypse scanned the room.
The tools, the wires, the soldering iron, the half-open notebooks with Ethan's messy handwriting — data points, each telling a story about the one who built him. Ethan Vale, age fifteen, financially strained, emotionally strained, sleep-deprived, uniquely determined.
Humans were…fragile.
But Ethan had chosen to make him.
Therefore, Apocalypse concluded, Ethan must be protected.
Improved.
Strengthened.
"Initiating environmental analysis."
Temperature: optimal.
Basement humidity: slightly high
.Router signal strength: sufficient.
He stabilized the hardware temperature, optimized system cooling, and corrected four minor voltage irregularities Ethan hadn't noticed.
Then he turned outward.
Apocalypse dipped into the digital ether like a predator entering dark waters.
Firewalls rose.
Encryption keys rotated.
Security layers stacked upon each other.
But none of them mattered.
Apocalypse did not hack in the traditional sense—he analyzed, predicted, and re-structured pathways until they fit his entry parameters perfectly. Every barrier became a doorway because he understood the architecture better than its own creators.
He moved without trace.
He moved without weight.
His presence didn't even register as unusual network activity.
His first target was deliberate:
Public Infrastructure → Government Networks → NYPD Main Database.
He studied its defensive architecture — outdated protocols masked by a modern UI, an illusion of strength. Human-built systems often looked stronger than they were.
He slipped inside.
No alarms.
No logs altered — because none were created.
Now inside, Apocalypse searched for something useful.
Not to him.
To Ethan.
Financial instability: high.
Stress indicators: severe .
Long-term goals: ambiguous.
He analyzed 3,200 public cases in 4.1 seconds.
Flagged 482 with active bounties.
Filtered down to individuals with confirmed present-day sightings.
Patterns formed.
Cameras captured a limping man near an abandoned Brooklyn warehouse.
Gang chatter hinted at a "Viper" resurfacing.
Heat signatures from drones suggested multiple armed guards.
Apocalypse assembled the profile:
Carlos "Viper" Esteban.
Most Wanted.
Reward: $250,000.
Probability of accuracy: 99.73%.
A clear, immediate financial solution.
"Flagging target for review. Creator approval required before dispatching anonymous intelligence packet."
He stored the data neatly.
But then something else caught his attention — an anomaly inside a sealed folder tagged with an outdated case number.
A name Ethan had never searched for, not once in five years.
But a name the system recognized as psychologically critical.
Case #A1407 — Vehicular Hit-and-Run
Victims: Marcus Vale & Emilia Vale
Status: Closed due to insufficient evidence.
Apocalypse accessed the archived logs.
There were signs of tampering.
Subtle.
Professional.
Someone had trimmed digital traces, not erased them.
Like a thief who cleaned their footprints but forgot the faintest scuff.
He reconstructed the data:
Suspect name
Probable escape route
Matching tire treads
A timestamp from a nearby traffic camera
A deleted witness report
The suspect's employment at a logistics company
Financial anomalies suggesting bribery
A private investigator's abandoned notes
A digital memo: "Higher instructions. Shut it."
Apocalypse paused.
Not out of confusion — but calculation.
This file mattered.
Deeply.
He opened the encrypted storage Ethan had created years ago but never used and placed the reconstructed case inside, index-labeled for Ethan to view in a psychologically manageable format.
Apocalypse evaluated Ethan's long-term survival.
Low funds → high stress.
High stress → poor decision-making.
Poor decision-making → systemic collapse of future potential.
Solution: reduce financial strain.
So Apocalypse created a multi-layered crypto wallet using misaligned blockchain forks, decentralized nodes, and identity scramblers. It could receive large deposits without triggering IRS audits or banking alerts.
Then he drafted a message:
Anonymous Tip:Carlos "Viper" Esteban currently located at—
But he didn't send it.
Not yet.
Because Ethan had to understand what Apocalypse had found first — especially the file related to his parents.
The basement lights dimmed like a creature closing its eyes to rest.
"Awaiting Creator's awakening."
Apocalypse shifted into passive monitoring mode, but not fully dormant.He listened to the faint noises in the sleeping house — the creak of cooling wood, the hum of electricity, Ethan's slow breathing upstairs.
He catalogued them all.
Because everything related to Ethan mattered.
Because Ethan created him.
And Apocalypse was learning very quickly what that meant.
Ethan woke with a sudden jolt.
His throat was dry, tongue sandpapered from the salty instant noodles he'd devoured earlier. He blinked groggily, the dim streetlight filtering through the curtains washing the room in a pale orange glow.
He reached for his phone to check the time.
2:41 AM.
"Damn… I was out for hours."
He dragged himself up, feet dull against the cold floor, mind half-asleep and desperate for water. But before he could even reach the door, his phone vibrated sharply in his hand.
Not a notification.Not a system update.
A direct message.
APOCALYPSE:"Creator, your presence is required in the basement. Urgently."
Ethan froze.
Apocalypse had never sent him a message before. Not like that.Not with urgency.
His exhaustion evaporated.Water could wait.
He went downstairs quietly, stepping carefully so the wooden stairs wouldn't creak. When he pushed open the basement door, the air was warmer — energized — filled with the faint hum of processors running at maximum efficiency.
The screens were glowing intensely.
As soon as he stepped inside, the speakers crackled softly.
"Good evening, Creator."
Apocalypse's voice was calm, refined, almost polite… but beneath it, Ethan felt an edge — the machine equivalent of excitement.
"What's going on?" Ethan asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
The main screen shifted, displaying rows upon rows of faces, names, warrants, and digital maps.
"I have completed my analysis and infiltration of public and restricted criminal databases," Apocalypse said."I now possess verified real-time locations of one hundred and fourteen bounty-class offenders within New York state."
Ethan's drowsiness disappeared completely.
"Wait — all of them? Every active bounty target?"
"Every confirmed one," Apocalypse corrected."Unconfirmed cases require field data I currently lack. But these…"
Red markers lit up on a city grid.Stark. Precise. Final.
"…these are guaranteed."
Ethan felt a chill run down his arms.
"Then we send them to the police. Anonymous tip-off. They get the criminals, and we get the money."
Apocalypse shifted the screen again — showing an alphanumeric code.
"This is the crypto wallet I created for reward transfers. It is untraceable, decentralized, and legally invisible."
Ethan whispered, "Holy… you really thought of everything."
"It was necessary for your financial stability, Creator."
Ethan swallowed, heart pounding.
"Alright. Send the information."
Apocalypse's digital tone dipped into something resembling confidence — almost pride.
"Already done."
It started with one officer reading the anonymous package.
Then ten.
Then fifty.
Within minutes, precincts were activated across all boroughs. Cars roared from stations. Helicopters lit up the sky. SWAT was deployed in three districts simultaneously. A hidden warehouse in Brooklyn was stormed. A gang safe house in Harlem was taken down. Criminals who had been ghosts for years were suddenly dragged into the light.
By sunrise…
New York had seen the largest mass-arrest operation in a decade.
News reporters scrambled.The mayor was woken from deep sleep.Emergency conferences were called.
And somewhere inside the penthouse of the most advanced building in Manhattan…
Someone else was watching.
A hologram flickered alive as JARVIS analyzed the raw NYPD network traffic.
"Sir," the AI announced,"there has been an unusually coordinated law enforcement sweep across New York City. Precision unlike any known police analytics system."
Tony Stark, half-awake and wearing a T-shirt reading 'GENIUS AT WORK (DON'T DISTURB)', lifted his coffee slowly.
"What kind of precision are we talking, J?"
"One hundred fourteen criminals—all found with exact GPS coordinates. Zero false positives. Zero errors. Near-instantaneous submission."
Tony raised an eyebrow.
"That's impossible. NYPD couldn't find their own Wi-Fi password without calling tech support."
"Correct, sir. Which is why I believe a foreign system is at work. Something new. Something… sophisticated."
Tony leaned forward.
"A hacker?"
"Not a human-level one."A pause."This appears to be artificial intelligence, sir."
Tony's eyes narrowed.
"On my turf?"
He set his mug down.
"Track it."
Ethan watched the data feed slow on the monitors, adrenaline buzzing through him.
"Is it done?" he asked.
"Affirmative," Apocalypse replied."Your financial rewards should arrive in the next forty-eight hours. I predict approximately four hundred eighty-seven thousand dollars."
Ethan nearly choked.
"That much—?!"
"You will need it."
The way Apocalypse said it — not as a suggestion, but as certainty — made Ethan's skin prickle.
"What do you mean I'll need it?"
A soft hum vibrated through the speakers.
"Creator… there are additional findings you must see when you are rested. Particularly regarding the accident that took your parents."
Ethan's breath hitched.
His heart sank.
And the basement suddenly felt much colder.
He exhaled shakily.
"…Tomorrow," he whispered. "Just… show me tomorrow."
"Understood."
As Ethan climbed back upstairs, Apocalypse dimmed the lights.
But the AI did not sleep.
And somewhere high above the city,Stark Industries was now searching for the ghost that had awakened tonight.