Golden God II
The hospital room existed in the kind of sterile perfection that money could buy. White walls. Polished floors. Equipment that hummed softl
The hospital room existed in the kind of sterile perfection that money could buy.
White walls. Polished floors. Equipment that hummed softly with the efficiency of cutting-edge medical technology.
The suite measured six meters by eight, dominated by a single adjustable bed. Panels above the headboard displayed the MedHall crest: a silver M over a white caduceus.
MedHall Corporation had spared no expense in outfitting their private facilities. It was the very same sort of place where senators went for their heart surgeries and Fortune 500 CEOs recovered from their nervous breakdowns.
In the center of it all, sat the only patient in the hospital suite.
Hospital garments hung a size too large; sleeves swallowed his wrists, trousers pooled at his ankles, every piece of clothing the same color down to the socks. Long blond hair obscured most of his face, bedraggled strands hanging like a curtain. He studied his hands, palms up, as the room stayed quiet except for filtered air and distant elevator chimes.
A digital clock on the wall shifted from 13:59 to 14:00. The boy’s shoulders rose once, a small breath while nothing else moved.
He had the pale, hollow look of someone who had forgotten how to sleep properly. His blue eyes, when visible through the disheveled hair, stared at nothing with the vacant quality of a broken television.
Three months. Three months since the October incident that had turned a city block into a perfect crater and left this ordinary-looking teenager as the sole survivor. Three months of medical observation, psychological evaluation, and unanswered questions.
The monitoring equipment around his bed painted a picture of perfect normalcy. Heart rate steady. Blood pressure normal. Brain activity within standard parameters. Nothing to suggest this unremarkable boy had been at the center of what preliminary reports classified as a potential S-class event.
He hadn’t spoken a word since they’d found him.
Since the PRT could no longer hold him without more questions of illegality.
Since procedure had reared its head.
The door unlocked with a seal‑release hiss and opened up without even the slightest squeal, a sign of how well the facility was managed.
Armsmaster entered first. Step, pause, step; his boots damped by gel soles. Helmet lenses glinted pale blue while he scanned equipment, patient, exit routes. He stopped two meters from the bed as his gaze behind the visor lowered fractionally.
“Subject continues to exhibit selective mutism,” he sub-vocaliezed, the words routed through an external recorder clipped to his forearm. “Week twelve. Vocalization remains absent.”
His gaze drifted towards the monitor. “Vitals unchanged.” The recorder logged the statement with a muted tone responding back that informed him the recording was active.
Assault slipped in behind him before the door resealed. The man in the tight-fitting yet padded red costume stood with posture as loose as it usually was; hands open, shoulders loose, grin set. He whistled a four‑note riff as he circled the foot of the bed and claimed the visitor chair with a lazy drop. The wheels squeaked; he leaned back until the rear legs lifted, then let them drop.
“Kid’s been cooped up,” the former villain said, voice light. “Suite smells like glove powder and overpriced oxygen.”
The boy’s fingers curled, as he kept his gaze on the blanket’s hem.
Armsmaster took a half‑step closer. “Gregory Veder,” he said. The modulation softened the consonants. “Once again, I’m Armsmaster with the Protectorate. This record, as you know, is confidential.” He waited three seconds after concluding pleasantries. “We are here to request a timeline of events preceding the October twenty‑eighth incident.”
The boy’s breathing stayed even, a passive twelve inhales per minute. Eyelids at half‑mast.
No movement otherwise. This routine had yet to change in the twelve weeks of this, the fourth occurrence of this exact same conversation, each time with Armsmaster and a different Protectorate member.
Assault tilted his head. “C’mon, Armsy. That’s not how you talk to people. Ease in.” He steepled his fingers, thumbs drumming together. “Greg, you hungry? Thirsty? They stock terrible pudding here. I brought contraband.” He patted a thigh pocket, foil rustling inside it.
Greg’s mouth parted, barely. The line of his shoulders tightened, then eased. The pulse trace rose by four beats, Armsmaster tracking it with a patient gaze, before watching as it settled once more.
Armsmaster recalibrated his stance, weight distributed evenly. “Merchants detained you approximately forty-eight hours,” he said. “If you would, describe devices present.”
Silence was itself as annoying as the loudest of noises, Armsmaster had come to realize as he watched the boy’s hands flatten on the blanket. They had attempted so many different variations of this, even remote interviews.
It was somehow no less unsettling for those eyes to fixate themselves on you through a screen, seeing but entirely vacant regardless.
Assault exhaled through his teeth, the man doing his best to keep up a good mood to lower the boy’s walls. “He’s listening, Armsy. Give him something back.” He folded his arms, legs splayed out. “Greg, true story: first time I tried hospital Jell‑O, I cracked a tooth. You ever crack a tooth on gelatin?”
The corners of Greg’s mouth twitched but the boy did nothing more than shift his weight, knees knocking together once.
Armsmaster opened a side compartment on his belt. A slim tablet folded out and he tapped the thing, quickly bringing up three photos he had grown used to reviewing over the last few months: one of a shattered warehouse, a scorched autoinjector, and the third of a perfect hemispheric crater. He held the display at chest level, angled toward the bed. “Are any of these familiar?”
The boy looked up—first direct line of sight. His pupils widened, fixed on the crater image for two full seconds, then slid away. He returned to staring at the blanket.
Assault straightened up in his seat, the hero’s grin fading slightly. “That picture gives me vertigo too,” he said. “Let’s shelve the slideshow.”
The man rose, dragging the visitor chair closer, before he quickly spun it around, and straddled it. Forearms crossed the backrest as his voice dropped half a register. “Greg, nobody here is swinging a bat. We only need breadcrumbs. A nod. A point. Anything.”
Armsmaster retracted the tablet, and slid it back into his belt, folding the thing up in a way that Assault still found odd. “Continuing pattern.” He produced a capped marker and a blank notepad he pulled out of somewhere, a combination he had taken to carrying with him since the second meeting with the subject. Without another word, he set both on the wheeled tray beside the bed, then rolled the tray closer to him. “I request you write if speech is difficult.”
The boy glanced at the pad, then at his hands. His fingers twitched, digits almost flexing outright, but he didn’t move.
“Observation time stamp fourteen‑oh‑seven,” he said. “Subject remains non‑verbal.”
Assault tapped the chair’s metal back in sync with the monitor tone. Light, hollow clinks.
Ten taps, pause.
Another ten.
Greg’s eyes tracked the rhythm, then drifted to Assault’s face.
“See?” Assault kept the tapping going. “We already got dialogue. Just percussion.”
The boy’s right hand lifted as he slid thumb against forefinger, index against thumb, repeating—soundless fidget. He studied the tray. After eleven seconds, he reached for the marker. Cap off with a quiet pop. He hesitated above the pad, pen hovering. His breathing grew shallow. The line flattened on the screen, still within normal range.
He set the marker down untouched. Cap clicked home. Hand withdrew.
Assault nodded, as if to music only he could hear. “Close,” he murmured.
Armsmaster recorded another data point. “Writing refused.” He pulled a sterile envelope from a belt slot and slipped the notepad inside, labeling the empty page with date and time first.
Assault shifted; the chair legs scraped a centimeter. “You want us gone?” He raised both hands, palms out. “Easy fix. Blanket over head, we exit. That’s the code.”
Greg’s gaze lifted to the ceiling stain. Twenty seconds passed as he clenched the blanket tight, knuckles whitening around the fabric.
Still, he didn’t pull.
Armsmaster folded his arms over his chest, the hero taking that as an opportunity to continue his questioning. “Exposure to Merchants’ substances presents ongoing risk,” he said. “Delay compromises city safety.”
Assault exhaled hard, the man managing to look tired behind his visor. “Armsy, dial it down.”
Greg glanced toward Armsmaster’s visor, staring with empty blue eyes for several long heartbeats.
Armsmaster’s posture remained identical. He addressed the recorder. “Proceeding with standard debrief protocol tomorrow at oh‑nine hundred.” He stepped back equal paces, and reached the door panel. “The Protectorate will reach out shortly.”
Assault stood, chair legs squealing and foil rustling as his hand went into his pocket again. A pre-wrapped chocolate cookie was placed on the table beside Greg. “Here. From your favorite hero.”
Greg watched the wrapper, blinking as the heroes waited.
The teenager peeled the blanket upward, slow. Fabric rose past nose, past eyes, up and over his head and eventually hid his face completely.
Armsmaster exited first; Assault followed, the door sealing behind them.
Clock digits rolled to 14:18. Beep. Beep. Ventilation continued its cycle.
Greg’s covered form did not stir.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Hannah entered the private suite five days after Assault’s last attempt, conscious of the hush that settled whenever she walked unfamiliar halls in uniform.
She understood the value of patience. Twenty-five years in America had taught her that healing happened in its own time, on its own terms.
Armsmaster, for all his diligence, was surprisingly impatient, which left her, his second-in-command.
She paused at the threshold long enough to feel the door seal disengage, then stepped inside with the deliberate cadence she used on patrol: measured pressure on the heels, soft roll across the ball of the foot, no wasted motion. The room felt even larger than she remembered, its surfaces polished to an almost reflective gloss.
Gregory Veder sat oddly but not unexpectedly, spine bent, shoulders rounded forward, wrists resting on his knees. The fabric of the hospital shirt and pants barely creased because he moved so little. The boy had obviously washed since that first week, yet a faint grayness still tinted his skin, as though the fluorescent lighting allowed only half measures of color.
Hannah closed the door behind her, the woman counting a calm three seconds, and allowed the magnetic lock to settle before doing anything else. Her eyes flicked to the monitors: heart rate sixty‑eight, blood pressure normal for age and weight, oxygen saturation steady. Impeccable vitals on a child who had stood at the heart of something they still labeled “unresolved S‑class anomaly.”
The chair waited by the bedside and as Miss Militia reached it, she pushed it no nearer when the boy recoiled from proximity. Hannah angled it a fraction left—habitual awareness of sight lines—then sat. She kept her boots flat, knees apart, posture straight enough for authority but not stiff enough for intimidation. Hands relaxed on her thighs, fingers interlaced to prevent restless motion.
This was delicate work. Like defusing ordnance, it required patience and respect for the destructive potential of a wrong move. She had read the reports—every classified detail of the crater where a city block used to be, the perfect hemispheric void that defied conventional explanation. Whatever had happened to this child, whatever power he might possess, it existed alongside severe trauma.
“Hello, Gregory.” She pitched her voice low‑mid, filling the space without overtaking it. A soft sibilance crept into the second syllable—ghost of Kurdish tinged by twenty‑five American years—but she did not correct it. “I am Miss Militia. We spoke once before, though I understand you may not remember.”
The boy did not flinch. His gaze remained on the tiles near her left boot, unfocused, as his breathing remained steady.
“There are things we carry that never heal completely. But they can become bearable. With time. With help.” She paused, considering her next words carefully. “With people who understand that some silences are louder than screaming.”
She folded one thumb over the other as she examined him in sections. Hair: the blond hue leached pale by hospital light, reaching down to his collar in thick, bedraggled lengths. His skin was translucent around the temples, as though blood vessels hid from the surface, while his nails remained clean and neat, the boy’s eyes remaining on them.
When she spoke again, it was to offer practical comfort rather than empty reassurance. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? The staff says you’ve been eating, but not much.”
This time, Gregory’s reaction was unmistakable. A slight turn of his head, not quite toward her but no longer determinedly away. Progress measured in degrees.
She thought she saw the ghost of a nod, though it might have been wishful thinking.
“I will tell you something of myself,” she said, careful to select details neither classified nor self‑indulgent. “I belong to this country by choice. The flag matters because the promise matters. I believe promises hold weight even when we fail to keep them perfectly. That belief calls me to duty, but it also reminds me to listen.”
He did not lift his head, yet tension eased along his jawline. She noted reduced compression under the cheekbones—visible even through the curtain of hair.
“We have offered options through the staff,” she continued. “They stand. Protectorate, Wards, civilian relocation. You decide when conversation becomes plan.” She held his gaze, though he still did not look up. “That is not negotiable. You own your future.”
Another beat of quiet. The monitor maintained its measured tempo. She felt an urge to glance at the clock, resisted, kept her attention on the room’s sole occupant instead.
“I grew up where decisions came in the voice of a stranger holding a rifle.” The words carried no tremor. Practice ensured that. “That stranger never asked if I was ready. Today I ask you. Not verbally, perhaps, but in deed. When you move, I will follow.”
“When you’re ready—not today, not tomorrow, but whenever—there are options. Safe places. Good people. Programs designed to help young parahumans understand their abilities without judgment or pressure.” Hannah kept her voice even, professional but warm. “The Wards program accepts members who’ve experienced trauma. Many of our youngest heroes come from difficult circumstances.”
Gregory’s posture shifted slightly. Still defensive, still closed off, but listening now with unmistakable focus.
“Or civilian life, if you prefer. New identity, new city, education and support without the costume. Your choice, when you’re ready to make it.”
The boy was looking at her now, though his eyes remained unfocused.
Then, unexpectedly, he extended his hand.
Hannah stared at the pale, thin fingers reaching toward her across the clinical distance between his bed and her chair. After months of complete and utter silence…
“Understood. Thank you.” She considered backing away, giving him victory in control, but his hand remained.
She hesitated for perhaps three seconds, long enough to catalog the risks. Physical contact with an unknown parahuman. Potential trigger for his abilities. Unknown psychological consequences.
Then she reached out and took his hand.
Between one pulse and the next, the world folded lengthwise.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
The forest came first.
Needles appeared under her soles, fallen from pine trees, brown and damp. Cold air rushed, flavored with iron and smoke long burned away.It clung to the cold, clung to her. The light through the canopy was winter-thin, filtered through snow-weighted branches. She knew this forest.
Not just knew it.
She belonged to it.
Hana took one step forward as her boot cracked a frozen twig beneath it.
Her eyes widened as she saw it, saw herself.
A child in a torn dress brushing her knees, skin suffering from the cold. A scraped elbow, still crusted with pine sap. The world had compressed—not into a dream, not into a vision, but into an old truth made visible again.
She heard herself before she saw herself. A high, keening sob—half-choked, half-scolded into silence. And beneath it, Turkish. Coarse. Confident. Familiar.
“Yürü! Hadi, yürü!”
Walk.
The command split across her chest like a cracking rib. It landed in both present and past, past and present, no line between. The voice was the same. The meaning unchanged.
She watched herself stumble forward—seven years old, spine bent not from cold but from knowing. From understanding what waited if she misstepped.
Hannah did not flinch. Her body remembered how.
The soldiers lingered behind. Their boots clean. Their eyes bored. They smoked while children walked ahead, because children didn’t weigh enough to detonate most mines. That was the logic. That was the system.
The gun in her hand did not exist.
She flexed her fingers anyway. Ritual.
She scanned the tree line automatically. Terrain, exposure, exits. Her mind moved the way it always did under fire: pattern, threat, adjust. But there was nothing to adjust. The threat had already passed. The children were already dying.
Kovan appeared first, the boy big for his age. He had once poured goat milk into her hair and called her “snake-face” when the teacher wasn’t looking. He didn’t deserve a bullet through the thigh and a rifle butt to the face.
He didn’t deserve to choke on his own teeth and left to die.
She remembered wanting to help. Could still feel her palms nearly bleed from her fingernails digging into them.
Ashti was next, the girl’s legs were gone.
The pine needles had hidden too much.
The air had a stillness to it now. The kind that comes after screaming ends. The kind that fills the lungs whether you want to breathe or not.
Hannah’s breath came slow. Not steady. Not this time.
Then she saw him.
On the far side of the memory, where no one else should have stood, was a boy. Hospital linens. Face as pale as snow, as blank as the sky above.
Gregory Veder.
He did not belong here.
But he stood where she had stood, and he watched what only she had earned the right to remember.
There was no violence in him. No mockery. But neither was there apology. No shame. No recoil. Just observation, hollow and unblinking. Like he was cataloguing something fragile behind museum glass.
She moved toward him—no, not moved. She meant to, but her feet stayed where they had broken.
Gregory met her eyes.
This was hers. The trees. The air. The broken bodies and the command in Turkish echoing against her ribs. The choice she’d made, or hadn’t made. The piece of herself that had calcified in this exact place. She had lived it once. Once was enough.
He did not flinch.
She did.
A second passed.
Then two.
She had been taught to count moments like that. One for breath. One for clarity. One for action. She counted out of habit now, not need.
Hannah closed her eyes. A second later, she opened them.
The memory did not fade.
Seven-year-old Hana had stopped walking.
The undergrowth was thinner here. There was a mine there. She remembered that part exactly. A shallow pit. A glint beneath crushed needles. The edge of something metallic, waiting.
And Hana—small, trembling, held still not by orders but by understanding—did not cry anymore. She simply waited.
The moment when helplessness became something else.
When surrender became something sharper.
That was when it happened. Her power: not born but forced. Wrung from the body of a girl who had no other choice left. Who had stared down death with bare feet and a torn dress and still found something to hold.
The weapons appeared first. Always did. Memory had never been able to scrub out the sound they made: a shiver, like steel inhaling.
Gregory watched that too.
He didn’t look away.
Neither did she.
Her child-self stepped forward.
The mine did not detonate.
But Hannah’s breath hitched all the same.
She’d never allowed anyone into this place. Not even herself, not really. Not fully. She carried it. That was different. That was duty.
This—this was exposure.
And still, the boy did not speak.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Hannah wrenched herself backward, breaking the connection with physical force that sent her stumbling against the visitor chair. The hospital room reasserted itself around her—white walls, medical equipment, the ordinary smell of disinfectant replacing pine and gunpowder.
Gregory sat on his bed, hand still extended but no longer touching hers. His expression remained unchanged, but there was something different in his eyes now. Not quite focus, but certainly recognition.
She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t process what had just happened or formulate any response that would make sense of the experience. Her oldest trauma, her most carefully guarded memory, had been invaded and witnessed by a boy she was trying to help.
Hannah turned and left the room without another word, her footsteps echoing down the hospital corridor with the measured pace of someone fighting not to run.