January 28th, 2014

I'm back in the republic plaza. I'm looking into a cleared out space with four metallic pods that almost look like cocoons in the middle of the room. Machines that look like generators to said cocoons sit off to the side, the wiring covers the ground. I see that the machines have circular windows on the front of them.

Off to the side behind a barrier I can see Jack, Jay, and the large man I'd seen back in New York, Sal Muhn. It looks like they finally finished the transfer process from him back then. My question is...is he someone Jay can trust down here?

“Alright Sal, just hurry it up, will you? This isn’t the time for doubt, we need to succeed. We can’t do that if you hesitate!” Jack barks.

“R-Right, sir,” Sal mumbles.

“Go ahead and situate them nice.”

Looking at him, Sal looks himself like he's stressed off a couple of pounds. His face is wrinkled and full of exhaustion. I see him leading a small child by the hand past the barrier. I see the leftmost pod open up, the door of it swinging widely open.

On the inside I see a small area with straps attached that look like they're meant to restrain something down...Or someone.

He leads the young child into the machine, he can't be more than five. He looks up at Sal with a wide eyed curiosity. Sal does everything in his power to keep away, but he can't stop from looking at the child and takes in a deep breath.

I hear a knocking sound from the machine directly next to it, Inside of the window I can actually see someone inside of that one, it looks to be an older boy, maybe around fifteen, he's pounding on the shell of the cocoon and I can almost see tears in his eyes.

Sal straps the young boy into place and shuts the door, locking it into place. He walks back to the barrier, closing his eyes and finding it hard to breathe. “Okay, there.”

“Jay, bring Sarah and John in next.”

“Yes, okay,” Jay struggles to said.

I see Jay walk towards the pods, he carries two infants with him. This needs to stop. I hear Jay think. He lowers the first child into the pod and it seals itself up. He looks at the second child’s eyes for one moment before lowering them into the pod. Jay slowly walks back behind the barrier, he looks like a man who has had the soul sucked out of him.

“Let's get this started,” Jack said, and he presses a button at his side.

“RADICAL-9 EXPOSURE NUMBER TWO. SUBJECTS ARE IN PLACE. DATE – JANUARY 28th, 2014. TIME – 05:56 AM.”

The four pods are now filled and they begin glowing on their rims. The chrome face of the metal is a shiny silver, but the edges glow with a sort of neon-like gas that illuminates in all sorts of different colors. The pods begin making a sort of mechanical sort of ringing sound and then the windows of the pods begin to fog up. It seems that they are being filled with Radical-9. Mason's theory was right. The sound from the machine intensifies and grows even louder. The neon-like lights on the rim of the pods has grown in intensity and shines brightly and then I hear the screaming. It comes from the leftmost pods, the ones with the two older kids. Their pods begins letting out steam and smoke and then I hear a small but confined boom.

I see the two windows get sprayed with a dark red liquid. Blood. I hear a frantic panic come from behind the barrier. I see Sal running up to the pods frantically.

“Jack! My boys! I told you that this would happen!” Sal screams. He turns around and looks towards him, “You monster! You wanted to go through with it anyway and now they’re gone forever! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

The vision begins to lose clarity, but I can see Sal being lifted into the air, he’s grasping at his throat.

“Test two is a slight failure, recommencing the test for those that survived.”

His body is lifeless. The force of his body hitting the wall is something I'm not going to forget for a long time.

“Are there any objections, Jay?” Jack’s voice asked calmly.

Jay turns his head slowly to Jack, his eyes still wide. “You know, I could easily just kill your boy here and move on with Sarah, it makes no difference to me. Your boy lives because you've stayed by my side.”

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“N-No objection sir,” Jay said weakly.

“Great. We go in again.”

Like a hurricane I’m sent through the cycle as the world around me breaks down. Everything around me rebuilds itself to a completely foreign scene. I look around and see Mason, alone. He's curled up against a wall on what looks like a bank of...wherever he is. He's shaking tremendously, and I can't tell if he's cold or got some kind of spasm going on. Maybe both. I can see a phone clutched in his hand, raised up to his ear.

“N-No. Kate I c-can't come ho-home. I need to do this I need to please stop interrupting me.” There are a few seconds of silence. “No, I-I'm fine. I promise that I'm fine I swear it Kate. I need to sp-speak to the president I need to.”

He hangs up the phone and sets it down beside him, his arm shakes wildly. I can see his breathing is short and he looks like he's been sweating up a storm.

“I'll be h-home for supperrr,” He slurs as he makes his way to his feet.

Sweat is pooling under his arms, staining the dress shirt and staining fast. His face is redder than any tomato I’ve seen. It looks like it takes him an extreme amount of effort to even get moving. I see the cell phone vibrating on the ground beside him. He kicks it away and makes a show of it by lifting his leg up into the air after.

“I said I'll be home and I will because I promised I would,” he said. His speech has turned into a big slur. What the hell happened to him?

Mason begins walking down the street and I get a better view of what is ahead of him. I see the United Nations conference building in front of me.

Mason keeps walking closer, reaching just past the secretariat building and finding his destination, the General Assembly. I see him step towards the entrance, closer and closer as I see his arm spasming by his side. He walks right in, no knocking, no hesitation. I follow him in, walking through the doors as if they were nothing.

The main chamber is much larger than I imagined. I remember reading about this place in some of the magazines that they had back at the orphanage. This was the place where things went down. 193 members all coming together to show that just maybe we could work together to ensure peace. Now of those 193 people that used to fill this hall only fourteen sit at the table now. I understand.

“I heard you gentlemen hired scientists to study foreign material,” Mason yells out towards the men in the center of the room, all situated, facing each other. I see four of them on the ends draw guns.

“Excuse me, but we're having a private conversation, may I ask you to leave?” A voice I recognize clearly said, it's Hal Valhart.

Mason takes a few steps down the alley, “You brought us together to research, to examine, to experiment. We were desperate for cash and knew we would do it.”

“Should we fire, sir?” One of the men at Valhart's side asked.

“Hold on one moment, Stan,” Valhart said. “You're one of The Prometheans?”

“I'm one of the ones w-who can't stand what's in me. I-I feel so very hot and this all needs to s-stop. I know you know about Jack.”

Valhart's expression seems to change, “He's a rouge factor, something that cannot be stopped.”

“What? No! You need to st-you need to stop him! He's going to kill us all! He already killed Greg!”

“I cannot do that, Mr...what was your name again?”

“It doesn't matter! Why won't you help?”

“Because this was how things were supposed to happen. Direct orders from the Queen herself.”

Mason looks like his heart just broke in two, something inside of him snapped, surely.

“You may fire now, Stan.”

“Yes sir.”

I see the sparks from the muzzle as the bullets shoot out, time seems to slow down for a second, but speed up as they blow through Mason's body. They must be very large caliber bullets as they send Mason back, his blood drips to the floor.

It's then I see his face turn red, much redder than I'd seen anyone ever.

“I....” Mason said before I can see his skin breaking away, his skull underneath screams out as the entire building erupts in a white glow. Valhart and his men begin screaming, but only for a second, their screams are lost to eternity in the blaze.

Through the dust and debris all I can see around me is debris, the greater chunk of New York City was leveled in seconds.

I look back towards where Mason sat as he died, a shadow of his body is burned into the ground. The same seems to be for Valhart and his thirteen men, shadows forever marked onto the earth as Mason, The Exploding Man erased them nearly from existence. But that means that there's a bigger problem at hand. Valhart wasn't discussing the poor here, he wasn't working to make things better, he was ensuring that Jack became what he did, but why? Why would he want that for any other reason then to see the world burn? The queen. He said it was a direct order, but why? How could she have known this would happen? So many questions that do not have answers.

The vision fades to black. I feel a familiar pain in my muscles.

I open my eyes to darkness, but it isn't dark for long. I hear a loud mechanical scraping noise, light fills into the small room, and I can see exactly how small the space I'd been confined to is. I'd barely have enough room to stretch out if I'd sprawled out across the floor. The light source blinds me, it's pure white, spilling in through a doorway now open.

“Come on out, it's time we had a chat,” I hear Micah's voice, and it's not through the small computer terminal behind me this time.

I stand slowly, my legs getting used to being used once more. I have to hold myself up with the wall behind me to get myself up fully. I step outside of the room and let the harsh light fill over me. Blinding lights fill my vision and I have to brace my hand over my eyes to reduce the pain.

I can feel the heat resonating off of the lights above me, and then I realize I might not be going crazy, but the outside of the tiny room is significantly warmer than the inside. I'm standing on metal, the entire floor is metal, and so are the walls. It looks to be some sort of facility. I couldn't describe where.

“The lights are used to keep this place warm in addition to well lit, it's not like we can depend on the outside for heat,” Micah said to my side. I turn to see him. I’m facing an older version of myself.

I recognize Me immediately. My eyes go wide and weakness overtakes me in full.