Personal Story: Beginning of Manhattan 2092

January 7^th, 2092

Precinct 7, Delta Wing, Squad 9, New York, New York, 5:51p.m.

           

“Listen, man, I’m telling you; she was not killed by Torch! Torch has always – always – burned the women outside, and has never raped any of them. This was someone new, someone who may be copying Torch’s M.O.” Neville argued with Ola.

            “Well, boys, I haven’t even stepped off the elevator before I hear you two arguing,” Captain Paula DiSanta shouted as she walked into the large room of Precinct 7’s Delta 9 Squadron room, “It isn’t even six yet. Can’t you two learn to get along?”

            Paula DiSanta was the head of Delta 9. Whatever the detectives wanted or needed, they were required to pass it through DiSanta. She was a fashionable woman, wearing last month’s release of the bimonthly Victorian Smith dress, which was sold in maroon, turquoise, and lavender. DiSanta wore the maroon, since her predecessor, the late Captain Robert Lundy, said maroon brought out her fiery personality.

DiSanta was about fifty-two, but didn’t look a day older than a hundred. The career of law enforcement, even from its origins, has always been a stressful job. For the people on the front lines of the streets, to the mind games of the courts, criminal justice has an emotional, physical, and psychological toll on all taking part in the good fight against the corruption of Man.

DiSanta had snow white hair, which she wore fashionable, in wavy curls, with light eyeshadow and turquoise lipstick. Even for someone as old as her, DiSanta was incredibly up-to-date with fashion, what was in and out of style and what other loved to see. She and her husband were both incredibly fashionable, but Gerald always seemed to be interested in yester-century’s fashion, wearing things from the 1980s, including a mullet, which, in most people’s opinions despite being horribly out of style at the time, was well taken care of, even beautiful. For a mullet.

            “Shush, Cap, Ola’s about to break.” Neville said to Paula, leaning forward in his seat, staring into Ola’s dark brown irises with a smug grin on his British face.

            Ola squinted his eyes and let his jaw drop just a tad as he turned from Paula to Neville. “What did you just say?” Ola said with a hint of irritation in his voice. “I’m not ‘close to breaking.’ You’re argument is just poor, and I’d rather not continue this discussion any longer.”

            “Listen, you two, I don’t want to have to hear you two bicker like a married couple, we have work to do, and I want to know if Torch killed last night or if we have a copycat. I read in the report this morning that a maid discovered the body. Did either of you two speak to her?” DiSanta asked.

            “We attempted to locate her, but there are over fifty maids that work the Everlight, and not all of them are legal in this country. Most likely, getting the maid involved would have her revoked from giving a testimony due to her lack of citizenship. Having an illegal alien on the stand would not be allowed in court.” Ola said, knowing that the government has cracked down on illegal immigrants since the early 2020s.

            “And nobody had reported anything on that floor or the floor above and below it?” Paula asked.

            “Not a single thing. No smell, no screams, nothing.” Neville said, slapping his thighs and standing out of his padded computer chair. “Now, I need a cup of coffee before I slip into a coma, so I’ll be back.”

            As Neville walked off around the corner of the hall, Ola looked around the room, looking for the other two Primary Detectives. “Where are Jenna and Lilly?” he asked.

            “I literally just got in, Ola, what makes you think I know?” DiSanta asked, beginning the walk towards the far side of the room, where her office resided.

            Ola was always a curious individual, always wanted to learn, and always wanted to know about what was occurring around him.

            But as of right now, he needed to focus on finding what happened last night, and how he could be able to track down this damned soul.

Somewhere in the Mojave Desert, Southern Nevada, 12:24p.m. EST

            Driving at around one-hundred and seventy miles per hour, the armored man drove towards a lone shack in the center of the flat, lifeless desert. The shack was about the size of a studio apartment and was made of cinderblocks. It held no windows and had no door. Just a hollow, bland, floorless shack in the middle of plain strip of desert.

            The car, however, was the only thing of any that ripped through the calming, peaceful serenity of the scene. A hulk of a vehicle slightly resembling a Kia Optima, the one-of-a-kind Yukia, built like a tank with the speed of a vehicle used in NASCAR races, was roaring down the desert, kicking up sand with ease. The Yukia was a relic of the past, with a pitch black paintjob, with two inch-long white stripes streaking from the headlights to the brake lights. The tires and outer shell were bulletproof, made from lightweight, but incredibly sturdy material that cost around two billion to gather, let alone harness and contort it into a vehicle. The windows, including the windshield, were smoked with such density, that a flash grenade could go off inside and an onlooker would never even know. The four-door was airtight to prevent its occupant, the only one capable to drive it, from any form of gaseous attack. The gas tank was lined with a fire-extinguishing foam that reacted when pierced, to prevent from fires. The engine was old school, a V8 from 2017, modified with modern era technology to improve its miles to the gallon to around seventy, and increased the car’s rate of acceleration significantly, faster than any modern day police vehicle can even hope of achieving.

            Its occupant was just as technologically advanced as the car. Standing at around six foot three, the man only known as ‘Z’ was the government’s first response to hearing about the odd incident over in New York City. Z has been under watch due to his rash behavior as of late, but the onlookers, who were located in an underground bunker half a world away, needed this man to find out if their suspicions were true.

            Z was a relic of a different time. No one in the program that experimented on Z knew of his true origins. Not even Z himself. All he knew was he was powerful, intelligent, and important to something. He doesn’t remember his hometown, his graduation year, what his parents’ looked like, or even who he really was before he awoke on an ice-cold table around forty-two years ago. He was old, but even he didn’t know how old he was.

            Z was outfitted with a Mk. 1.00.2 Cryogenic-Assisted Life Sustaining Module, the very first of its kind, made from extremely thin, scale-like, square plating. The plating was made from the same material as his vehicle, only crafted to be much thinner, to allow for easy retraction of the suit. This plating covered all of Z’s body, from head to toe.

            The plating over his face was different from the rest of his body. From the neck up, the plating became triangular, wrapping around his head, eventually connecting in an asterisk-shaped formation, with a crevice in the negative space in between the plating. Yellow light emitted from the crevice in his helmet. On the back of his head, three circular metal plates, which were around an inch in diameter, went along in succession, beginning at the crown of Z’s head. Closer to the center of said plates laid a series of smaller rings, which was the butt of a thin needle that injected itself into the three parts of Z’s brain, allowing him to have full control of the suit, and also allowed him to utilize a form of sonar sight, which projected the world around him as information, rather than as actual sight. The original blueprints of the Mk. 1.00.2 didn’t include this tool; it was only when it’s designer, Justin Berkly, had read a report written by his fiancée, a field doctor by the name of Helena Renolds in the Undermine War of 2024, which occurred in, ironically, Canada, whom, at the time, was busy fighting back against the fracking industry that plagued Vancouver as of 2019. Helena’s report labeled the side effects of being in the general range of a stun grenade, flash bang, the Novacore grenade, which set off the effects of stun, flash, and tear gas, or the Firecracker, which set off repeated, thermite-bright flashes and constant rattling of high caliber machine gun fire. The Firecracker and Novacore usually put soldiers and unlucky civilians into the hospital or the morgue.

            Whilst designing the suit for a now defunct Canadian Private Military Contractor, Berkly implemented a set of high powered sonar resonation tabs, which were essentially two small, rectangular tabs on the shoulder blades of the Mk. 1.00.2 that released a set of pulses ever tenth of a millisecond, allowing someone in the Mk 1.00.2, or in later stages, those with lack of sight, to be able to ‘see’ in real time. The tabs also allowed for soldiers to fight through tactical grenade effects and continue the fight.

            When the suit was sold to a classified American agency mere days after the end of the Undermine War, around 2030, they began to improve the technology already implemented in the suit.

            Z drifted around the building, stopping around two-hundred and seventy degrees from his starting point. He thrusted open the airtight driver’s side door, and stepped out of the vehicle, which proceeded to shut down as he sealed the door. He erected to his full height, six-foot-three, and approached the mound of cinderblocks, retrieving from his right thigh a white rod, around an inch in diameter. The rod began to open with small, white plates swarming out and repositioning themselves, defying physics, bending and reshaping themselves into a working pistol, the Fervor 950, a semi auto handgun usually wielded by police officers and detectives, which resembled the ancient M1911.

This tool was one of the other, more important objects Z carried with him while he trained, which could form into the Fervor, as well as a shotgun, a Remington-based model, and automatic rifle, similar to the M4 used by the American Army in the early twenty-first century. This tool usually needed to be connected with a glowing circlet on the inside of Z’s right palm, which housed a small square chip with the word ‘Babe’ on it.

Babe. The artificial super-computer of the Mk. 1.00.2. She was first formed in a lab at MIT in late November of 2018. As soon as the fifteen technicians bragged about their feat, the same classified American agency swooped in and borderline stole Babe, without a sale of issuance or favors. Babe was linked wirelessly to the Internet, via portable Wi-Fi imbued in a small disc, which was now installed into the Mk. 1.00.2’s right palm.