The alley smelled like wet brick and something chemical underneath, sharp and wrong, like the air before a storm that hadn't decided what it wanted to be yet.
Darren noticed it before he noticed anything else. His senses had been doing that lately, catching things at the edges, sounds a street over, smells that didn't belong. He hadn't figured out yet if it was useful or just exhausting.
Probably both.
He pulled his hoodie tighter and kept walking. Mask in the side pouch of his bag. Contacts in. Just a lad cutting home through Camden on a wet January night, nothing to see, nothing to worry about.
Then he saw the tag.
Fresh paint on wet brick, a sharp stylised D, still glossy, rain tracing thin lines down the letters. His gut tightened.
Ah for fuck's sake. Not this lot again.
He stopped. Listened.
The alley should have carried sound. A passing car. Pub noise. Someone shouting two streets over. Instead there was just rain ticking off brick and metal, and beneath it, after a second, something else. A faint vibration. A steady thrum hovering right at the edge of hearing.
The fuck is that?
He took another careful step. Petrol fumes reached him first. Then voices, low and tight.
He dropped to one knee and pulled the mask from his bag's side pouch. The fabric was a little damp, smelled faintly of detergent and old sweat. He tugged it up over his nose and mouth. The belt buckle snapped shut with a small click.
Then he moved forward.
A battered van sat near the old storage shed at the far end of the alley, engine idling low. Four figures crowded around the back of it, shoulders hunched against the rain, movements tense and clumsy.
Two of them were struggling with a crate, shifting their grip every few seconds like it kept surprising them. The lid had shifted slightly, just enough. A faint purple glow leaked across the wet cobblestones, throwing strange shadows.
Darren edged closer, watching the glow pulse faintly through the gap in the lid. He'd seen that colour before. Everyone had, really. Grainy phone footage from New York, shared a billion times. Aliens falling out of a hole in the sky while Iron Man flew through it. Captain America throwing cars. The whole world watching America have its worst day on live television.
He'd barely paid attention at the time. Leaving Cert was coming up. It all seemed so far away. America's problem.
Except now it was sitting in a crate in a Dublin alley and two lads from the southside were scared half to death of it but not scared enough to walk away from whatever Diaz was paying them.
"Careful, Jesus, careful with it," one hissed.
"I'm feckin trying," the other snapped back, voice pulled tight. "You heard what Diaz said. One scratch and we're done."
Diaz. Second time this week. Kept coming up with the worst crowd. He'd need to figure out who that was before it bit him in the arse.
He moved closer.
"We gotta get it there before dawn," one said, low and urgent. "And be careful you eejit. Diaz wants that reactor cell intact. Big lad's been asking about it all week. Paying well."
Big lad.
He filed that away.
Call the Gardaí? They'd be gone before the guards get here. He had to do something.
He scanned the alley quickly. A loose pipe near the van. A plank of wood on the ground for reasons he genuinely could not explain. He flexed his fingers, knuckles cracking softly in the cold.
Please. No dead bodies.
He started to rise.
Click.
He spun, already moving, shoulder dropping into the man behind him before the gun finished raising. They hit the ground hard, Darren's weight driving the air out of the guy's chest with a grunt. The back of his head connected with the cobblestones and he went still.
The gun skittered loose across the wet stone. Darren grabbed it, felt the barrel creak faintly under his fingers as he twisted it just enough to make it useless.
The guy stirred beneath him, grabbed weakly at his jacket.
Darren's fist snapped out on instinct.
Crack.
The man went limp. Darren pressed two fingers to his neck, pulse hammering in his own ears while he waited.
Still breathing.
Still alive.
Christ, mate. You scared me.
Voices erupted from behind him.
"Shit! Someone's over there!"
Two of the figures scrambled to lower the crate, cursing and panicked, desperately trying not to drop it.
Frantic shuffling, metal scraping on stone.
"Where's the gun?"
"Jimmy had it!"
"Fuck's sake!"
"Give me the fuckin' machete!"
"I don't need a pussy machete, you fuckin' retard!"
Great. Real professionals, these lads.
The other two charged straight towards him, shoes splashing wildly across the wet cobblestones, grabbing whatever was handy one lad had a crowbar the other had a hurley.
A hurley.
Darren groaned as he scrambled upright.
Just once, he thought, a quiet night would be nice.
The crowbar swung wide. He ducked inside it, pivoted tight, drove a short liver shot that folded the lad instantly. One knee to the face on the way down.
Out.
The hurley came in fast from behind, clumsy and desperate.
Two on one, huh? Fair play.
He sidestepped, let it pass, snapped an elbow up hard under the guy's chin. His head rocked back, mouth open in a cut-off shout.
Over his shoulder, Darren caught a glimpse of movement back at the van. A glint of metal, the machete guy finally stepping clear of the crate, blade held uncertainly, like he wasn't sure whether to run or join the fray.
No time to worry yet.
Darren didn't pause, grabbing hurley-lad by the shoulders and driving a knee straight into his crotch. The man folded instantly, dropping like a sack onto the wet stones.
"Oooh ouch. Sorry, mate," Darren muttered. "Sort of."
Darren straightened. Rolled his shoulders. Let the silence stretch.
"Ah, c'mon," he said quietly. "You really wanna do this?"
The guy looked at his three mates on the ground. Swallowed. Took a shaky step forward anyway.
"Guess that's a yes," Darren sighed.
The machete came down in a rough, panicked arc. Darren stepped off the line and drove a side kick into the man's chest, enough to knock the air and the courage out of him in one go.
The guy stumbled back, eyes wide, gasping.
"Drop it," Darren said. "Seriously."
The machete hit the cobblestones with a clatter. "Fuck this," he croaked. The guy looked at Darren, looked at his mates, looked at the alley exit, and made the only sensible decision he'd made all night.
He ran.
Darren watched him go, chest heaving.
Smart choice, lad. The Guards will get ya later anyways.
One crate. Three down. One runner.
He turned back to the van. One crate, still glowing faintly. Three unconscious men. One missing.
Wait.
He counted again.
There were four at the van. One behind me. That's five. Where the fuck's the fifth?
Behind the van, something gave a low choked grunt. Like a man trying not to cry out through clenched teeth.
Darren went still.
Then came a hard crack.
Not a gunshot. Not metal. More like somebody had taken a thick broom handle and snapped it over their knee.
Another crack followed. Then two quick together, ugly and sharp. A scraping shuffle against the alley ground like shoes dragging for balance, and for a second it sounded like someone falling into the side of the van, the metal giving a dull little rattle.
Then the noises got worse.
Fast uneven pops and crunches one after another, like fistfuls of dry twigs broken right beside your ear. Mixed underneath with slower heavier cracks, like old wood splitting down the middle. Another grunt, but it came out wrong. Strangled and raw, like whoever made it had lost control of their own throat somewhere along the way.
No words. No howl. Just breath and scraping and cracking and something shifting behind the van that sounded way too big to be one person.
Darren's skin crawled.
What the fuck is that.
Every instinct he had said move. Not toward it.
He didn't move.
The sounds stopped.
Silence. Just the rain and his own heartbeat in his ears.
Then footsteps. Heavy. Uneven at first, then finding their rhythm. Getting closer fast.
Too fast for something that size.
Crunch
He spun.
Too late.
A fist like a wrecking ball slammed into his ribs.
The world folded sideways. Boots skidding across the slick cobblestones, vision spiking white at the edges, breath driven completely out of him all at once.
What in the actual-
He got a look at the fifth man as his vision cleared.
Overgrown. Uneven. As though the shape of him had been forced outward in seconds and had only just held. One shoulder stood slightly higher than the other, giving his whole frame a crooked unsettling slant. His chest was too broad for the alley, arms thick through the forearms and upper arm alike, the size of them reading less like strength than strain. Dark veins showed stark beneath the skin of his neck and along his hands, standing out in the half-light like bruised roots pressed too near the surface. Even now he didn't look settled. He looked fresh-made. Like if he moved too fast Darren might hear it again, that ugly series of pops and deep splitting cracks, like his body still hadn't fully decided where everything was meant to go.
Darren had seen something like this before. Weeks ago. Different alley, different lad. Same wrongness. Same dark veins running too close to the surface.
What the fuck is in that crate?
What did he just do to himself?
The man didn't speak. Just rolled his neck, cracking it once, and came forward.
"Alright," Darren muttered, pressing a hand to his ribs. Still breathing. Probably not broken. "You're a big fella, aren't ya."
The haymaker was massive and telegraphed and still nearly took his head off. He ducked under it, felt the displaced air across the top of his hood, came back up with a sharp jab to the jaw.
The man barely moved. Just grinned wider.
It looked awful. It was like some other being pulled on the skin of his face till it pulled the nose off-centre and his upper lip stretched too far up showing way too many teeth. The smile looked like he was in agony. Like the muscles in his face were violently pulled up and to the side. There was something grotesque to it. Something that made Darren's stomach flip flop.
Ugh I think I'm gonna be sick
He just came forward, lopsided and fast, faster than something built like that had any right to be, his gate uneven because his legs weren't quite the same length anymore, one hip sitting lower than the other, but it didn't slow him down. It just made him harder to read.
Darren sidestepped. Got the jab in. Clean connection to the jaw.
The man's head moved with it but the rest of him didn't. Like the hit hadn't fully registered yet. Like the message was travelling a longer route than it should.
Shit.
He came again. No wind-up, no tell. Just that lurching uneven charge. Darren slipped left and drove an elbow into his ribs.
Good contact. Solid.
Nothing.
The man didn't flinch. Didn't grunt. Just turned toward Darren the way something turns toward a sound, head tilting slightly at an angle that was almost curious if it wasn't so deeply unsettling. Like pain was information he was receiving but hadn't decided what to do with yet.
He didn't get his guard back up in time. A hand locked onto his jacket, the grip wrong, fingers too thick, not bending the way fingers should, and lifted him clean off the ground. Drove him backwards into a rusted dumpster. Metal screamed. Pain exploded across his spine.
Vision blurred for a second, his brain going blurghghgh fucker ow shit fuck.
He dropped, forced his eyes to focus, shook his head once. The dumpster had a new dent the rough shape of his back. The fist came down where his head had been a moment ago, crashing into the metal with a sound like a gunshot, leaving a crater that had no business coming from a human hand.
He ducked another swing, drove a body shot into the man's midsection. Put real weight behind it this time.
The man looked down at where Darren had hit him. Almost confused. Like he'd felt it somewhere distant and was trying to locate where.
Oh come on!
Then he swung again, the same wide lurching arc.
Another swing. He slipped it, shoulder clipping the alley wall as he moved.
"Ah, for fuck's sake," Darren muttered, circling wide. "Why is it always the ones built like brick shithouses."
The tracking was the worst part. The eyes were still there, still a person behind them somewhere... but it was deep and not comin' out any time soon.
Fine. Stop pussyfooting around him.
He surged forward, drove a heavy knee into the man's thigh, felt the impact travel up through his own leg wrong, the muscle there harder than it should be, and pivoted into a vicious left hook. This time the head snapped sideways, spit catching the light as it flew.
That awful grin finally faltered.
Something flickered through the man's expression. Not pain exactly. More like the signal had finally arrived and he wasn't sure what to do with it.
"Yeah," Darren said, fists up, breathing hard. "Felt that one, didn't ya."
The man straightened. Rolled his jaw slowly, testing it. The joint cracked, too loud, and he didn't react to that either. Spat blood onto the cobblestones.
"Gonna snap your neck, princess," he said.
The voice was wrong. It was gurgly like there was blood in his vocal cords and airy and whistley at the same time like some of his air wasn't going through the vocal chords correctly.
"Cool," Darren winced. "Love that typa shit."
Darren flexed his fingers, knuckles throbbing slightly, adrenaline surging hot through his veins.
"Last chance mate," Darren said, voice dropping. "Walk away."
The motherfucker laughed, blood-stained teeth gleaming in the dim glow. It sounded like it hurt. T He lunged forward, swinging hard and reckless.
Darren ducked the blow, stepped inside, drove an uppercut up through the man's guard that snapped his head back. Followed it with a right cross that cracked hard into his jaw.
He still didn't go down.
"You're a tough fucker, I'll give you that," Darren admitted grudgingly, breath coming in hard gulps. His fists tightened again. "But you should've walked away."
The man snarled and came again, wild now, the gauntlet swinging heavy and reckless.
Darren pivoted, let the momentum carry the man past him, planted a front kick square into his back.
He didn't hold back this time.
The man flew, hit the van hard enough to buckle the side panel, and slid to the ground in a heap of groaning metal and laboured breathing.
Darren exhaled sharply, shaking out his aching fists, his pulse still roaring.
"Stay down, you stubborn prick. For both our sakes."
Darren stood over the wreckage, chest heaving, hands aching. He flexed his fingers slowly, watching the man's chest rise and fall.
Darren stepped in to check and see if he was actually out, then his boot hit a loose stone. His balance vanished instantly, feet slipping wildly beneath him.
"Oh, shi-"
Too late.
The misshapen fist slammed square into his chest with the force of a speeding truck. Darren flew backwards, air violently punched from his lungs, crashing hard into the wall behind him. Brick cracked and dust exploded, pain radiating through every bone in his body.
He dropped to one knee, gasping desperately for breath, vision swimming.
OHFUCKOHFUCKOHFUCK.
He dropped to one hand, coughing, lungs heaving.
Okay. Okay. Come on. You've taken worse. Get up ya stupid fuck.
The big bastard staggered back, dazed, blood trickling from his busted lip.
Darren's jaw tightened. Heat flared in his chest, rage whispering at the edges of his control. One heartbeat. Two.
He took another deep, ragged breath. The sharp bite of pain faded gradually, first from stabbing agony to a dull ache, then melting away altogether as his body quietly did... whatever the hell it usually did. Just needed a minute.
Then the anger came in behind it, hot and clean.
Alright. Fuck this.
He pushed himself up, ducked the wild swing, shoved the bastard back a step, and drove a front kick square into his chest.
The guy flew backward, smashing straight through the old shed's brick wall with an explosive crash.
He just stood there for a moment, motionless, eyes fixed on the ragged hole he'd just knocked the big bastard through. He flexed his fingers nervously, heart kicking up a notch.
He'd held back. He was almost certain.
Hadn't he?
But that whisper, that irrational, twisting voice at the back of his skull started muttering again.
What if?
What if he's dead, Darren? You hit him pretty hard there.
"Shut up," Darren growled softly, stepping forward, forcing his breath to slow.
The voice kept chattering anyway, quiet but insistent.
What if?
Carefully, he picked his way through the rubble, boots slipping a little on the wet stone and splintered wood. He felt that small spike of fear twist in his gut. Just a little fear, but enough.
"Please don't be dead," he muttered, half-pleading, half-annoyed at his own anxious mind.
He stepped forward. Crouched. Pressed two fingers to the man's neck.
Heartbeat. Steady. Strong.
He exhaled, tension uncoiling immediately, leaving him lightheaded with relief. The voice finally shut up.
"See?" Darren whispered to himself, sagging back a bit, hands trembling slightly. "Controlled. Fuckin' told ya."
Then it started again.
Slower this time. But the same sounds. Those deep splintering cracks coming from somewhere inside the man's chest, his back, places bones shouldn't make noise. A wet pop from his shoulder. Then his whole body shuddered, once, hard, like something had let go of it.
The man's jaw clenched so tight Darren heard his teeth click together.
A sound came out of him. Low and ragged and completely involuntary, the sound of someone trying very hard not to make any sound at all and losing badly. It went on longer than it should have.
The shoulder that had been sitting too high dropped. Not smoothly. It lurched downward in a single horrible movement that travelled through his whole body like a shockwave, and for a second his arm just hung there, wrong-angled, like it hadn't been told where to go yet.
Darren didn't move. Couldn't quite bring himself to look away either.
The dark veins in his neck and forearms faded slowly. The colour draining out of them like something being wrung from cloth, leaving the skin underneath pale and loose and slack in a way that skin wasn't supposed to be. Like it had been stretched past what it was made for and hadn't come all the way back.
The proportions shifted. Slowly. The chest contracting, the frame pulling inward, the wrongness receding degree by degree until what was left was just a man. Big still. But ordinarily big. Human big.
Except for the parts that told a different story.
Old scarring along both forearms, thick and uneven, the kind that came from skin being pulled and resettled too many times over too long a period. A ridge along his left collarbone that hadn't healed straight, probably hadn't healed straight the first time it happened and had been broken again since. His right hand sat at a slightly wrong angle against the cobblestones, two fingers bent in a direction fingers didn't go, and he didn't seem to notice, or couldn't feel it, or had stopped caring about that particular thing a long time ago.
His breathing was shallow and fast and wet.
He was alive.
Darren looked at the scarring on his forearms for a moment. At the collarbone. At the hand.
How many times has he done this.
Somewhere in Berlin, a screen flickered to life.
INCIDENT ALPHA-213 - DUBLIN, IRELAND. POTENTIAL ENHANCED.
An old man looked at the footage for a long moment.
"Eyes on Dublin," he said quietly. "Observation only."
Then he went back to work.