Danton got his feet under him using the wall. It took a moment.
"If I tell you what you want," he said, breathing through the pain in his back, "do you let us go?"
"That depends on whether you're telling the truth."
He knew, with complete clarity, that he could not tell the whole truth. The question was which version of the truth to offer instead.
Think, he told himself. If Gideon had never called. If I'd walked into this completely blind. What would I have done?
Two seconds. He had the shape of it.
"All right." He let the wall take more of his weight and looked at the yellow figure. "I'll tell you what I know. But you leave Elizabeth alone. Both of us."
"Acceptable." The figure's voice carried something that might have been amusement. "First question. Were you one of the group that tried to move against Stagg at the ceremony?"
"Yes."
The figure moved closer. "How many, and how were you armed?"
"Six men. Twelve guns between us. We didn't fire a shot — Stagg left early. The plan fell apart and we drove off."
Every detail accurate. Danton watched the figure's posture and saw the small shift that meant it was registering the specificity as confirmation.
"Why didn't you follow through before he left?"
"The window closed. We missed him."
"The other five — who are they?"
Danton coughed. His back screamed with the movement. He coughed again, drew a ragged breath, and forced a name through his teeth like he was fighting to get it out:
"It's — Danton — Black!"
The yellow figure took one step forward.
And Danton moved.
Two duplicates split from his body in the same instant — one left, one right — angling to close the figure from both sides before it could process what it was seeing. The clones dropped low and opened their arms, driving forward, while Danton himself came up with the pistol.
For one clean second, the geometry was perfect. Both duplicates had contact. The encirclement was complete. There was no room to slip sideways.
The yellow figure's outline blurred further. Something changed in the air — a vibration, sub-audible but felt in the teeth, in the chest wall. Then the clones hit.
Both of them passed through the figure entirely and collided face-first with each other.
The impact sent them both to the floor. They lay dazed, unable to immediately rise — flesh and bone regardless of their nature, temporarily out of the fight.
Danton held his aim. He didn't fire.
He'd watched two solid bodies pass through the man in yellow like he was made of light, and he was not going to waste a bullet on the same experiment.
"Interesting, Mr. Black." The figure turned toward him slowly. "You kept that very quiet. If you hadn't met me tonight, no one would have known." A pause. "Did you think that was your trump card?"
"You dodged my clones at first," Danton said, keeping the gun level and keeping his voice steady. "Before you understood what they were, you moved away from them. That means physical contact is a real threat — when you want to pass through something, you choose to. Which means when you're in contact mode, you can also be hit." He exhaled carefully. "So you're not actually untouchable. You just have to be willing to be touched first."
The yellow figure was quiet for a moment.
"Analysis complete?"
Red lightning.
When Danton's eyes adjusted, the room was empty. He turned immediately — full rotation, gun tracking — nothing. No trace of yellow anywhere in the living room.
He wouldn't just leave.
The cold came from behind him.
There was a wall behind him. He had put his back to it deliberately.
A hand came through the wall.
The pain was instantaneous and total. Danton's knees buckled. He got one hand over his mouth and managed to keep the sound down to something that wouldn't carry through the ceiling.
"My hand is around one of your ribs, Mr. Black." The yellow figure stepped calmly through the wall beside him, as though the plaster and brick were a curtain. "Can you feel it?"
He tilted his head, studying Danton's expression with what appeared to be genuine curiosity.
"A wall at your back." He seemed to find this mildly charming. "As though that changes anything."
Click.
The rib separated.
Danton went down. He caught himself on one arm, shaking, vision narrowing at the edges. He understood now — completely, finally, in a way that the phone warning had only approximated — why Gideon had been so certain.
The figure crouched beside him.
"Your ability has already answered several of my questions," it said, almost conversationally. "I only need one more thing confirmed. The armed operation and the joint appeal — those are two very different responses to the same target. Why the switch? Why abandon the direct approach?"
It let a beat pass.
"Answer carefully. If I decide you're wasting my time, I'll move to Elizabeth."
Blood had reached Danton's mouth. He spat, breathed, and answered.
"Elizabeth's health. She started improving — more than I expected." Each word cost something. "If I get my research back through the courts, there's a path to a real treatment. A transplant. If I'd gone through with the original plan and gotten caught, that path disappears." He coughed. "The appeal gives her a chance. Stagg in prison means nothing to me if Elizabeth dies while I'm waiting for the verdict."
The figure regarded him for a moment.
"Touching."
It reached into Danton's jacket, found the phone, and used Danton's own limp hand to unlock the screen. It began scrolling through files with the unhurried efficiency of something that had done this before.
"Your ability," it said, not looking up. "Tell me how you got it."
"After the S.T.A.R. Labs explosion." Danton let his head rest against the floor, conserving what he had left. "Elizabeth's condition started deteriorating. Stagg had already pushed me out by then. I had no resources, no lab access, no funding." A pause. "I ran experiments on myself. That's how."