Elmira Adult Rehabilitation Center — a special medical facility with a history dating back to the 1960s.
By all accounts, a rehabilitation center that has stood for decades and undergone major renovations around the year 2000 should have a unique place in the world and even enjoy a certain reputation.
But the Elmira Adult Rehabilitation Center is different. Very few people know of its existence. It never admits patients from the outside world, and it is located in a remote and highly classified area.
The reason for all this lies with the organization to which the Elmira Rehabilitation Center belongs.
Its name is Waters International.
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"Mr. Cyfer, there's been another change in 0165."
In the basement of the Elmira Rehabilitation Center—a metahuman prison disguised under the name "Behavioral Modification," which is in truth a facility for "captive research"—the true warden of the center, a man named Cyfer, heard his deputy's words and immediately halted what he was doing.
"Oh? What changed this time?"
"He became… an old man. Someone who looks very difficult to deal with. The muscles on his body are quite powerful, like a… an old lion, still terrifying."
"Interesting…"
His most valuable test subject had undergone a new transformation. Cyfer immediately lost interest in the new test subject. He hastily wrote the word "Control" in the doctor's order column, stood up, and walked out of the office.
"Come, come with me to see our little one."
Little one. It was unbelievable that these two words had escaped Cyfer's lips. His deputy had worked with Cyfer for years and had always thought of him as a machine that happened to speak human language.
Ruthless, precise, and efficient. He spoke directly, without the slightest inflection, without hobbies, without a personal life. Even his meals were blended into juice and consumed. Those who didn't know him might think he was ill and could only eat liquid food.
But this machine-like man, who had recently become less and less human, was now convincing them that he wasn't actually a robot in human skin.
And it all had to do with the newly captured superpower from Vought.
No. 0165 — Locke Kent.
The air on the twelfth floor of the new basement was as cold as tempered steel. The deputy couldn't help rubbing his hands together, but Cyfer walked ahead alone as if nothing were amiss. Each step he took on the light-alloy floor produced a dull echo, amplified by the sealed walls of vanadium-titanium alloy, making the atmosphere even more oppressive.
The deputy followed, breathing heavily, keeping his hands at his sides as he matched Cyfer's pace and surveyed the surrounding facilities.
Signal shielding, biometric scanning, embedded multispectral cameras, liquid metal and specialized coating layers, walls smoothed to the millimeter.
The cost of these installations was nearly equivalent to four months of profit for the Vought Group, but clearly, both Cyfer and Stan believed the expense was justified.
Because they firmly believed they had found one of the most precious gifts God had ever given humanity. And if they could unlock the secret of 0165, they could truly possess the power of God.
To steal supreme power.
The sound of the hydraulic door grew louder as it opened, accompanied by a low hydraulic hum from within the walls. The floor beneath their feet vibrated faintly.
The 1.5-meter-thick light-alloy door slowly swung inward. The airflow displaced by the door carried a cold, unyielding metallic breath, simultaneously offering this unfortunate prisoner, who had not been incarcerated for long, a brief taste of fresh air.
A "lucky one" who had never been injected with Compound V, yet possessed superpowers—a natural-born superhuman.
A strong smell of blood emanated from the cell. As the scene came into view, a corpse lay on the ground. The deputy's mind seemed to short-circuit, leaving only one possibility.
0165… had escaped?
In an instant, countless horrors flooded his mind, and the shadow of death enveloped him.
This was a primordial superpower, more valuable than any Homelander. Vought had spent immense resources to lock him here and fully understand the secrets of his body. If he was lost on their watch, even if they didn't die, Walter would never let them go.
But when they saw the scene inside the secret chamber, they breathed a sigh of relief. 0165 had not broken free.
Vought's top-tier superalloy prison equipment tightly bound his body. Several chains descended from the ceiling, firmly fixed to his shoulders and back. His key joints—shoulders, neck, waist, and thighs—were precisely locked. Every inch of the prison gear was designed to withstand brute force, so heavy that he lacked even the strength to lift his head slightly.
Even stranger was the secret room itself. The walls, ceiling, and floor were covered with miniature, globally embedded light sources. The light intensity was low but extremely uniform, with no single directional source. The walls and floors were coated with a highly diffuse reflective coating that scattered light without死角 (blind spots), ensuring that every inch of space was filled with light, leaving no dark corners untouched by the semi-illumination.
In other words, this secret room did not contain even a trace of shadow. It was a completely anti-human design.
If people remained in such an environment for a long time, feelings of psychological isolation and helplessness would be infinitely amplified, ultimately leading to irreversible nervous breakdowns.
But for Locke, none of this mattered. He couldn't see it anyway. The sealed helmet, custom-made for him, had already completely shut off his five senses, rendering him a "living being" without touch, hearing, sight, smell, or taste.
Cyfer stood below, looking up at "0165" suspended in the air—at Locke—with obvious disappointment and regret in his eyes.
A crack in the damaged helmet revealed Locke's Asian features, which did not match the "old man" appearance his deputy had described. He turned his head, glanced at the corpses scattered on the ground—all bearing open mechanical wounds and burn marks—then looked back at Locke, who had reverted to his primary personality. In a cold tone, he said:
"Your new personality seems capable of manipulating energy. And you didn't crush your limbs when you transformed; you even twisted and deformed the specially designed alloy meant to hold you."
"Yeah, too bad you didn't get to see my new form. Otherwise, you'd be dead."
"That doesn't surprise me. But let's get to the point."
Faced with Locke's verbal gymnastics, Cyfer had long since grown accustomed to them. He shook his head, signaled his deputy to record the report, and began his usual questioning.
"Come on, Locke. Tell me when you woke up this time. We need to thoroughly study your abilities."
"I'll ****** study your ***********"
Locke was in no hurry to cooperate. Instead, he launched a barrage of profanities at Cyfer, using Cyfer's parents as the center and his relatives as the radius, brilliantly demonstrating the fine art of prison language. He could well be called a modern-day Shakespeare of the cellblock.
Faced with Locke's daily verbal assaults, Cyfer had long since become immune. Locke, who had cursed until his mouth was dry, still felt no relief and simply took a sip of Cyfer's cloudy liquid.
But his eyes were tightly shut, and since Locke couldn't see his target, he naturally couldn't touch Cyfer.
"Remember this for me—no matter who you are or what ideas you and Vought have."
After a brief pause, Locke gritted his teeth and spoke word by word to Cyfer, who was watching him:
"One day, I will make you see what true hell is! Everything you've done to me, I will make you pay back a thousandfold, a hundredfold!"
The murderous intent in his voice nearly condensed into something tangible, like the cold wind of Seattle, bitterly blowing against Cyfer's body.
The deputy beside him had already turned pale with fear, but Cyfer's face remained impassive.
"Your resistance is meaningless. It will only strengthen our resolve to deal with you. After all, our investment in you has worsened Vought's reports this year, and the shareholders have long had their opinions."
With that, his tone softened slightly, and he turned to persuade:
"The research investment in you has not yielded corresponding results. If you refuse to cooperate or even threaten us in this way, you will be considered nothing more than a non-performing asset with risk transfer and zero future returns—and will be directly eliminated."
"At that moment, I will lose most of my power and resources. Stan's decades of hard-earned prestige will completely collapse. Your status will be threatened, you will directly lose your life, and there will be no one left in this world."
"You must understand: Stan is a businessman. He will not show you mercy because of sunk costs. Once he is convinced you are useless, he will not hesitate to get rid of you—but I am different."
The more he spoke, the more agitated he became. Cyfer, disregarding his own safety, approached Locke and reached out to remove the alloy blindfold that had sealed his vision.
Pupils that had not seen light for a long time contracted sharply and uncontrollably. Locke took a long time to finally see the true face of his enemy before him.
A face so ordinary it was almost featureless.
"You have no idea how valuable you are—but I do! We're not imprisoning you; we're protecting you! You are the only natural-born superhuman. Your body contains no Compound V. You are a benchmark of human evolution—natural selection!"
As he spoke, Cyfer's expression grew increasingly frenzied. He gently cradled Locke's face, as if holding the rarest treasure in the world.
"You are different from those inferior supes out there. No matter how many Homelander clones there are, they are not as valuable as you. You will become a god of the new generation, if you only want it. I am willing to give everything."
"Do you want freedom? Do you want compensation? Money, power, women—if you are willing to cooperate, we are ready to give you everything. You've also been imprisoned for a year. You deserve to wait for freedom."
At these words, Locke's heart wavered. He was truly tired of being imprisoned here.
Endless experiments. An immobile body. No one to talk to. Forever locked in darkness, unable to even feel the passage of time. If Cyfer hadn't mentioned it today, he wouldn't have even known he had been trapped for an entire year.
Cyfer keenly noticed the flicker of hesitation on Locke's face and immediately seized the opportunity, continuing to persuade with an increasingly fervent tone:
"Do you want revenge? Do you want revenge on me? Fine, I have no problem with that. If you are willing to cooperate, this life is yours."
Before Locke could recover from this sudden concession, Cyfer suddenly pulled a cold folding knife from his pocket and, without hesitation, slit the artery in his own wrist.
Blood immediately gushed out, streaming down his wrist onto the floor, soon forming a small pool of dark red. But Cyfer raised his bleeding hand with an expressionless face, as if feeling no pain, and brought it close to Locke's eyes, deliberately allowing him to see it clearly.
A severed wrist artery; if the bleeding wasn't stopped in time, shock from excessive blood loss would set in within ten minutes at most, followed by life-threatening danger. Cyfer clearly understood this. He looked into Locke's eyes, his voice hoarse but carrying an obvious plea:
"I don't have much time—ten minutes at most. After I lose too much blood, you'll have to make a choice."
"Either, after I die, you continue to be trapped here, enduring experiments, darkness, and loneliness day after day, until one day you are discarded like useless garbage. Or, you become one of us. Do whatever you want, and we will do everything in our power to push you to the altar."
After these words, Cyfer looked even more excited. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he were the one imprisoned, experimented on, and studied—not Locke.
"Hell or heaven?"
If this were only the first month of his imprisonment, he wouldn't have hesitated to accept such favorable terms. Even just to see the light of day and escape this dark cage, he would have been willing to pay any price.
If it were six months ago, before his desire for freedom had been worn down by daily experiments and solitude, upon hearing such a promise, he would have nodded in agreement without a second thought—especially considering what Cyfer was offering now was almost unconditional indulgence.
If it were three months ago, if he could have just glimpsed the light, breathed fresh air unfiltered by layers of machinery, and eaten a full meal of ordinary food instead of disgusting liquid slop, he would have been willing to cooperate with their experiments.
But now, he would not.
He had lost his true freedom, and he had finally come to understand what it meant to hold freedom above all else.
What he had lost, he would reclaim piece by piece.
The light made the corners of his eyes uncontrollably tear up, but he forced out a relaxed and resolute smile. Looking at Cyfer, who was still bleeding in front of him, he clearly and firmly spat out one word:
"NO."