2

Joseph Bell woke up drenched in sweat, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. His hands were clenched so tight that his nails bit into his palms. Another nightmare—another brutal reminder that sleep wasn't a refuge, but a battleground. He had stopped fearing them. Fear was useless. Fear was weakness. What he needed was control.

The dreams had started years ago, dragging him into endless chases through twisted landscapes of numbers and shadows. Every night, he was hunted by something unseen but inescapable. He fought back when he could. He ran when he couldn't. But no matter what, morning always came with the same bitter aftertaste—he was still their experiment, whether he wanted to be or not.

Pushing off the thin blanket, Joseph sat up and grabbed his phone. A video auto-played on his screen—Superman facing off against Metallo in a clash that sent shockwaves through the city streets. He wasn't usually into superhero fights, but something about this one held his attention. The hero wasn't just stopping a villain. He was proving something. Proving that power meant justice. Power meant freedom.

A soft rustling came from the couch. His mother, Mary Bell, stirred but didn't wake. She had worked another brutal overnight shift, and exhaustion weighed on her like an anchor. The alarm on her phone vibrated, but she barely reacted.

Joseph hesitated before nudging her shoulder. "Mom. You have to get up."

She groaned, rubbing her eyes. "Mmm? What time is it?"

"Almost seven. Can you drop me at school?"

Mary sat up, stretching out the stiffness in her back. "Yeah, give me five."

Joseph flipped through the channels as she disappeared into the bathroom. The news blared:

"—multiple casualties reported after another high-profile breakout from Arkham Asylum. Authorities urge citizens to remain indoors—"

Joseph exhaled sharply. Gotham never changed. The same villains. The same chaos. The same empty promises that things would get better. He hated it.

Mary reemerged, yawning. "Alright, let's go."

Joseph grabbed his bag and followed her out. As they climbed into the truck, he glanced at her tired expression. "You don't have to keep doing this alone. I can help."

She sighed. "You're fifteen, Joey. Your job is school. Mine is keeping us safe."

He clenched his jaw. Safe? What did that even mean anymore?

**

A song crackled over the radio. Some upbeat, overplayed club track. Joseph barely heard it over the hum of the city passing by. He was staring out the window when he noticed something off.

A van. Old, dented, creeping along the lane beside them.

The insignia on the side—a basketball with a cross and a triangle?

His stomach twisted. That was a gang mark. And they were armed. Heavy weapons glinted through the windows.

Then—

A deafening roar. A rocket streaked through the intersection, slamming into the vehicle ahead. The impact was instant—metal crunched, glass shattered, and the truck flipped, its cargo spilling across the asphalt. The logo on its side—STAR Labs.

Mary swerved, barely avoiding the wreckage.

The van's doors slid open. Masked figures leaped out, rifles raised.

Joseph barely had time to register the next explosion before everything went dark.

**

Paramedics blurred past him. Joseph's vision swam as he caught sight of his mother's overturned van, smoke curling into the sky. He tried to move—tried to reach her—but his body refused to obey.

His breath was ragged. Blood and some unknown chemicals filled his mouth.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. Death loomed as unconsciousness took hold.

Yet, even as his body failed him, LexCorp's twisted experiments still haunted his mind. The "vaccin" forced upon him—their so-called cure—was still in his veins, still rewriting his biology. He wasn't just a victim. He was their experiment.

But Joseph Bell was no one's pawn.

"If you want to kill me, LexCorp," he vowed through the pain, "then come and try."

He didn't know how he would win. But he would.

LexCorp had turned his body into a battlefield of hidden subroutines and lethal protocols. The experimental vaccine they had forced on him monitored his every move, waiting for him to slip. But Joseph had spent years outmaneuvering them, hacking his own biology with nothing but instinct and desperation. Now, with death creeping in, he had only one option left.

Run.

He had always been fast—faster than their puzzles, faster than their control. Now, he had to be faster than death itself.

Somewhere deep in his mind, the barriers that kept him shackled began to crack. He wasn't sure if it was adrenaline, fate, or something greater, but he felt it—a surge of raw speed, beyond anything he had ever known.

He ran.

Through the digital maze LexCorp had built inside him, through the firewalls meant to keep him leashed. Every equation, every failsafe they had implanted in him, blurred past. The AI meant to control him couldn't keep up.

Then—he broke through.

A vast yellow expanse unfolded before him. It wasn't just data. It wasn't just code. It was something else. A force beyond logic, beyond science. A place where speed, thought, and reality itself bent to his will.

Two figures stood before him—one was himself, shrouded in pure speed. The other was an intruder, a blocky, fragmented AI guardian sent by LexCorp, bound in chains of corrupted data.

Joseph didn't hesitate. The force was running out. He reached out, rewriting its core protocols in an instant. The AI disintegrated, merging into him, forming a helmet of shifting voxels around his head. The newfound processing power flooded his mind, running infinite calculations in the blink of an eye.

He saw the path. He saw the future. For a single moment, he saw the speed force.

Then—

Darkness.