The hallway lights buzzed faintly as Nolan descended into the lower chambers the quiet, sterilized depths of OsCorp where failed experiments waited for their next purpose.
Only two subjects remained: Logan and Jessica Jones.
The former sat in the corner, half-feral and hollow-eyed. His lower body had finally regenerated, but the man looked older. Worn down.
The latter Jessica sat motionless. Eyes blank. A shell of the woman she once was.
Nolan stepped into the chamber.
Logan snarled, pressing against the reinforced glass. "Back to watch your lab rats squirm?"
Nolan didn't respond.
Logan had become background noise valuable only as long as his regeneration remained uncracked. Until then, he could rot.
He turned to Jessica.
"You have a choice," he said calmly, coldly. "Swear loyalty or be discarded like broken hardware."
Jessica didn't flinch.
Didn't breathe like someone who cared about breathing.
Nolan sighed and turned toward the control panel. "Let's jog your senses."
With the press of a button, the chamber's ventilation sealed shut.
A second command opened the emergency flood valves.
Cold, sterile water began to pour in slowly at first, rising around Jessica's ankles. Then her knees. Her waist.
Still, she didn't move.
"Not even a flinch," Nolan muttered. "Impressive. Or just stubborn."
The water climbed higher.
Finally, the surface crested her mouth—then her nose.
Jessica choked instinctively, sputtering and coughing, but still didn't beg.
Just stared at him through the rising current, her eyes glassy and dead.
"You'll drown," Nolan warned.
Logan exploded from his corner, fists pounding the glass. "You psycho! Let her go!"
But Nolan didn't even look at him.
He watched Jessica instead, arms folded, mind calculating.
She had been broken long before he found her manipulated by Kilgrave, drained of will. Her strength wasn't in her fists; it was in her spite.
That, too, was fading.
Jessica floated, fetal, suspended in a tomb of water.
Moments passed. Then minutes.
Her movements slowed. Her heart rate dropped.
A final breath escaped.
"You still had a chance," Nolan said softly.
"You BASTARD!" Logan roared, voice raw. "She wasn't your toy! She was a person!"
"I don't need toys," Nolan replied without emotion. "I need results."
And Jessica hadn't delivered.
In the lab upstairs, Connors glanced up as Nolan entered carrying a soaked, lifeless body in his arms.
"Is she—?" Connors began.
"Gone." Nolan handed her off to an assistant. "Cremate the remains. Increase the furnace to compensate for her cellular density."
The assistant gulped and nodded.
Jessica Jones, the first named superhuman Nolan had put down, was incinerated without ceremony.
There would be others.
"Status on Max's mutation?" Nolan asked, wiping his hands and heading toward the bio-lab.
Connors hesitated for half a second then returned to the data streams.
"His cells are hyper-reactive. When I introduced even trace amounts of Phoenix Serum, his internal current rejected it entirely."
Nolan frowned. "So he can't be upgraded?"
"He's perfect for electricity. But other enhancements? Might destabilize him."
"Fine. Shelf is the idea for now. Focus on Jessica's strain and see if we can isolate a weaker, safer derivative."
Connors nodded. "Got it. Also... about that other name, you asked me to reach out to. Doctor Otto Octavius."
Nolan looked up. "And?"
"He's interested in our work. Says he's willing to collaborate."
"Good. We'll talk when I have time."
"There's one catch. He's short on funding. Barely keeping his research alive."
"Speak to Norman. Sell off a fraction of our stock. Enough to float Otto's projects and earn his loyalty."
"You sure? At this rate, OsCorp's valuation's about to hit the stratosphere."
Nolan's voice was calm but firm. "Money is a tool. Not the mission."
Connors gave a slow, impressed nod.
And Nolan returned to his terminal already mapping out his next step.
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