It was an incredible dream...but it wasn't enough.

Paul Battaglia reached into a dark room, felt around for a light-switch, and eventually found one. A huge bank of lights kicked on, making a muffled banging noise. The room was larger than most houses. Paul's employers called it a "research and development center," but it was actually a glorified showroom, which was reserved for visiting politicians and generals. He'd never been inside. Paul was leaving, and this was his last chance to see it.

It looked like ground zero for the Space Race. The walls were covered with blown-up color pictures of rockets and space probes, and the room was full of displays, most of which were up on platforms. Paul took a little tour. He saw imaginative concept art for "moon buggies" and "space planes," and there were sprawling scale models of lunar military outposts and lunar colonies. They reminded him of those really elaborate train sets. The colonies were domed cities, which contained parks, office buildings, and monorail trains. He knelt down, inspecting the models more closely. It would probably take decades to build all of this, but the little plastic people were still dressed like it was 1963...actually, no, more like the late fifties. The men wore increasingly-outdated fedoras, and there was a curious lack of hippies.

Paul walked past a life-sized model of a space probe. He came across a projected timeline that was printed on a big white board, and he stopped to read it. They wanted to land on the moon by 1970, establish fully-functional military outposts by 1980, and have the first civilian colony built by 1990. Beyond that, he saw prototype spacesuits on blank-faced mannequins. They were silver and black. The silver parts had a metallic sheen to them, but they were fabric, just like the black parts. Some sort of Space Age material. He touched one of the suits-the material was like nothing he'd ever felt. Each mannequin held a silver helmet (which had a thin black visor) in the crook of its arm. It wasn't as big and bulky as the regular astronaut helmets he'd seen, and the suit was similarly streamlined.

Wanting a closer look, Paul unzipped the suit, taking it off of the mannequin. There was something hard and segmented inside the suit. When he'd first touched it, he'd felt something solid underneath, but he'd naturally assumed that it was the mannequin. As it turned out, the interior of the suit was lined with a weird kind of padding. Thin "plates" of padding were connected to each other, and they were surprisingly flexible, and contoured to fit a man's body. He didn't know what the plates were made of, but they definitely weren't metal. Every inch of the astronaut would be protected. Paul smiled, and he went looking for the mannequin that was closest to his size, pulling its spacesuit off. Given what he was about to do, a suit like that would come in handy.

The facility was underneath an observatory in upstate New York. It was primarily staffed by scientists, military guards, and government liaisons. Paul was none of those things. He was also the only person that lived there: he stayed in the real research and development area, where they ran tests on him all day long. Paul wasn't supposed to be in this part of the base. But, at this time of night, only the guards were around, and he'd already taken care of them.

Paul had black hair and dark eyes, and he was barely old enough to vote. Girls his age probably would have loved him-he had a tragic, mysterious look to him-but he'd quickly learned that they weren't any girls his age in places like this. He'd lived on-base for the last five years. When he was thirteen, his medical problems had started, and they'd nearly bankrupted his family. The doctors in Chicago had sent him to specialists in New York. They eventually figured out what he was, which resulted in his mother killing herself, and his dad abandoning him. Military scientists became interested in his case. They told him that they'd help him, as long as he was willing to "serve his country" in return. Paul's dad signed some papers and officially transferred his parental rights. Given how young he'd been, Paul didn't think it was legal for the military to do something like that, but nobody seemed to care.

His abilities made him valuable. America was trying to beat Russia to the moon, and he was playing a part in that. That was why they hadn't just thrown him in a hole somewhere. The scientists treated him surprisingly well, but the guards and other military types were always giving him suspicious looks. They knew what he was, and they didn't like him, let alone trust him. But Paul wasn't the only questionable person that was working for them. There were old men with German accents, and everybody knew who they were.

Paul changed into the astronaut suit (putting on everything but the helmet). He left his clothes on the floor; he wasn't bringing anything with him. There were some books that he'd miss, but he didn't need them, anymore. They all had to do with the concept of the afterlife. Serious books, not feel-good kiddie stuff. When you're thirteen, and you think you're gonna die, you start wondering about what's next. One of his doctors back in Chicago had respected his intelligence enough to give him a bunch of books on the subject. Paul had been bedridden for months, and he'd needed a way to pass the time. He'd been raised Catholic, but the books covered all of the Christian denominations, and there were even books about other religions and mythologies, as well. It was interesting, seeing all of these different ideas about peace and perfection. Paul didn't believe in any one specific religion, not anymore, but he'd come up with a few theories.

He took one last look at the showroom. Once Reed Richards had stopped working for the government, they'd told Paul that, from now on, he was the secret cornerstone of the space program. It had actually been fun. The tests weren't painful, and he loved all this astronaut stuff. But it wasn't enough for him, anymore, and he was ready to try something else.

"...Paul? What are you doing in here?"

It was Dr. Berg, one of the most important scientists that worked there. Dr. Berg was old-he had to be in his thirties-and he had brown hair and a matching beard. He just wore slacks and a button-down shirt, his white lab coat was nowhere to be seen. Dr. Berg had probably been getting ready to go home for the night. Paul had been sure that he'd had the place all to himself, but...

"You can't play in here, Paul," Dr. Berg said, clearly exasperated. "I know you hate being cooped up all the time, but this place is off-limits."

"I'm not playing."

Paul had just been stating a fact, but his voice must have sounded scary, because Dr. Berg's eyes widened.

"I...I get it, Paul. With everything that's going on down in the city, you probably want to put on a costume, too." Dr. Berg glanced around. "And you're a man, now. Of course you want some independence. But we talked about this: we have to keep you secret, so the Russians can't hurt you."

Paul didn't say anything.

"I promise you, it won't always be like this. Once we're established on the moon, we'll be able to tell people about you, and what you are. I mean, compared to colonies on the moon-"

"-compared to colonies on the moon, me being a mutant will seem normal," Paul said, finishing the sentence for him. He'd heard this speech before. Paul crossed his arms, and his voice was dripping with sarcasm. "They'll find out that I helped put America on the moon, and they'll love me, and I'll be a hero. Yeah...even if that happens, it won't solve anything."

Dr. Berg once again looked around the room.

"If you're waiting for the guards, they aren't coming."

"Oh my god."

"Relax, I didn't kill them. There's only one person that I'm gonna kill."

Dr. Berg started to turn around and run, but Paul's hand glowed silver, which stopped him in his tracks.

"Don't. Come on, you know I'm not talking about you."

The older man finally figured out what was going on. "Wait, this is about your hallu-your memories?"

Paul sighed. "I'm done explaining this," he said. "I really appreciate everything you've done for me, but, I'm leaving. Tell them something for me, okay? Tell them they don't want to try to bring me back in. If they do, they'll regret it."

"We're only beginning to understand how gravity affects the human brain. And all those books you read, when you were at your most hopeless p-"

"I'M NOT CRAZY!"

Dr. Berg took a step back.

Paul winced; that was exactly the kind of thing that crazy people said. Or, in this case, shouted. "Look, I'm sorry about that."

"We know about all of the heroes and monsters down in the city," Dr. Berg said, his voice flat and distant. "These people you think you remember, nobody's ever heard of them. Even the intelligence types that really pay attention to that stuff."

Paul shook his head, trying to stay calm. "I remember reading about them in the papers, and I remember taking a day trip to the city and seeing them in-person, too. Light and dark. A guy in a yellow suit and a blue cape, and this thing that was like walking darkness. Yeah, okay, nobody else remembers. I don't know why I'm the only one. But there is a dark guy, and now there's a light one, too."

Dr. Berg clearly had no idea what he was talking about.

"There's a devil running around in Hell's Kitchen...and this angel just showed up in another part of the city. Darkness and light, just like what I saw. I don't know how I remembered them before they showed up, or why they're different than they were in my head, but I know what I need to do."

Dr. Berg started to say something, but Paul blasted him. A plate-sized ring of silver energy shot out from his hand. It hit Dr. Berg right in the chest, and he slammed against the floor.

Paul made sure that Dr. Berg was alive and otherwise unhurt. Then, he put the helmet on and walked away. They'd told him that he had the mutant power to generate "gravity rings." Paul no longer thought of them as rings, though: ever since he'd heard about the Devil in Hell's Kitchen, they'd reminded him of halos.