The 23rd of October 2034 was the day that his life would change forever. If he had been more of a religious man he would have blamed some far off godly figure, said that the fates were punishing him for his less than pristine record, but he wasn't. He had never been one to see a setback as a reason to give up. All of life's trials were just there to spur him on and force him to keep rising above the rest of the privileged people who seemed to glide through life with every opportunity handed to them on a silver platter. Not that he'd ever had such opportunities, he had always had to make his own.
Many said it was a case of the wrong place at the wrong time, dismissing it as just bad luck, just one of those things. He couldn't do that, because he knew the truth, that it was the fault of his brother and his inherent need to be in the middle of everything.
He wished he could be like his brother, he wished he could win people over with a simple smile and a few pretty words. But he couldn't. He knew what his brother was like, he'd known how it would go, exactly how it had every other time, yet he had still, stupidly, tried to help.
They had started at the Marshall Space Flight Center in the same year, him first and then his brother. Estranged for years after the death of their mother, he had stupidly thought that mending fences and forging a familial bond once again, would be a good thing. He'd known that the role would be perfect for his brother and so, in the spirit of forgiveness, he had personally recommended him for the job. He had regretted it almost immediately.
As with everything in their lives, his brother had come in and immediately taken over, making friends, advancing up the ladder quicker than he should have, getting special treatment from all sides. It seemed that in the eyes of the world his brother could do no wrong, forever the golden child. Forever the one to be wanted, needed, liked, while he was seen as nothing special.
Try as he might, he never quite got the same attention or opportunities that seemed to be handed to his brother on a regular basis. But why should he have expected it to be any different as an adult than it had been as a child? He'd never been as special as his older brother in the eyes of their mother, but at least his father had loved him. His father had understood, he'd known what it was like to be second fiddle to the one that had come before.
"We are ready to begin soon, sir," a soft voice spoke from behind the curtain, bringing his thoughts back to his present situation. For a moment he had forgotten where he was, forgotten why he was there.
"Very good," he replied, his voice even and calm even though, inside, he was feeling anything but. It was a big decision he had made, one that he still wasn't entirely sure was the right thing to do, but he didn't see that he had much of a choice in the matter. Once again he had found himself in a situation where he could either stop struggling and sink, or try to swim, and he had never been one to go down without a fight.
The accident, if you could call it that, had taken away his options, it was either lose the organ after years of trying to save it, or let the cancer spread to other areas of his body again.
He could remember it as if it had happened yesterday, the moment when the doors had slammed shut behind him, his blasted brother on the other side, the safe side, warned just in time and dragged to safety. He had watched helplessly as the warning lights around the chamber had flashed, as informational instructions had blared out. He had watched as his brother, along with his saviours, had retreated even further to safety.
They said that he'd been lucky, that while one safety mechanism in the chamber had indeed failed, sealing and locking the room in which the small cabinet resided, the cabinet itself had afforded him a little protection, acting as a dampening field without which he would surely have died almost instantly. Death, he had come to believe, might have been preferable.
The weeks after that were blank, spent first in a medically induced coma and then in a drugged up state. Apparently he had been vomiting near constantly until they managed to free him more than two hours later and get him to the hospital. He had been in and out of consciousness while they had stripped him and washed him down before they could begin any real treatment. Blood transfusions, IV solutions to treat both the internal and external contamination and the deep sedation to allow his body to rest had all happened while he had been too sick to be aware of them, for which he supposed he should be grateful.
He wouldn't allow anyone to see him, not in the state that he was. He cut himself off from the few associates that may have considered themselves to be his friends, his standard comment of "Tell them I died," being taken literally by the staff employed to look after him.
He was useless, a husk of the glorious, strong, powerful man that he had once been, unable to comprehend why anyone, friends, family, the people that professed to care about him, would ever want him in their lives again. He'd lost everything that had made him him, everything he had worked so hard for, his respect, his position and his influence. Even if he had earned some of it in less than honourable ways, he'd still had his loyalties, his code of ethics which he would not break and that had led to a small but cherished circle of those he would admit to loving. He was doing it for them, it was better for them to not have him in their lives as he was, they would do better to think he had perished that day, that his injuries had been too much for his body to handle. That way they could move on without him and the burden he would inevitably be.
He'd laid in his hospital bed each and every day praying that today would be the day that his body gave out and he would find peace. Unfortunately for him his doctors were of a different opinion. What he needed was time, they said, time to build himself back up, time to find something to motivate him again now that his life stretched out before him as one long, endless road of pain, then he would feel like life was worth living again.
He'd needed skin grafts and extensive burn treatments, he'd lost his hair and had ulcers in the inside of his mouth making it hard to eat and drink without pain or the risk of choking. Yet they told him to wait, to see what tomorrow brought. How could they say that to him? How could they promise him that there was anything positive left for him in a world that had turned its back on him?
The more time he spent in hospital, the more the sterile walls seemed to close in around him like the doors of that dratted chamber had slammed shut, imprisoning him and slowly killing him. The doctors said he needed to leave, that he needed to rejoin the outside world, to find his positivity again. But all he saw out there was a world of hurt, a world where no one had ever truly wanted him, where he had never truly been welcome, something that had been proven by the fact that everyone that had ever mattered to him had apparently accepted the news of his death without a single question or demand for proof.
Only one had sought him out, one person out of every friend, every distant member of his family, even the woman he loved. One person, his brother, had tracked him down, and even then fate was against him, sending the one person that he had never wanted to see again.
Family was important, his brother had said when he had appeared in his hospital room spilling promises and sweet words and for a while he had believed him, he had tried his best, tried to integrate himself into a family role again. He'd accepted his brother's offer of care, even though it had been a double edged sword. He'd needed the help but he'd also known that it could have just as easily have been the other way around, he could have been the one that was healthy and strong, he could have been the one that was looking after his crippled sibling, if not for the unfair hand that fate had dealt him.
Living with and relying on his brother and his family was not easy. Every time he had to ask for help the words stuck in his throat, pushed out through gritted teeth. Every time he had to be aided in what should have been the simplest of everyday tasks, his bitterness grew. A twisted, bubbling mass in the depths of his soul, burning away like acid. He didn't want to be there, he didn't want to be sitting in the middle of his brother's happy family, watching the way he was fawned over by his wife and child, all the while feeling like such an outsider. Seeing all that his brother had achieved, all that he had gained when he had been the one to put him on that path, it was too much. Without him his brother would have nothing, yet he was the one sitting there with nothing, he was the one that had lost.
Still, he knew it would not last forever, he told himself he was simply using his brother as he himself had been used.
Physically, on the outside at least, he seemed to be recovering, slowly, but still a recovery. But inside was a different story, mentally he was a mess, suffering from night terrors and memories of the moments just before the accident.
He remembered the hopeless feeling, the fear and the realisation that he had been left to die.
He would hear their voices in his dreams, echoing in his head whenever he closed his eyes, calling out to his brother, calling a warning that for him, far back in the chamber room, came far too late.
But it wasn't just mental and physical scars that haunted him, for inside he was a mess, the damage done by the radiation was waging a war on his immune system and his very DNA, twisting it into something it wasn't, cells mutating, changing into a silent but deadly death sentence.
Once again he was told he was lucky, they caught it early, they could treat him, but such treatments were only good for so long and inevitably it had come back, moving from spot to spot. The treatments, the best that money could buy, private clinics paid for by the substantial compensation he had received from the Space Authority, had been many and varied.
But, much like any supposed cure, they had done their own damage, killing off permanently what little healthy follicles he'd had left and weakening his immune system dramatically. They had made him so exhausted, more tired than he had ever been before. He couldn't eat, he threw up everything that he swallowed, he could barely move, his body aching right down to the bones. He had no choice but to lie there and let the drugs do their worst.
It had left him feeling powerless once again, something that he had worked hard all his life to move away from. Every time in his life that he had tried to do what was right, what was for the best, he had ended up receiving the backlash of it. They said that good deeds are their own rewards, but he had never heard anything so ridiculous. Good deeds were for the person being helped, the one doing the helping always lost, be it money, time or just got it thrown back in their face. The only way to get ahead in life was to help yourself.
That was when he had realised that he had been stupidly waiting for a miracle that would never happen. He'd never been worthy enough of the good things that came to others without them even trying. He decided there and then to find his own cure, to move away from his dependency on others and put his faith in the teachings of his beloved father. Father had always had his ways of getting what he wanted, including Mother, and he had taught his son well.
Discharging himself from the hospital, he had gone off grid, something that his doctors had strongly advised against. Many believed that he had gone off to a monastery or some such place, or that he had taken himself off on some kind of holy pilgrimage and succumbed to his disease, ending up as nothing but a faceless, nameless body discovered on some distant street where no one cared.
That couldn't have been further from the truth. He had stayed close by, had fallen back on his old skills to raise the funds he needed, cultivated contacts and kept a close watch on the brightest and best in the industries until he had reached the point he was at now. The point of no return, he was putting his trust in a young genius, a couple of disgraced doctors that run their own private clinic for those that had the money and little regard for liability cover and the importance of medical registers.
To say he was nervous would be an understatement, although he would never admit that out loud. To admit to anything was to give your enemies a weakness to exploit, and he had gained his fair share of enemies. He could never allow himself to be seen as anything other than cold-hearted, unflappable, unaffected by anything. If he was in pain he had to suck it up, if he was in a tight fix the only one he could rely on was himself. He knew all of this, but he still couldn't help himself, he still wished that someone was there.
He wasn't scared of the pain that might be to come, but when he grabbed his phone and used the camera to look at himself one last time as a (mostly) whole person, he still felt a massive pang of loss and fear. Fear of the unknown and fear of the future.
His gifts were the only thing he had left, the only thing that was guaranteed to be on his side, the one thing that had never let him down. They got him what he wanted in life, they got him out of trouble and they protected him as best they could. By continuing on this path he was voluntarily weakening himself, giving up a part of what made him powerful in a quest for more. It was a gamble that he knew he would never truly feel ready to take.
The Doctor, who could technically no longer call himself such but was still universally known to his clients as Dr Richard, opened the door to his room and walked in.
"How are you feeling? Ready to do this?"
He nodded, what else could he do? He could see no other choice. As with much of his life, circumstances had chosen for him, pushing him down a path that he had no control over. This, this was him doing all he could to grab life by the wheel and steer on a course of his own making. Successful or not, at least he would be doing it on his own terms.
There were no papers to sign, no waivers or consent forms, no proof that he was ever there, just as it was for every client that walked through their doors. The doctor did hold out a tablet though, with the details of the operation that was about to occur, for him to approve with another nod.
Some would call him crazy, he thought as the needle slid into his hand and he was asked to count down from ten, to voluntarily go to such extremes. But life was about making the hard choices, about taking risks and gambling on the off chance that you would come out on top. And if there was one thing he knew he was good at it was clawing his way upwards to come out on top, no matter how hard the climb.
As his eyes slid shut, the last thing he saw being the reassuring face of the nurse who had checked on him throughout the night, showing him more care than he probably deserved. He felt her take hold of his free hand and give it a comforting squeeze, for which he was pathetically grateful. Darkness and the weightlessness of chemically induced oblivion washed over him and then there was peace.
The surgery itself was relatively straightforward, a simple procedure that was quite commonplace. Enucleation of the eye, the peeling back of the conjunctiva, the severing of the optic nerve and eye muscles, allowing for the complete removal of the eyeball, followed by the insertion of the orbital implant in which the artificial eye would be located. While he was under the anesthesia the wireless receiver chip would also be implanted in his skull just behind his ear.
The whole procedure took less than two hours and other than a headache and general soreness of the immediate area, an insignificant amount after what he had grown used to, he didn't really feel the loss. He had been used to having his eye patched for long periods due to treatments, so the large pressure bandage and loss of sight didn't bother him. What bothered him was having to wait three weeks to know if his gamble had indeed paid off.
He dealt with the aftermath of the operation with his usual attitude, refusing to allow any weak emotions such as anger, grief or bitterness to weigh him down. Instead he had revelled in them, using them as fuel for his recovery. He hadn't asked for any of this, he hadn't asked to be treated as someone that was disposable, as unimportant compared to his brother. He'd been trying to go straight, he had thought he was helping by putting in the recommendation, only to have his good intentions backfire on him as they always did.
He was ready, more than ready if truth be told. He wanted to move on with his plans, the plans that had kept him going, kept him motivated. His plans had given him an end goal and, if this next phase went as it should, his prize would be that much closer to his grasp.
The door opened the moment he knocked on it, the man in the doorway stepped aside.
"Take a seat," the man offered.
He sat down, his arms resting casually on the rests as the chair was tipped backwards, rather like one used in a dentist's surgery. He took off his dark glasses and tried to relax, although allowing himself to be placed in a vulnerable position by anyone was completely alien to him.
"It has healed well," the man murmured, feeling around and manipulating the eye socket to make sure the orbital implant was moving freely as it should. He was directed to look in all directions with his good eye, up down, side to side as the man checked that the muscles were working as they should, allowing the implant to follow the natural movement of his remaining eye.
The moment of truth came, the prosthetic taken carefully from its padded box and checked thoroughly. With a gentleness that belied his large frame and imposing aura, the man removed the temporary eye cap that had been fitted and replaced it with the prosthetic.
"Ready to give it a try?"
He uncurled his fingers from the armrest and lifted his slightly shaking hand to the side of his head, his index finger hovering over the slightly raised spot now fully healed.
"Remember it's two taps, one tap, then one more tap to activate it. It's the same pattern reversed to deactivate."
"I know, I know," he huffed. And he should know, he'd given the pattern himself, the same combination of knocks that he had used on his father's office door to announce his presence. He knew it was sentimental of him, but since he had just voluntarily given up part of the gift he'd been born with, the gift his father had carefully helped to nurture, he felt the need to keep a small link to him.
TapTap, Tap, Tap.
The brightness was blinding at first after three weeks of nothing but darkness that was occasionally broken up by the predicted visual hallucinations and random flashing lights. His instinctive urge was to squeeze his eyes shut against the onslaught. Immediately he was in darkness again, the eye doing it's job to perfection.
"That's good, it's registering the fact that your eyelid is closed and has cut off all visual output from the lens," the man said, checking the readouts on his tablet. "Try again, open your eyes slowly and allow the lens to adjust to the ambient light, as your natural one would."
He did as he was told and this time it was better. He looked around the room, taking in all there was to see. Piles of machinery and tools littered two of the benches that ran the length of the walls, another was filled with banks of computer equipment and holographic displays and the last held what appeared to be completed projects. The floor was stained but clean, with little islands of half built projects dotted here and there and a cot in the corner where the man obviously slept when he was too busy to go home.
He was put through various vision, movement and functionality tests before the procedure was declared to be a success.
"I now consider us even," the man told him. "Your sight is restored and I've paid you back for your sponsorship. I trust that this is the last time we shall meet?"
"That depends on you," he answered, his previously placid face morphing into a sadistic smile. His hand slapped the man companionably on the shoulder. "You never know when your services might be required."
"But you promised me that this would be the last time," the man argued, his features scrunching up in a mixture of confusion and anger.
"I lied," he answered simply, the hand on the man's shoulder twisting just so, allowing the ring he wore to touch his bare neck. The needle it contained was insignificant but the sedative it injected was more than potent enough to take down the humongous man that towered over him.
"You...assho…" the man slurred, stumbling in his pathetic attempt to stay upright. It took less than a minute for his body to hit the floor.
Unconcerned by the unconscious man, he pulled out his phone and hit send on the prewritten text. Now all he had to do was wait. He glanced at the ring on his finger, an ingenious little antique device he had stolen from a shop not too long ago. Of course it was crude compared to his previous method.
He reached up to touch the cybernetic eye that had been created just for him, he just hoped it would be worth what he had given up for it. He'd miss the full power of his gifts, that was for sure, bending people to his will as easily as breathing was something he'd made full use of, just as his father had before him. The second husband of the wealthy niece of the Malysian king, his father had always had illusions of grandeur. Recently widowed and heavily grieving for her husband, his mother had been the perfect mark, succumbing easily to his charms and magical persuasion. They had quickly married, giving his fatherless older brother someone that was supposed to take care of him and his mother the second son that she had never wanted.
She'd never bonded with him, had barely tolerated him while nursing him, passing him off to a nanny as soon as she could. Her first husband had been the love of her life and his older brother was her only link to him. As such she cherished him as if he were the most precious thing in the world, leaving her second husband to raise their son alone. His father had done his best, using his gifts to steer his mother in the direction he thought it best she go, using his influence over her to gain the power and prestige he'd always wanted, and he'd passed all of that on to his son.
The door of the lab opened, pulling him out of his memories. Dr Richard barely spared the unconscious man a glance as his assistants wheeled in the gurney, lowering it so they could roll the man onto it. They made quick work of strapping him down securely and wheeling him away.
"As we discussed?" Dr Richard clarified.
He nodded, crossing the room to retrieve the spare chips that he had inspected not a month before. He selected one, which he handed to Dr Richard and pocketed the rest.
"Make sure it's done discreetly and that he's returned none the wiser," he instructed, bringing up the app on his phone. A few screen presses later and the transfer of funds was complete.
"Of course," Dr Richard assured him once he had checked that his own account was now substantially healthier. "He won't know a thing about it, I've got the mobile theater right outside."
"Excellent."
"You know, that technology could do a lot of good in the world," Dr Richard said quietly, betraying his usual disregard for any kind of medical ethics or morals.
"It could also make me a lot of money."
"True, true, just remember my help with it when the time comes."
"I'll definitely take that into consideration," he replied, turning away and effectively dismissing the Doctor. Dr Richard took his cue and hurried after his assistants.
The man's computer system was pathetically easy to navigate, since he had left it unlocked, although he took it with him just in case. It would lead the man to believe that the theft of the equipment had been his prime objective, not the implantation of a control chip. Once safely hidden away it would be a simple enough task to reprogram his eye to better compensate for what he had lost. Sight loss was the least of his issues, the loss of power, now that was something he couldn't let slide.
He had some scores to settle and lessons to teach. Those that had abandoned him in his hour of need would soon know the full extent of the wrath he was about to unleash. His objective was simple, show those who had left him to die exactly how it felt to be helpless and alone.
Just as he heard their voices inside his head in the dark of the night, calling out to warn his brother of the impending danger, so he saw their faces on the television wherever he went. The great and powerful Jefferson Tracy, beloved by all, the heroic astronaut, the philanthropist, the head of Tracy Industries and the newly formed International Rescue. He, along with his sidekick, Lee Taylor and their ever present shadow, his own brother, Kyrano.
He touched his eye again, knowing that if he managed to take down the Tracy empire, every long, painful night, every backstreet deal, every double crossed associate, every sacrifice, would be worth it.
After transferring everything he needed, he yanked the hard drive out of its casing and tucked it into his pocket, a pathetically small thing for something that contained so much power. He'd heard of the young genius that had been moving up the ranks of Aeronautical and Aerospace engineering, made famous by his impressive work as the inventor of the T-Drive engine that was currently being fitted into the new prototype solar system exploration spaceship, the Zero-X.
He'd known that if he was to give up his inherited powers he would need something far more formidable with a longer range than he currently had. His gifts had been limited to the immediate vicinity, eye contact needed to hold, control and manipulate. Sacrifices had to be made, you had to think bigger and bolder to get anywhere in life. And he was about to blow up bigger than anyone had ever seen before.
-x-x-x
"Hey, Dr Mike!" the young boy greeted as he ran through the open door of the Mechanic's lab.
"Shhh, Matty, what have we told you, it's Dr Harman, it's not polite to call adults by their first name unless they say you can," the small boy's mother lectured.
"Everyone calls him Dr Mike," Matt huffed, crossing his arms. "Even the rest of the staff, so why can't I?"
"It's quite alright, Mrs Collins, Matt has my full permission," Mike assured her. "Although I do keep telling him that I'm not a medical doctor, not that that seems to matter to anyone."
"Doctor's have done all they could to save my boy," Mrs Collins said, "now we need a different kind of doctor to help him live his life again."
"Do you have it?" Matt practically bounced on the spot, far too excited to stay still.
"I do," Mike assured him.
"Thunderbird Three red?"
"As requested," Mike nodded. "I even sourced the exact paint that International Rescue uses."
"Really?"
"Really,' he promised.
Mike crossed over to the finished project shelves and pulled out a large protective case. Setting it on a wheeled trolly he pushed it over to the fitting chair that Matt was already climbing up onto.
"Here it is," Mike said, flipping open the case with much ceremony.
"Wow! That's awesome!" Matt grinned. "Mom, look how cool it is."
"It's very cool," his mother agreed.
"Is it really all mine?" Matt reached out to stroke the sleek red metal.
"Until you wear it out, it sure is," Mike joked. "Wanna try it on?"
"Hell yeah!"
"Matthew!" his mother snapped.
"Oops, sorry, Mom."
Mike hid his smile by turning away, busying himself with extracting the prosthetic arm from its foam padding.
Matt stuck out his arm, half of it missing from above the elbow, ready and waiting for the attachment of his new limb. Mike checked the inside of the arm's socket, making sure that all the muscle stimulating connectors were in full working order by touching them with a little probe sensor. Once he was satisfied that everything was working as it should be he touched a concealed button on the forearm. A little light flashed as the limb began to sync up to the implants that resided in the stump of what had once been Matt's right arm before a car accident a year ago had robbed him of it.
Working with the team of medical doctors at the Tracy Industries Applied Physics Laboratory Mike had helped them to develop the most advanced prosthetics technology in the world. They had worked from the ground up, building on the technology he had designed all those years ago for the Hood's eye, the sensors and the nerve stimulation, the muscle contractions and touch sensations, and had finally been able to use it to do some good in the world as he had always intended.
He might bitterly regret almost all of the work he had done while under the Hood's control, but he'd been working steadily ever since to repurpose as much as he could in a way that would help mankind rather than hindering it. He knew that it wasn't truly his fault that he'd fallen into the evil man's clutches, sponsorship was hard to come by and the offer of unlimited funding for a project that had the potential to make him enough money to pay back not only the Hood but the hospital for his little sister, Sarah's medical expenses, was too good to pass up. Like anything that seemed too good to be true, it had been, finding him indebted to a man that no one wanted to cross.
After the Tracy family had successfully rescued their patriarch he'd felt like a spare part on the island. He'd wanted to leave straight away,his part in the proceedings was done and he was free of the Hood, meaning he no longer had to stay away from his family out of fear for their lives. He'd packed the meagre belongings he'd accumulated and had requested a ride to the mainland but Sally and the brothers had insisted that he stay for a little longer, Jeff having requested to talk with him.
He hadn't known what to expect when he had been shown into the darkened lounge where the famous Jeff Tracy sat behind his desk like a king holding court. Eight years alone on a distant, isolated and barren space rock had done nothing to dampen Jeff's Dad-Radar and he had instantly demanded to know all about him and what his future plans were. Mike had gone from worrying that Jeff would hate him, blaming him for all the times he had put his sons lives in danger, to spilling his guts about his life, his mother and sister and the dreams he had had before The Hood had become involved in his life.
After hearing about his inventions and the technology he had created in order to do the Hood's bidding, it had been Jeff who had made the suggestion that he do something worthwhile with his research by joining Tracy Industries in their applied physics department. Jeff had become the kind of patron that the Hood had promised to be, encouraging, supportive and interested in his work not for his own benefit but that of the world.
"I'm going to have a superhero arm," Matt cheered as the light finished flashing, indicating that the syncing process had finished. After that it was a simple task, just holding the arm's socket up to the stump and allowing the small but powerful magnetic implants to lock it in place.
Once they had locked on, the sensors inside got to work, stimulating the nerves and muscles that had been rewired directly into the microchipped sensors that matched up perfectly with the ones that had been embedded under Matt's skin. It had been a relatively simple and noninvasive procedure achieved with just a few injections under the skin as a veterinarian would microchip a pet. It was something that could never have been possible before Mike and Brains' work with nanotechnology for the nerve wiring, trialed on Mike when Brains had freed him from the Hood's influence by deactivating the chip that had been implanted without his knowledge or permission. Mike could still remember the day that it had activated for the first time, the start of a nightmare that had gone on for far too long. But this, this was different, this wouldn't be a nightmare for Matty, it would be a dream come true.
"There, it's on."
"It is? I didn't feel a thing," Matt gasped. "Mom, Dr Mike was right, it didn't hurt at all."
"Just as I promised," Mike smiled, holding out his hand to his patient. "Hi, I'm Dr Mike, it's nice to meet you. Want to shake hands?"
Slowly, tentatively, as if afraid that he would do something wrong, Matt lifted his arm, his prosthetic outstretched. He maneuvered it carefully so that the open hand rested beside Mike's.
"Now, remember, it's just how we discussed, don't think about it too hard, just do as you would with your left arm, just act as if you're already doing it and you will."
Matt nodded, his face set in a mask of deep concentration as he ignored all Mike's advice and focused on the task. Slowly, a little haltingly, but smooth enough for a first time user, the fingers of the smaller hand curled around Mike's.
Matt's face broke out into the biggest of grins as Mike solemnly shook his hand.
"I did it," the shock and awe was plain to hear in his voice.
"Yes you did," Mike agreed.
"I can really feel it."
A choked sob came from the direction of Mrs Collins but it was a happy sound, one full of wonder at what her son had just done.
This was what made everything worth it. All the horrible acts he'd been forced to commit, all the times that he had been unable to control his own body, all the pain he had suffered, everything had come full circle. He was free now, free to make his own choices and free to continue to atone for his part, however unwillingly, in the Hood's plans.
And, as he waved goodbye to Matt and his mom, passing them on to his colleagues in the lab across the corridor where they would continue to teach him how to use his new limb and to monitor the readouts, Mike realised that he wouldn't change a thing, he was on the right path.