The first week of term ended. The academy, in its staggering wealth and logistical precision, allowed students to go home every weekend if they wished. For those who lived out of state, they were issued two flight vouchers per week—a small courtesy in an institution funded by global defense budgets. Every student in the Responder track was on a full-ride scholarship; tuition, equipment, even room and board were non-issues. The only price they would ever pay was the one extracted by the training itself.

  Theo decided to go home.

  He pushed open the familiar front door to his house, a wave of weekend quiet washing over him. “Dad, I’m home.”

  A strange smell hit him immediately—dry, mineral, oddly clean. Cement? He frowned. Why would I smell cement in the hallway?

  He followed the sound of low voices and the soft clink of glass into the living room.

  And froze.

  His father and Stupendous sat in the worn armchairs, drinks in hand, leaning toward each other in the middle of a shared laugh. The air between them was easy, relaxed. It was the most surreal sight Theo had ever witnessed.

  “Uh,” Theo managed, his bag slipping from his shoulder. “What’s going on?”

  Mr. Griffin looked up, his face—usually drawn with a quiet, perpetual strain—was open, lit with a warmth Theo hadn’t seen in years. “Theo! Welcome home!”

  Stupendous turned his massive head, a familiar, evaluating gleam in his eye. “My boy. How was your first week?”

  Theo stepped further into the room, his mind scrambling to process. “It was… intense. I learned a lot.” As he spoke, he became aware of a profound absence. The constant, low-frequency hum that had vibrated through the house since his earliest memory—the sound of the industrial suppressor clamped to his father’s threacho—was gone. The silence it left behind was deafening.

  “Dad,” he said, his voice tight. “Are you okay? That humming sound…”

  Mr. Griffin stood up, and for the first time, Theo saw him move without the slightest hitch of pain, without the unconscious bracing against the machine’s weight. “I’m more than okay, Theo. Look at this.”

  He stretched out his hand, palm up. His fingers tensed, and from the air itself, a fine, grey powder coalesced. It swirled, compacted, and solidified with a soft crunch into a perfect, miniature cube of solid cement, resting lightly on his palm.

  Theo stared, his breath catching.

  “Amazing, right?” His father’s voice was thick with emotion. “Stupendous did it for me.”

  Theo’s eyes snapped to the hero. “You did? I thought it was impossible to remove.”

  “It isn’t,” Stupendous said, his tone matter-of-fact. “The dampener is a Class-4 industrial regulator. People just don’t have the means, or the clearance, to remove one without killing the host. I do.”

  Mr. Griffin closed his fingers around the cement cube, and it crumbled back to dust, vanishing. “I can finally apply to the construction firm I always wanted to,” he said, the words tumbling out with hopeful urgency. “The one that specializes in rapid, Signature-assisted civic repair. We can finally… we can finally get a better life.”

  A hot pressure built behind Theo’s eyes. A lifetime of quiet struggle, of muted hopes and medical appointments, seemed to lift from the room all at once.

  Stupendous pointed a thick finger at him. “You better not cry.”

  Theo didn’t listen. He crossed the room in two strides and hugged his father, burying his face in the man’s shoulder. He cried—silent, shaking tears of relief he hadn’t known he was holding. His father held him tightly, one hand cradling the back of his head.

  Over Theo’s shoulder, Stupendous watched, his expression unreadable. He gave a slight, almost imperceptible shake of his head. I think I’ll have to beat that softness out of him, he thought, not with cruelty, but with the cold calculus of a man who knew what the world required to survive it.

  By the time Theo was born, the dampener had already been fused to his father’s Threacho. He had never known his father as anything but suppressed. Until now.

  ---

  A while later, Theo found himself standing on the flat, tar-papered roof of their apartment building. The city spread out below, a constellation of evening lights. Stupendous stood at the precipice, a silhouette against the bruised purple of the twilight sky, his hands planted on his hips.

  Theo stood a few paces behind, watching the hero’s immense, immovable back.

  “Theodore,” Stupendous said, his voice a low rumble that carried easily in the still air. He didn’t turn around. “Tell me. What is wrong with this world?”

  The question landed like a stone dropped into a well. It came from nowhere, context-less and profound.

  But Theo knew. Stupendous was serious.

  Theo looked down at his worn sneakers against the tar paper and kicked a loose pebble. He shrugged.

  “What’s wrong with the world? It sucks. The monsters are bad enough, but now regular people have superpowers and just… suck worse.”

  Stupendous didn’t turn, but his silhouette seemed to solidify against the twilight. “You are right,” he said, his voice a low, resonant rumble. “This world is a mess. Eighty years ago we were powerless and at the brink of extinction. Now we have the power to defend ourselves, to fight back… and yet, our own people stand in the way.”

  He brought his massive fists up before his face, clenching them until the knuckles popped like muffled gunshots.

  “This should be the time all of humanity stands together. Setting aside every petty difference just to survive. But we humans… I don’t understand us. Why is it so hard to work together for the greater good? Responders risk their lives every day and night to protect this world. And Augments spend every waking moment doing everything in their power to watch it burn.”

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  He finally turned. The last of the sunset caught the hard planes of his face, and a deep, resonant hum vibrated from the center of his chest—the sound of Turbo, awake and listening.

  “So, my boy, understand this: we are not just fighting monsters. To survive, we must also fight our own people. Defending our world from the alien threat… and purging all those who seek humanity’s ruin. That is the purpose of Turbo. That is the purpose of us.”

  Theo felt something cold and heavy settle in his gut. I always knew there were criminals with powers—bullies and thieves scaled up to terrifying proportions. But to want humanity’s demise? They were human, too. What could they possibly have to gain?

  Before he could voice the thought, Stupendous’s severe demeanor vanished. The grim prophet was gone, replaced by the relentless coach. He dropped into a fighting stance and began throwing sharp, precise jabs into the empty air, each punch cracking like a whip.

  “Now! Fire up Turbo! Let me see how much you can output now!”

  Theo blinked, his philosophical dread shattered by the sudden, physical demand.

  He switched up fast, he thought, a wave of familiar anxiety mixing with adrenaline. He took a breath, focused on the humming in his own chest, and hoped it would be enough.

  Theo closed his eyes. A low hum, like a tuning fork struck against his sternum, began to resonate in his chest. A faint, golden tracery—like circuitry woven just beneath the skin—glowed to life across his arms and neck, pulsing in time with the building frequency.

  Stupendous watched, then pulled a sleek pair of opaque glasses from his belt and put them on. Through the specialized lenses, he could see the data he needed: Theo’s Turbo Output. A digital readout in his periphery ticked upward—1… 2… 3… 4… and settled at a steady, shimmering 5.

  “You’re holding at five Bouts already,” Stupendous said, a note of approval in his gravelly voice. “Impressive. How long can you sustain that?”

  Theo’s eyes were still shut, his brow furrowed in concentration. “I don’t know. Maybe a couple of minutes.”

  “You’ve done well,” Stupendous said, removing the glasses. “Now I’m going to teach you how to properly train Turbo. Keep that output at five. For one hour.”

  Theo’s eyes snapped open, the golden light flickering. “What?”

  “Your body must learn to acclimate to the strain,” Stupendous explained, his tone leaving no room for debate. “Think of it like any other muscle. It must wear, tear, and rebuild stronger—with enough fuel and rest. Every person has a biological ceiling. That’s why a man who’s trained for twenty years still can’t deadlift a car. Normal humans can’t even access one hundred percent of their own strength—it’s a subconscious limiter the brain imposes to keep the body from shattering itself.”

  He took a step closer, his shadow engulfing Theo.

  “What Turbo does is remove that limiter. That’s why it hurts you. Your duty now is to force your body to evolve, to rebuild itself strong enough to withstand what Turbo demands of it. Your ceiling is now… theoretical. You’ll start at five Bouts. Then six. Then seven. You will raise it until your flesh can match your potential.”

  Without another word, Stupendous turned and leapt from the roof’s edge, vanishing into the dusk.

  Theo didn’t open his eyes again. He focused on the hum in his chest, on the fivefold amplification of his own life force coursing through him. He felt every heartbeat as a deep, resonant drum, every breath as a controlled burn. The world outside his concentration faded to a distant murmur.

  Time lost meaning.

  One hour passed without him realizing it. He was drenched in sweat, his muscles trembling with a deep, metabolic fatigue, but he was still standing, the golden light still steadily pulsing under his skin.

  Then he heard a familiar, rumbling laugh.

  He opened his eyes.

  Stupendous was reclined in a striped hammock chair that hadn’t been there before, gently swaying. He was back to his civilian size, wearing a loose tank top and shorts. A bag of chips rested in his lap, and a portable television sat on a small folding table beside him, playing an action movie.

  Theo blinked, his Turbo-focus shattered by the sheer absurdity. “What the—? When did you bring all this?”

  Stupendous crunched a chip. His voice was back to its normal, slightly wheezy register. “About an hour ago.”

  “Why didn’t I hear anything?”

  “Because I’m Stupendous.”

  Theo’s mind reeled. Where did he even plug in the TV? He turned and saw it—a compact, silent-running gasoline generator humming softly near the roof access door, a thick extension cord snaking across the tar paper.

  “You brought a generator?” Theo said, incredulous. “And an extension cord?”

  “Is that a problem?” Stupendous said, not taking his eyes off the screen. “I like my entertainment.”

  In his moment of stunned distraction, Theo’s concentration broke. The golden tracery under his skin vanished. The profound hum in his chest ceased.

  The effect on Stupendous was instantaneous. The man in the hammock seemed to inflate, his muscles swelling, his frame expanding back to his full, heroic enormity. He rose from the chair in a single, terrifying motion, his voice booming across the rooftop with enough force to make the TV screen flicker.

  “WHO TOLD YOU TO STOP?”

  Theo startled, his heart hammering against his ribs. “S-sorry, sir!”

  “Don’t be sorry. Be on!”

  The golden light flared back to life under Theo’s skin, the hum returning, shaky but determined. Stupendous watched for a long moment, then—satisfied—shrank back down to his civilian size, settled into his hammock, and grabbed another chip.

  The lesson was far from over.

  To Be Continued...