Chapter 3: Phasing Through Pain: Ghost's Recruitment
Adam's first success in Afghanistan was a vital confidence boost, but it also hammered home the stark reality of his isolation. This was a vast, unpredictable, and often brutal world, and to truly thrive in it, to build something beyond mere survival, he needed allies. He needed people who understood the System's logic, or at least, people desperate enough to accept it. The System, with its recruitment function, provided the blueprint. His first target was Ava Starr, codenamed Ghost. In the canonical timeline, her tragic origin story occurred much later, but here, in this reimagined narrative, the System's meticulous database pinpointed her as already suffering from her crippling molecular instability, a casualty of a botched lab experiment that had left her a fleeting, agonizing phantom. Her constant pain, her profound sense of being adrift, was a beacon of "morally grey" potential. She was a woman who would do anything for a cure, a perfect candidate for the System's amoral benevolence.
Tracking her was surprisingly easy with his Haki. He could feel her fractured essence, a shimmering, unstable aura that pulsed with suffering, constantly shifting between states of being. He found her hiding in a dilapidated warehouse on the industrial outskirts of New York, a place where the pervasive grit and grime of the city could mask her unintentional phasing, where she could be unseen and utterly alone. The air inside was cold, carrying the faint metallic tang of old machinery and the faint, acrid smell of ozone from her uncontrolled powers. The moment he stepped inside, a desperate blur of motion, her form flickered through a rusted steel beam, her agony palpable even to his Haki. She gasped, solidifying briefly, her eyes wide, haunted pools of pain in a face that was too pale.
"Ava Starr," he said, his voice calm and even, devoid of any threat. "I know what's happening to you."
Her form flickered back into solid matter, her eyes narrowing with a mixture of fear, suspicion, and a sliver of desperate hope. Her body trembled, a constant internal war. "Who are you? How do you know me?" Her voice was raspy, unused to extended conversation, laced with a weariness that spoke of years of suffering.
He didn't answer directly. Instead, he simply activated the recruitment function. A new interface, sleek and ethereal, this one for her eyes only, flickered into existence in her mind's eye, a stark contrast to the grimy reality of the warehouse.
RECRUITMENTPROTOCOL:INITIATEDTARGET:AVASTARRWishoffered:Apermanent,stablecureforhermolecularinstability.Nocost.
Ava's eyes widened further, fixed on the words that promised the impossible. The interface was clear, the promise breathtakingly simple. She stared at him, her form flickering with renewed desperation, a palpable tremor running through her. A permanent cure. No cost. It was a lifeline she hadn't dared to dream of, a whispered promise in the dark. "A cure? You… you can cure me?" Her voice was barely a whisper, a fragile plea.
"The System can," Adam explained, his voice losing its calm edge and adopting an overly dramatic tone, a hint of his old, sarcastic self breaking through. He knew he needed to make this compelling. "It's a... a cosmic entity. Morally ambiguous, a bit of a stickler for rules, but it can grant wishes. No matter the cost for free. This one, your cure, is a freebie, a recruitment bonus. All you have to do is join. Become part of its… grand plan, if you will."
Ava's skepticism was a tangible force, a deep-seated distrust honed by years of being experimented on, of being seen as a problem to be solved, not a person to be helped. But it warred fiercely with her profound desperation. Her life was a constant, debilitating battle against her own body, a continuous, agonizing disintegration. This was her only way out, the only light in her long, dark tunnel. She raised an eyebrow at his flamboyant speech, a flicker of her old, sharp personality showing through the pain that still twisted her features.
"A cosmic entity? What, is it a genie in a bottle?" she asked, a sardonic note, thin but present, in her voice. "And what does it want with a broken thing like me?"
"Something like that," Adam said with a shrug, a small, knowing smile playing on his lips. "Except it doesn't give you three wishes, and it has a very specific, shall we say, unique sense of right and wrong. It's all about the grey. No pure good, no pure evil. Just... profit. And purpose. For it, and for you, if you accept." He watched as her internal battle raged, her mind a storm of conflicting emotions and desperate calculations. Her desperate need for a cure, a life free from constant suffering, was winning against her logical suspicion. He knew she would say yes. She had to. The pain was too great, the hope too bright to ignore.
"What's the catch, really?" she finally asked, her voice barely a whisper, her form phasing slightly, betraying her profound anxiety. "Nothing is free."
"The catch is, you work for the System," Adam said, his tone softening, losing the dramatics. "You contribute to its goals. And sometimes, if you have a genuinely good thought, or a really evil one, it zaps you." He gave a small, apologetic grimace, gesturing vaguely at his hand where he'd felt the phantom twitch. "Nothing serious. Just… an educational shock. A gentle reminder to stay in the grey zone."
Ava stared at him for a long moment, her eyes searching his face, trying to discern the truth in his bizarre offer. Then, her gaze settled on the glowing words of the recruitment interface, the promise of a cure. The thought of a life without constant, debilitating pain, of being solid, of simply existing without the constant threat of molecular dispersion, was too powerful to ignore. The alternative was a slow, agonizing death. "Fine," she said, her voice shaking with emotion, a fragile hope blossoming in her chest. "I'm in. Just… cure me."