The nightmares had stopped hours ago, but their echo still clung to him like smoke. His body had eventually shut down in the chair, head tilted back, eyes red from crying. When morning came, he didn't wake so much as restart.
A breath. A reset. The tears had dried to salt; the fear had calcified into logic. There was no room left for weakness—only correction.
Ethan's eyes opened; there was no alarm, no sound—just his internal clock, hyper-optimized. He sat up without hesitation, already layering mental checklists against the day.
His computer was already booted from the night before, command lines blinking like digital heartbeat monitors. Ethan skimmed his systems: crypto wallets, burner email threads, ghost vendor chains, courier tracking maps. Everything was in motion.
Three packages en route. Two flagged for possible rerouting.
A minor network intrusion ping on Alias 03's server cache—likely an automated sweep, already scrubbed by his mirroring system.
And over two hundred logs were generated overnight by his dummy browsing bots, all feeding into the cover stories of six constructed lives.
He exhaled through his nose. "Still holding."
But barely. His operations, no matter how seamless, relied on the weakest principle in digital defense: obscurity. One exposure, one investigative deep dive at this stage, and the whole web would unravel.
He tapped a fresh terminal.
Begin contingency pathing:
[Alias Detachment Protocol A]
[Safehouse Burnout Paths 1–3]
He mapped out timed deletions, self-executing file corruptions, remote lockdowns for each safehouse shell, and black-site cash-out strategies that would liquidate all crypto into gold and untraceable bearer bonds. It would take thirty-six hours minimum, maybe twenty-four with adrenaline.
"Too long," he muttered. "Trim redundancies on Alias 04's backup nodes."
He moved on.
By 9:00 a.m., Ethan was finalizing a message to the real-estate attorney.
He'd spent the last few days searching and had selected the Newark print shop—barely standing, disused, but with old wiring, layered foundation, and just enough square footage to build a controlled perimeter.
More importantly, it was an auction listing—not a private deal—meaning he could funnel it through legal channels with a little creative maneuvering.
He drafted the message under Samuel Rourke's name:
Hello,
I recently placed a bid on a distressed commercial property in Newark (listing ID 713Z74) under my legal LLC, Rourke Systems. I am currently out of the country and would like to retain your services to finalize the acquisition, file the appropriate forms, and manage document transfer. I'll pay your retainer in crypto upon confirmation.
He attached a dummy tax number, a verified shell-company registration, and a burner contact line. Within the hour, the lawyer responded—professional, distant, interested. They quoted him a fee, and he paid within seconds using a layered crypto transfer run through three mixers and a privacy-coin swap.
By noon, the legal handoff had begun.
After lunch—barely touched—Ethan pulled up architectural plans for the old print shop.
He modeled three escape routes, a false utility access tunnel, and a hidden floor hatch in what used to be the paper-loading dock. He even mapped where the generator and Faraday cage would go in the sublevel.
Each line was clean, clinical, and logical.
But as he zoomed out and looked at the full layout overlaid with threat assessments and internal access tiers, a chill threaded his spine.
It looked less like a refuge and more like a war bunker—something to keep the world out and the ghosts in. Maybe that was the point. Every plan he drew was another way to bury the boy who'd once frozen in a hallway full of screams.
He played around with a copy of the floor plan without his addition, leaving the design bare, but he changed up the floor plan. He also spent some time looking up construction companies so the renovation could start as soon as the deed was placed under his alias name.
By late afternoon, Ethan leaned back in the creaky hotel chair, eyes red from too much screen time, mind still racing.
He'd seen Nisanti's dimension and drawn the seal that banished a demon. Magic and lack of ability to defend himself were clearly his weaknesses right now. If he had been alone in that situation, he would either be possessed or dead.
What he was doing meant nothing if he couldn't survive unexpected situations. Of which, in the 616 Marvel universe, there were a near infinite number of unexpected situations to negative situations.
He stood, stretched, and stared at the window. The city hummed in the distance.
He opened a new note.
Operation GHOST MIRROR
Purpose: Global identity collapse contingency.
Trigger: Confirmation of identity breach or direct tail.
Protocols:
– Alias cascade deletion
– Burn safehouses
– Contact Frost (only after assuring I can make her an ally)
He stopped typing.
Emma Frost.
He still hadn't ruled her out as a last resort.
But after calming down his mind and thinking it through, Ethan realized that now was not the time.
At the very least, not until the first bunker was ready. Ethan understood that having a place to escape or let his parents be able to escape to was the highest priority right now.
He shut the laptop and walked to the kitchenette, pouring a glass of water.
He pressed the glass to his forehead, the chill grounding him. "I need to calm down, or I'll end up making a mistake I can't recover from," he muttered.
The mask would have to come back on tomorrow—Sunday meant playing the part again.
And the act of Ethan Kane—normal student, hidden genius, concerned son—would have to resume.
The sun crept higher on Sunday, burning through clouds like slow judgment. Ethan sat at the breakfast table, the smell of eggs and toast grounding him in a domestic calm that didn't belong.
His parents chatted lightly—his mom recounting a patient's minor tantrum at work, his dad mentioning a busted AC unit in the break room. The mundane swirl of adult life.
And then:
"School starts again tomorrow," his mom said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "We already called in last week, but… it's time to ease back in. However, if you don't feel like you can, let me know, sweetie. I don't want to push you or worse yet, force you to push yourself."
Ethan nodded, eyes steady. "Right. I'm sure I'll be fine…mom."
"You sure you're okay?" his dad asked. "No nightmares, no flashes, nothing you need to talk about? We can schedule a therapist if you need it, son."
The word therapist made his stomach tighten; he didn't need someone digging into places he'd barely just managed to seal shut. His jaw tightened for half a second—reflex, memory—but his smile didn't break. "No, I'm fine, and if anything feels off, I'll let you guys know."
After breakfast, he returned to his laptop and began hacking the school system. His goal wasn't to change his grades—it was to compile a record of everyone who'd most likely interacted with "Ethan Kane" over the past four years.
Teachers. Classmates. Coaches. Office staff. He even pulled archived security footage and previous class rosters to trace peripheral contacts.
Names poured in: 83 high-relevance individuals. 41 medium. 107 low.
Many had moved. Some he could eliminate immediately. Others—especially those in recurring contact—would need more delicate attention, should he ever initiate a memory-wipe operation.
He encrypted the list and set it aside.
By noon, he received the notification that one of his deliveries would arrive via a drone drop.
A nondescript lunch delivery arrived at a park bench three blocks from his hotel. Inside the bag, beneath the sandwich and chips, was a disguised RF scanner embedded in an old phone case.
He walked the area slowly, dressed in a way to hide his identity. After making sure he wasn't being followed, Ethan made his way to a camera dead zone. He wished he could hack and disable the cameras for a few minutes, but that was hard to do with just a phone that he hadn't even jail-broken to make more useful.
Holding the modified device in one pocket, he left the dead zone and walked to the hotel where he was staying temporarily. The readings were light but persistent—cellular bleed, passive Wi-Fi sweeps, and minor drone frequencies.
Conclusion: The hotel zone wasn't secure, but the information leak wasn't too bad. A quick cleanup would be enough to hide his future actions. The safehouse would need double-layered shielding—Faraday mesh, sound baffling, and RF foam panels along core walls.
Ethan spent the afternoon drafting a server-stack design that would mimic old building circuits. The system would run blind—no internet, only pulse-verified modules. Detection would be nearly impossible if placed correctly.
At 5:17 p.m., his phone buzzed.
Felicia: "Hey, this is Ethan, right? I got your number from Paige. You free? We need to talk now."
Ethan's response was immediate. "Sure, I'll see you in half an hour. Café on 12th and Murray."
The café was poorly lit, with dead spots for both cell reception and cameras. Ethan had picked it days ago as a potential meeting point for sensitive exchanges.
Felicia wore dark sunglasses and a black trench coat—half costume, half habit. She sipped something iced and too sugary for her usual taste.
Ethan ordered a coffee and sat across from her."Good morning, Mrs. Harper. Might I ask what you need from me?"
She didn't waste time.
"Stop with the act. I've been watching you and that girl Amy. I've noticed, unlike the others, there's something wrong with you; you're way too calm," she said, no preamble. "Amy's still seeing images and has trouble sleeping. Even Paige, who seems to have had power for quite a while now, still flinches at locker slams. You? You're pretending while doing quite a lot."
Ethan met her stare. "So, you've been following me. I didn't notice. Maybe I just processed things differently. I don't believe that's a crime, Mrs. Harper."
"Stop with the bullshit. I don't think a kid who moves around nearly half a million in crypto, creates a fake identity, and buys a building is really worried about nightmares. You're pretending to need time off."
Silence settled between them. Ethan took a slow sip, gathering his expression into something weary but genuine.
"I had to act like I was okay, so my parents wouldn't freak out," he said. "They've been wrecked, as you've seen since you're watching me. I don't want to worry them more than I have to. So yeah, I'm playing the role while not really caring. As for why—it's just the way I am. The other stuff is personal, and I don't feel the need to elaborate as to why or how I managed to do those things. We're not that close for me to reveal my secrets."
Felicia studied him as she pulled out a green stone. "True. I received an item from Spider and it's supposed to glow if you're possessed by a demon. So it doesn't look like you're possessed."
Ethan smiled faintly. "Well, I'm glad to know that. So you wanted to check if any of us suffered any side effects. That's nice of you, Mrs. Harper—or should I say, Mrs. Hardy."
She leaned forward, close enough for only him to hear. "Oh, so you know who I am. I'm not too surprised seeing your ability to hack. You're hiding quite a lot, kid. I don't know what you're planning, but I don't plan on getting involved. Consider it professional courtesy."
He didn't blink. "Really. If you're curious, I can tell you. And if you're really worried… maybe we should get to know each other better. Learn more about each other. You see, I lack friends or people I can rely on. If you were to form such a relationship, I wouldn't mind filling you in on those details."
Felicia paused. "You're a bit too young to be hitting on me, kid, y'know."
"Wasn't trying to. Just saying—trust has to start somewhere. I think we can help each other. I'm assuming you also believe that, which is why you went out of your way to let me know that you've been watching me and that you know what I've been up to. You need something from me, and everything before this was just a way to gauge how difficult it would be to get me to agree."
He held her gaze, the faint reflection of his own tired eyes flickering in her sunglasses—two individuals who always wore masks, each one a mirror the other couldn't quite see through.