Desperation fell over Rilley like a bucket of ice-cold water. He could no longer stop. He had to find a way out. Some method that would allow him to find what he had been searching for. To hell with everything else—he clenched his teeth and contacted a famous trafficker in exotic materials: Ulysses Klaw, the very man who was an enemy of Wakanda, bound to it by irreconcilable hatred.
Rilley fully understood the risks of dealing with a man like that. Not because Klaw himself would cause him trouble—so long as he paid, Klaw would behave with perfect courtesy. The real problem lay with the Wakandan royal family. If they somehow discovered he had made deals to acquire stolen vibranium, they would not take it kindly.
But at that point, Rilley could not have cared less. If a single transaction was enough to burn that bridge forever, then he would take all the vibranium Ulysses could sell him. Money was not an issue. Even if what he had was not enough, his father could still cover the rest. That amount of money was no more than a drop of water in the ocean.
In any case, Rilley considered it nearly impossible to make legitimate deals with Wakanda. In Marvel comics, that nation often presented itself as serene, justifying its isolation with some vague sense of responsibility, refusing to open itself to the world or reveal the full extent of its advanced technology. But Rilley understood that, deep down, what truly lived in their hearts was arrogance.
An arrogance born from their technological superiority. They sneered at the outside world, letting others believe they were nothing more than a barely civilized little African nation, when in truth they possessed enough technology to stand as a threat even to the world's great powers.
Even if the current king of Wakanda were to learn of his dealings and attempt to cause trouble for him, Rilley would not hesitate to respond by unleashing the power of an American superpower. He would expose the secret of Wakanda's advanced technology.
The United States government was not entirely ignorant of that small nation's methods, but it still failed to grasp the true extent of Wakanda's advantages, which led it to underestimate them without realizing it. If Rilley brought everything into the light, he was certain that, given the way the American government had acted in recent years, the response would be decisive.
He did not settle for the vibranium reserves Klaw had on hand. He also bought adamantium and carbonadium, along with their respective chemical formulas. In the case of the latter two, however, he managed to obtain only incomplete recipes, though they were still useful from a research standpoint.
In less than a week, the entire shipment had arrived at his laboratory. The scale of the purchase was enough for Klaw to regard him as one of his VIP clients, so he did not dare cause any delays in delivery.
With renewed motivation, Rilley threw himself back into work. Throughout his tests and experiments, he obtained valuable data on material reinforcement and, in addition, developed his own formulas for new synthetic materials by combining common, easily obtained elements with rare, high-cost materials. For the time being, all of that remained preliminary knowledge. It was not yet possible to manufacture those synthetic materials, but the moment he had sufficient technology at his disposal, he could begin production.
Even so, his true objective remained out of reach. After accumulating so many failures, Rilley began to contemplate riskier alternatives. If possible, he wanted to experiment with other sources of electromagnetic radiation, including gamma-radiation generators. Naturally, he intended to do so under extremely strict safety measures to avoid any unforeseen accidents.
One day, the pressure he placed upon himself became so great that his reason shut down completely. For the first time, he seriously considered abandoning experiments with inert materials.
"What would happen if I simply introduced biological matter and observed its behavior?" he asked himself in the middle of that confusion, allowing himself to be dragged along by increasingly extreme ideas. He even seriously considered cutting a piece of tissue from his own body to run tests.
Unable to see any other path forward, Rilley finally convinced himself that, at times, even the most absurd ideas could lead to an answer, even if he was not entirely certain. So he acted. The first thing he introduced was a small piece of skin, extracted with the help of medical robots from surface tissue, where cellular activity was relatively low.
That was not, at least in Rilley's mind, a mere passing attack of madness. He needed to think of it that way so he would not burden himself with unnecessary doubts. He saw it as just another alternative among many. Better to test every available option than to continue clinging to ideas that, instead of moving him forward, only dragged him into an endless spiral of uncertainty. For that same reason, he even began to seriously consider studying, beyond the fundamentals, how to control the electromagnetic radiation of gamma rays, despite his reluctance and the fear that type of genetic catalyst still inspired in him.
And then, in the midst of all that uncertainty, a flash of light seemed to illuminate the darkness in which Rilley had been submerged. The frequency meters detected unusual phenomena inside the collider itself: a unique signature, one that had never been recorded in the thousands of attempts he had made over the past several years.
That phenomenon lasted only a few seconds, but it was more than enough.
To Rilley, it felt like being rescued just as he was about to drown. Without deeper analysis, it was still impossible to know whether that was truly what he had been searching for all this time. Even so, after quickly comparing the graphs obtained from the measurement of that phenomenon with the ones previously recorded for cosmic and gamma radiation, he noticed a similar pattern—yet one endowed with a singularity all its own, distinct and unrepeatable when compared to the other particles.
The first sample had been nothing more than a fragment of epidermis. He was not expecting extraordinary results, only a signal, or perhaps some kind of strange change. His main intention was simply to see whether some unusual phenomenon might produce any effect at all, however slight the cellular alteration might be.
As a result, the sample collapsed within seconds, blackened by a silent degradation that looked neither like burning nor ordinary radiation exposure. And yet, just before it disintegrated completely, the frequency meter managed to register a clean pulse. It was an unexpected result, born from an attempt in which no hope had remained. Something so crude—something that even bordered on stupidity—had finally yielded an answer. It was barely a clue, but at least it was connected to the direction of the project, unlike the countless failures he had accumulated over the years.
That tiny success stirred him far more than it should have. It felt as though he had suddenly slapped himself awake from a long stupor.
He continued escalating his tests.
The second round was less clean. This time he did not work with surface tissue, but with matter that still retained activity. Blood responded with unexpected violence. It did not burn, nor did it visibly decompose. It simply seemed to lose cohesion, as though something inside it had been silently drained away. The sensors, however, showed the opposite. As the sample diminished, a strange reaction occurred. The frequencies rose—erratic at first, then almost harmonic. They did not last long, certainly. Even so, he was finally able to confirm something: blood attracted the phenomenon, but could not retain it. It endured only a few seconds longer than the skin tissue he had used before.
For days, he tried to convince himself that it would be enough to adjust the machine. More energy, less energy, a different phase, a different pulse. Nothing seemed to alter the underlying pattern. The most intense response still appeared only when active biological matter was present, and even then it remained incomplete, unstable, and fleeting. Skin initiated contact. Blood accelerated it. But neither could sustain it. After a long period of reflection, the situation became obvious. It seemed a tissue with higher biological density or greater cellular activity was required.
After using biological tissue from his own body, he also tried samples from other people and several animals. The results were not what he had expected. There seemed to be something that distinguished one individual from another. All biological tissue appeared capable of manifesting the phenomenon, but there was a difference in how long it lasted and in the intensity of the detectable signature.
Then a question surfaced in his mind: what part of the body contained the highest biological activity and the most complex composition?
The answer came clearly and immediately.
Bone marrow. Because it contained extremely high cellular activity, constant renewal, and a biological composition far richer than blood or skin.
Once he had his answer, he had no intention of waiting any longer. With the sample within reach of his own hand, postponing the inevitable would be meaningless. He immediately programmed the procedure into the medical robots and lay down on the cold iron table. The table was rigid and unadorned, because Rilley believed that comfort, in certain experimental procedures, was entirely unnecessary.
Rilley remained motionless on the table, caught somewhere between calm and impatience. He had never undergone this kind of procedure before, so he had no idea what would happen, but there was no use in acting afraid.
Above him, the medical arms descended—slowly, steadily, with absolute precision in every movement. In situations like this, robots were highly reliable. There was no hesitation, no moral restraint, no internal conflict of the sort humans so often allowed themselves. Rilley felt completely secure.
There were no muffled breaths behind a surgical mask, no reassuring words meant to calm him. Only the soft hum of servomotors, optical sensors adjusting distances, and a series of lights reflecting off the sterilized metal of the instruments.
The entire laboratory operated with extraordinary precision, following a strict logic, perfectly obedient to the commands that had already been given. Once the automatic calibration was complete, the process began. One of the robotic arms came to a stop above the back of his pelvis. Meanwhile, another passed over the area with a transparent antiseptic so cold it left a damp sensation on his skin, one that vanished almost immediately beneath the chill air of the room.
Rilley kept his eyes fixed on some point on the ceiling, holding his breath a little, feeling a faint nervousness over what was about to come and what sensations would follow. Silence seemed to settle over the room, making it easy to hear the soft adjustments of the mechanisms as they prepared the local anesthetic.
The first prick was brief. It felt like a small needle that had barely touched him. It reminded him of the first vaccine he had received in his previous life. It had happened so quickly that everything was over almost before he realized it. The pain of that needle had never really arrived.
But then, all at once, his expression changed abruptly.
The anesthetic injection went deeper, and with it came a sharp burning pain. It hurt enough to make him doubt whether it was anesthetic at all, or whether the machine had made some mistake and was injecting him with some kind of acidic fluid.
After the anesthetic had been applied, the medical arms did not rush to continue the procedure. They checked sensitivity, recalibrated the depth, and confirmed their trajectories. Rilley felt a slight numbness. Little by little, it was as though his body were drifting away from him.
When the main instrument descended, he did not feel a clean incision, but rather a pressure against his skin—focused, firm, concentrated. Soon afterward came a dull discomfort that seemed to rise from beneath the numbed flesh and press into the structure of the bone itself.
His fingers tensed slightly against the table. The strange sensation made him clench his teeth a little. His breathing turned shallow, and he slowly released the breath he had been holding.
The robots continued.
The sensation changed when the incision went deeper.
A wave of discomfort ran through him, and he found himself thinking how invasive and unpleasant this medical procedure was—one he had known absolutely nothing about before being forced to experience it firsthand. If it already produced this much pain with anesthesia, he could not imagine how much worse it would have been without it.
Trying to relax his muscles, he put into practice the breathing exercises he had casually learned during the yoga classes he used to accompany his mother to. He hoped this was the worst part. He hoped it would all be over soon.
But he quickly realized he had been completely wrong.
The part that had already caused him discomfort and pain was only the beginning. In truth, it had been the gentlest part so far.
The extraction was the hardest part.
When the robots began the extraction, the pain stopped being a vague pressure and became something else entirely—something deep and unpleasantly sharp, like an internal yank, far too unnatural, as though something were being torn out of him in a brutally barbaric way.
That was when his throat tightened. It felt as though he wanted to scream, yet at the same time he could not quite find the air.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, it began to recede.
The medical arms withdrew the instrument with the same precision with which they had entered. Another arm applied exact compression to the point of entry.
The bandage was placed with absolute neatness, as though that small stain and the growing discomfort were no more than a minor detail within the laboratory's impeccable order.
Rilley remained lying there for a few seconds longer, feeling the pain gradually transform into a deep heaviness in his hip, a pulsating throb hidden beneath the anesthesia. It was no longer the sharp peak of the aspiration, but a lingering trace, an uncomfortable presence that would stay with him when he sat down, when he stood up, and even when he took his first few steps.
He truly hoped this would be the last time. He had no desire whatsoever to repeat the process.
The sample was already out.
Now it was only a matter of time before it was used in the experiment and confirmed a certain suspicion.