The Price of the Future (Part 1).

Nick opened his eyes and closed them again, the light in the room was not bright, but his eyesight was somehow different. The first second he regained consciousness, he realized that something was wrong with his body. It seemed to have become heavier and felt like it did not belong to him.

The young man opened his eyes and looked around. There was nothing in his field of vision except an empty white wall. He got up with difficulty and sat on the bed.

Looking around, he realized that the room where he was being held was completely empty, with the exception of the bed and the chair standing next to it.

There was a glass of water on the chair. The guy felt his throat instantly dry at the sight of clear water and his hand instinctively reached for the glass, but he stopped himself. Who knew what kind of liquid it really was?

Nick squinted, but his special vision did not work, he could not scan the room and the space behind it, as he usually did.

"What the hell," the guy got out of bed and headed for the door with a heavy step. He felt like his legs became stone, and he hardly moved them, but each step was gradually becoming easier and easier.

Stopping in front of the door, Nick pulled the handle and, to his great surprise, the door clicked and opened.

"Hmm," that was weird. By all accounts, he was supposed to be locked, but even the corridor into which he got out of the room was empty.

He did not notice any cameras or strangers, walking along a long corridor, Nick stopped at the elevator doors. There was only one button on the panel, as well as inside the elevator too. The doors slammed shut and the elevator began its silent movement upward.

Having reached the final point, it gently stopped and Nick took a step out.

"You woke up faster than I expected," a man's voice sounded from the back of the room.

"What did you inject me with and where is Ashley?" Nick's gaze fell on the back of a man standing by a large panoramic window and looking into the distant horizon. The rays of the setting sun, casting bright red, made their way through the glass.

Electronic handcuffs on Nick's wrists would not be a problem if... if he had his abilities, but no matter how he tried to use teleportation, telepathy or any other skill, he received zero response. As if his body never had such abilities.

"Oh, this is one of your uncle Daniel's unfinished developments. In our laboratory, our scientists polished it. What do you think? I believe that it's effective, since you still couldn't do anything against me," the man said, and Nick was ready to bet that the face of this monster was pleased with the results of the injection, otherwise he would not stand like this, with his back Nick, to test the young man's patience.

When he turned around, Nick could hardly restrain himself from expressing his surprise. He knew that this man and Armand were twins, but why was there such a big difference?

Marcus's face was visibly wrinkled; he looked much older than his brother. An outsider could confuse him with Armand's father, and not with his own brother of the same age.

Marcus walked away from the window, leaning on a long cane, his movements were slow and distracted. But the man was not worried about how he looked in Nick's eyes, he reached the chair, sat down and exhaled with relief, as if these two meters were like an Olympic marathon for him.

"Why? You haven't showed up for fifteen years, so why did you do all this?! Who gave you the right to take the life of people who have fought for every extra day like that?! You even killed your own brother! Have you completely lost your mind?!" Nick took a step forward and immediately collapsed to his knees, a wave of current paralyzed his muscles, the bracelets on his hands lit up red.

Marcus raised his hand and signaled to his assistant, only then Nick noticed that another person was hidden in the shadow of the room.

It was the one who acted as the head of Marc Technologies and the one who headed the Federal Government, which controlled the global economy and social development. The main pawn of Marcus and his main assistant.

"It's all right, Simon. Leave him," Marcus looked at Nick, the man's eyes were empty and indifferent, as if tired of life, "I saved these people from torment. As for Armand... Well, he lived enough to leave this world."

"Who do you think you are to determine fates of other people!? In this case, you should have started from yourself, and not from my mother!" Nick's eyes were burning with hatred, he was still haunted at nights by nightmares in which this man held his dying mother in his arms and took her life in front of the child.

Marcus's face twitched, he turned to the side and looked at the empty gray wall, his hand squeezed a metal cane, his knuckles protruded through the thin skin on his hands, "So... So, you think it was I who killed Elena? Is that what you think?"

The man's question led Nick into a slight confusion. Marcus spoke in such a tone as if he had been offended by an unfounded accusation. But how did he even have the conscience to ask this? However, if this person had even a drop of conscience, many things would not have happened.

Nick remembered the moment very well, the moment when, fifteen years ago, this man put his parents' wedding rings in his hand. The boy could not even say goodbye to them, since the dark shadow of Marcus was the last that was imprinted in his memory.

No matter how much he tried to restore the events of the past in his head, this scene was the only thing that the guy managed to see. This was one of the reasons why he decided to make Ashley's jewelry out of the rings. He could not get rid of the last things that connected him with his parents, but he also did not want to keep them.

"Well, think what you want. It's even better," Marcus looked at his watch, after which he nodded to Simon, and the latter disappeared from sight. "Sean Nicholas Anderson, what do you think will happen if the Federation Government opens its borders?"

"Where is Ashley? I'm not interested in your political games, you sick moron! If you don't-"

Nick's face twisted in a grimace of pain, his lips turned blue. He forgot that the man standing in front of him was a monster, and the weakened appearance of Marcus did not mean that he was harmless. The man's hand gripped the guy's throat stronger, depriving the latter of the opportunity to breathe.

"Tsk, it seems that Armand did not teach you that to be rude to elders is a sign of bad manners. You are just like your father," Marcus hissed through gritted teeth and threw Nick to the floor with force, "And if I say that you will no longer see this girl, what then? Will you fight for her until your last breath? You are just a little selfish punk, thinking only about himself!"

Marcus lifted his metal cane and punched a young man to the chest with it, Nick doubled up in pain, unable to utter a word. Taubert knelt on one knee and grabbed his hair, "What is it? Do you feel pain? You still don't know what pain is."

"I'll kill you!" Nick growled, trying to break out of the grip, but without his powers, he was like a bug, which the enemy could easily crush with one sweep.

Marcus's lips twitched in a sarcastic smirk, "Well, you'll kill me, and then what? And they lived happily ever after? Are you sure she will want to live with you after all this? Are you sure she will want to live IN THIS?"

The man waved his hand and the huge stained-glass windows turned into displays with many different pictures.

A chill ran down Nick's back, he did not know these places, but even without this he could understand the scale of what was happening.

"Wh-what... what is this?"

"This?" Marcus poked a finger at the nearest picture, "This is India. And this is China, here we have Central Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe. If you want, I can show everything in more detail. Here is England, your dad's motherland, and here, in the south of Italy, your mother was born. Look, isn't it great?"

Pictures from the displays smoothly turned into three-dimensional projections surrounding Nick from all sides. He rose to his feet and backed away at the wall in horror.

"Stop it! Stop it now!"

"What is it? I am showing you the truth. This is the world in which you will live after you get rid of me. What is it, young man? You don't like something, do you?" Marcus bowed his head and looked sympathetically at the young man, "This is your real world, Sean."

The young man was standing with his back against a cold wall, and under his feet lay mountains of mutilated dead bodies. Which direction he would not look, he saw only them.

His gaze fell on a pair of blue eyes. The little girl was standing and looking at him point blank, a silent "Monster" flew from her dry chapped lips. Her body plunged into the abyss of other dead bodies and it seemed to Nick that their empty eyes were looking at him with contempt and hatred.

Marcus snapped his fingers and the projections disappeared, the room became empty, the displays turned off, and a lifeless landscape appeared again behind the windows. The last rays of the sun almost faded beyond the horizon, a haze covered the entire space, devouring the remnants of light like a black hole.

Nick felt how this darkness, along with the earth, covered his heart, taking away his last hope. And as this earth plunged into pitch darkness with the disappearance of the last ray of the sun, so his heart shackled cold, as if life had left him.

. . .