Embedded Files
Adam Strange
(Part One: The Scientist) Star Labs, 1986. Inside its labyrinth of brushed-steel corridors, Doctor Adam Strange walks down the halls lab coat flapping, green data pads tucked beneath one arm links up with an excited Ray Palmer toward the subterranean radiation wing. “So, Adam,” Ray teased, shouldering open a security door, “any lucky lady stealing your lab time yet?” “Hardly,” Adam snorted, keying in a code, “Between calibrating a cyclotron and babysitting my other ‘lady,’ I’m overbooked.” Ray arched a brow, “Your sister acting up again?” Adam’s grin flattened, “Janey’s… lost. Mom and Dad barely settled into the ground before she found every bad decision over in Gotham. She won’t return calls, certainly won’t check into the recovery program I lined up.” Ray’s voice softened beneath the hum of ion pumps, “I’m sorry, man.” Adam shook it off with practiced bravado and wheeled to a console alive with crackling sine waves. “Anyway, zeta radiation. Bleeding-edge stuff.” Adam tapped a stuttering waveform on his data pad, “I’m mapping unique sub-quantum spikes. Real teleportation, Ray. Not sci-fi hupla.” Ray folded his arms, half-smile returning. “You realize the Fermi Paradox says if aliens were out there, we’d have noticed? Maybe no one’s home.” Adam’s eyes glittered behind safety goggles, “Or maybe they’re waiting for the right frequency. I’m telling you, the answer to ‘Where is everybody?’ is buried in these spikes.” “Even if it is,” Ray cautioned, “one wrong pulse and you’ll atomize yourself.” Adam only grinned and jabbed a thumb at his approved proposal from the board. “That’s the plan, and them my atoms will reappear on the other end of the galaxy. The brass signed off on full-scale trials. You’ve really gotta get out of that small world you live in. ” Ray fake laughed, half terrified, “Har har. Only you could pitch ‘Let’s phone E.T.’ and get a blank check.” Adam clasped his friend’s shoulder, unaware just how literal that cosmic phone call was about to become.
Cut to Adam working on his zeta platform. It started with a flicker. The zeta beam platform, Adam’s pride and borderline obsession, lit up like the Fourth of July. Completely unprompted, no buttons pressed, no switches flipped. Just the hum of unstable radiation spiking to critical levels. “Whoa, no-no-no,” Adam muttered, lunging toward the kill switch. Too late. The air fractured into golden shards, like glass refracting light through a kaleidoscope. His body vibrated, atom by atom, then disassociated altogether. Adam didn’t just vanish, he shattered into a beam of raw possibility and was fired through the cosmos like a bullet through bent reality. Space folded in on itself. Time hiccuped. He felt his consciousness scream through the endless dark at speeds no brain should understand. Then impact. He slammed back into existence on a cold, alien platform, landing on his knees before promptly vomiting his lunch across the floor. Disoriented, nauseous, very much not in his lab anymore. Before him stood a humanoid figure. Bald, yellowish skin, ears that pointed like radar dishes. The stranger stared in slack-jawed horror, mirroring Adam’s own disbelief. Then came the yelling, harsh in an unfamiliar tongue. The scientist grabbed a translucent comm device and shouted into it in panic. Adam wiped his mouth. “Well… we’re not in Kansas anymore.” He staggered to his feet, just in time for the lab doors to slide open and a squad of armed guards to storm in, suits like exoskeletons, eyes glowing through faceplates, weapons drawn. “I come in peace?” Adam tried, raising his hands. The guards didn’t understand or care. One struck him across the chest, knocking him to his knees again, a spear of glowing energy pressed against his neck. Adam’s eyes turned to the original scientist, silently pleading. But the man stood frozen, equally helpless. Adam sadly lowered his head, accepting his punishing fate for reaching out to the stars. Then, a voice cut through the room, measured and melodic. Another reply from the scientist. Then more of that calming voice. Adam couldn’t understand the words, but he understood their weight. Compassion. The guards hesitated. Then, at the scientist’s command, slowly lowered their weapons. Adam dared to look up… and there she was. Standing beside the scientist was a woman unlike anyone he had ever seen. Her black hair floated slightly in the slightly different gravity. Her suit gleamed in the sterile light. And her violet eyes weren’t filled with fear or suspicion, just curiosity, and something gentler. She was, without a doubt, the most beautiful being he had ever laid eyes on. And somehow, he knew she had just saved his life.
(Chapter Two: The Rocket Ranger) Two years had passed since Adam Strange first vanished into the stars, and the man who once fumbled over lab notes in a crisp white coat was now flying through alien skies in a rocket pack, ray gun at his side, and a confident grin under the sun. He’d become something of a local legend, half scientist, half swashbuckling spaceman, splitting his time between Earth and Rann like a man with one foot in two worlds. Gone were the days of nervous presentations and coffee-stained clipboards. Now, Adam Strange was known across Rann not just as the Earthling genius who helped revolutionize their understanding of zeta beam travel, but as the man who’d stolen the heart of Alanna, his savior, his partner, and the love of his life. Alanna, daughter of Sardath, the very scientist who had first discovered him sprawled and puking on a Rannian platform, had once been a mystery Adam couldn't understand, literally. The language barrier had been vast, but day after day, word by word, the two bridged that gap until affection bloomed into love. Now, they had gone beyond engagement and were fully wed, their bond rooted in shared curiosity, quiet moments beneath alien stars, and the chaos they’d braved together. Sardath had come to respect Adam, albeit with a reserved edge. Their combined research on zeta radiation had led to breakthroughs neither could have achieved alone. Sardath trusted no other Earth scientist, Adam was the exception. But back on Earth, at Star Labs, the board of directors viewed Adam more as an asset than a man. They relied on his interplanetary status to feed them insights into Rannian technology, pressuring him to serve as an unofficial ambassador, or worse, a spy. It left Adam in a strange place, no pun intended. He was an Earthman in body, but his heart, his future, even his greatest work... all of it was on Rann. Earth had his history, a lost sister, his degrees, and his job. But Rann? Rann had his purpose. Rann had his fiancée. And every time the zeta beam called him home, he prayed it would never land.
Adam’s “office hours” now involved strapping on a polished silver jet-pack, saluting Alanna with a wink, and rocketing off to whatever corner of the cosmos Sardath’s equations predicted might burp out a naturally occurring zeta-distortion. These anomalies were more rare than a rooster’s tooth, spacetime hiccups that behaved like half-formed wormholes, yet Sardath was testing out a probability map, shimmering coordinates that glowed on a star-chart only Adam could reach in time. The routine went like this; swoop to the target sector, let the distortion swallow him whole, survive whatever surprise world it spat him onto (acid jungles, vacuum moons, one memorable planet featuring entirely of carnivorous clouds), take frantic readings, and, just before things got lethal, slap the beacon on his belt. Its homing frequency would snag the faint residual signal of Rann’s master zeta platform and yank him home in a flash of gold shards. No matter how far he tumbled through the stellar haystack, the beam always threaded him back to Rann, back to Alanna, back to the lab, back to the place that increasingly felt like the only address his heart recognized.
One day, a distortion bloomed in the upper canyons of Naag like a crack of molten glass, warping the red cliffs into a fun-house mirror. Adam throttled his jet-pack and dove straight through the shimmering wound in space. In a single heartbeat the rocky cliff became jungle humidity. He tumbled out above a viridian swamp, landing knee-deep among lily-pads the size of satellite dishes. No sooner had he snapped open his sensor wand than the pads unfolded into fanged maws, great petaled traps that sniffed ion trails. “Easy, girl,” Adam muttered, unslinging his ray-pistol. A vine whipped, scoring his cheek. He answered with a short, focused burst, super-heated air seared the tendril, the plant shrieked and recoiled. While it licked its wounds, Adam sliced free a glossy seed-pod, stuffed it in a stasis jar, and slapped the belt-beacon. Golden shards erupted, the swamp, the monster, the smell of hot chlorophyll vanished, and the familiar lab on Rann folded in around him. Sardath looked up from a console just in time to catch the jar Adam lobbed his way. “Another happy outing for science,” Adam grinned, wiping the bloody scratch across his cheekbone. “Specimen’s photosynthetic structure runs on hard ultraviolet. Pretty tubular if you’re into man-eating botany.” Alanna hurried in, eyes widening at the cut. She dabbed his cheek with a silver cloth, voice warm and chiding all at once. “One of these days, darling, bring me back flowers that aren’t trying to eat you.” “Where’s the fun in that?” Adam shrugged, but his smile dimmed, “Look, clock’s run out, I’m already several days over what I promised the Star Labs board. If I don’t beam home tonight, they’ll start drafting eulogies.” She clasped his hand. “Stay just one more cycle.” He kissed her knuckles. “If I do, they’ll yank my funding and Sardath loses his favorite courier. I’ll file a longer visit in the next proposal, scout’s honor.” Sardath keyed the platform, zeta coils humming. Husband and wife exchanged soft Rannian farewells, a final press of foreheads, then the light swallowed Adam Strange and hurled him back toward Earth.
The platform hummed to a low thrum as Adam re-materialized in the familiar humdrum of the Earth-side Star Labs chamber. A tint of Rann still flickered behind his eyes as he removed his helmet and set it down beside his latest stasis jar, filled with glowing alien goo. He rubbed at the fading scratch on his cheek, already scanning the jar into the system like nothing had changed. The door slid open with a hiss, and in strolled Ray Palmer, grinning with that same mix of curiosity and concern he always wore. “You’re in trouble,” he said flatly. Adam didn’t even look up, “That’s your version of ‘Welcome back to Earth?’” Ray leaned on the desk, “No, that’s my version of a friendly warning. The board is pissed, man. I heard from Haskins down in photonics. They’re not so thrilled with how you’re running the budget and the clock.” Adam rolled his eyes and dropped his datapad onto the table, “Every second I spend on Rann is in pursuit of science. Progress doesn’t punch a timecard.” Ray crossed his arms, “Don’t act like you don’t know why they’re breathing down your neck. Your proposals always go long, your returns are late, and half your reports look like they were written in alien poetry. And frankly, you’re on Rann more than you’re on Earth nowadays. You’re a Star Labs employee, not a citizen of the stars.” Adam opened his mouth, ready with a rebuttal, but was immediately cut off by the lab’s overhead speaker. “Doctor Adam Strange, report to Executive Office C immediately.” Ray arched a brow, “See?” Adam sighed, shoulders slumping as he grabbed his files, “Great. They didn’t even give me a minute to unpack.” Ray clapped his shoulder. “Good luck, Rocket Man.” With a groan and the look of a man heading to his own sentencing, Adam trudged out of the lab, already bracing himself for whatever bureaucratic firing squad waited behind that executive office door.
Adam strode into the boardroom with the practiced charisma of a man who knew how to put on a good show. His collar was pressed, his files were crisp, and his smile was that smooth, well-rehearsed charm he had spent years perfecting in order to wrangle approvals and ease tensions. But this time, the room gave nothing back. No polite nods. No forced smiles. Just cold, disapproving glares from a row of stone-faced men in finely tailored suits. “Doctor Strange,” the chairman said, not bothering to mask his irritation, “Sit.” The pleasantries ended there. What followed was a verbal beatdown as precise as it was merciless. They grilled him on his extended off-world excursions, the lack of reproducible results on Earth, the funds being funneled into his trips to Rann. Adam tried to defend himself, drawing from the passion that had kept him afloat since the beginning. “The work I’m doing off-world is essential,” he argued, “The discoveries on Rann inform everything we could possibly hope to understand about interstellar zeta beam navigation. I’m laying the foundation for a future where Earth isn’t isolated from the cosmos.” The suits were unmoved. One of them adjusted his tie, voice as dry as dust, “And yet, Doctor, you’ve failed to establish any additional zeta platforms at other Star Labs locations. No expansion. No measurable progress. Just more trips to your... romantic research retreat.” Adam genuinely protested, “You can’t just throw up zeta beam stations like cell towers. We don’t understand the limits yet. There’s a real risk. If too many zeta beams are active at once, the laws of physics suggest that there is a non-zero chance we could destabilize localized spacetime. And that's not even factoring in the unknown effects prolonged exposure could have on the human body. I’ve been using myself as a lab rat to spare anyone else from—” “We never asked you to,” another board member cut in coldly. “And if you are knowingly risking your own health, Star Labs will not be held liable for the consequences.” Adam stared at them, incredulous, “That’s not the point.” “No,” the chairman snapped. “The point is, there is no reason this research can’t be conducted from Earth. And we’re done entertaining excuses about why you need to spend so much time on an alien world. If Rann is important enough to warrant our resources, then it’s important enough to provide something in return. We want strategic insight. Security specs. Advanced technology. Anything that justifies the investment.” Adam’s face tightened, “There is nothing like that to report. They’re not like that.” The chairman leaned forward, “Very well. Then as of this moment, Doctor Strange, you are barred from traveling to Rann. Any attempt to do so will result in the immediate termination of funding for your zeta beam research, along with every other Star Labs project you’re tied to.” There was a long silence. He could feel the pounding in his temples as the words hit him like bricks. “Do we make ourselves clear?” the chairman asked. Adam clenched his jaw, eyes burning with disbelief. His voice was sharp and bitter, “Loud and clear.”
(Part Three: Bottom of the Bottle) Seven weeks passed, and Adam Strange had not left Earth once.
His days were now filled with the dull rhythm of lab reports from what he had already collected, sitting hunched over terminals as he reanalyzed old data, again and again. Gone were the thrill rides through wormholes or the rush of adventure in distant star systems, replaced by the quiet hum of a Star Labs office and the sterile glow of fluorescent lights. He kept to himself mostly, his once animated spark dulled to a steady simmer. Still determined to one day return home, to his true home. One day, the call came over the PA again, “Doctor Adam Strange, please report to Conference Room C.” Adam made his way through the corridors, ready for another performance, another fight. Inside the office, the same stern faces greeted him, as if frozen in time. He presented his findings calmly but with visible exhaustion, “I’ve completed my latest analysis. Based on thousands of data simulations and a deep dive into existing logs, I can say with 99.45% certainty that operating multiple zeta beam platforms in close proximity would not result in a catastrophic spatial rupture. The laws of physics, at least as we know them, hold.” The board sat still for a beat before one of them bared their teeth with a smile, “Excellent. Then it’s time to begin construction of new platforms at our other Star Labs locations.” Adam tensed, “Well, Sir, I wouldn’t say we are ready for that.” “Doctor Strange,” the chairman said, voice tightening, “you just told us there is no risk.” Adam’s face sharpened. “I said there’s no risk of proximity-based spacetime collapse. I didn’t say there’s no risk at all. We’re dealing with cosmic level energy. We don’t fully understand how these beams interact with organic matter. We don’t know how prolonged exposure could mutate or deteriorate human physiology, or what other unforeseen consequences may unfold. There are a thousand variables still unaccounted for.” One of the board members folded his arms. “And what do you suggest? Another eight month delay while you recheck your math?” “No,” Adam said plainly, “What I need is to collaborate with Sardath of Rann again. He’s the only other mind who’s anywhere near the frontier of this field. There are questions I’m afraid I can’t answer without his insight.” The air in the room changed. The polite, passive-aggressive tone of the board continued, “No,” the chairman said bluntly, “Your personal connection to Rann makes that suggestion suspect. You’re here where you belong now. We expect practical results.” Adam’s hands clenched behind his back. “I’ve given you years of breakthroughs. I risked my life traveling through unstable space. I’ve done everything you’ve asked.” A long pause settled in the room. Then the ultimatum. “You want to go back to Rann? Fine. Here’s what you do. Construct a miniature zeta beam prototype. Fully functioning, self-contained, within this laboratory. If you can demonstrate short-range, stable transportation, no anomalies, no distortions, then we’ll reopen the gate. Until then, Rann is a non-starter.” Adam stared at them, shoulders squared. He was being boxed in, again. But what choice did he have? “Understood,” he muttered. “Good,” the chairman said, already flipping to the next item on the agenda, “We look forward to your results, Doctor.”
On the distant world of Rann, the laboratory hummed softly, filled with the quiet sounds of devices pulsing and scanners ticking, none of which seemed to hold Alanna's interest. She stood near a table of half-finished instruments, her gaze fixed through the window at nothing in particular, her thoughts clearly light years away. Sardath, ever focused at his terminal, finally glanced up from a projection of energy patterns to see his daughter still staring into space, “You’re thinking about him again,” he said, not accusingly, but with that dry, knowing bluntness. Alanna blinked, as though waking from a dream. She gave him a small, sheepish look, “Has there been a day since the one we met where I haven’t?” she asked. Her voice carried both warmth and worry, “He promised he’d be back by now. I fear something may have happened.” Sardath sighed and rose from his station. He was no poet, his mind was built on equations and logic, but he stepped toward his daughter with the rare softness he reserved only for her. “I’ve seen that man in combat, cheating countless death sentences” he said, “I’ve seen him land on unfamiliar moons without knowing if he’d find breath or blaster fire. And still, he made it home. Many times.” Alanna looked at him, her worry easing just slightly. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her father. He hesitated a moment, still awkward with displays of affection, but then hugged her back. Alanna asked quietly, “You really think he’ll return?” “I know he will,” Sardath answered. “He’s far too stubborn to do otherwise.” The moment stretched in the comforting embrace, until Alanna’s eyes drifted over Sardath’s shoulder and out the lab’s arched window. The sunlight, which just a moment ago bathed the city’s crystalline towers in golden warmth, had grown dim. “What in the—?” she said, pulling from the hug. They both turned to the window. Above, blotting out the sun in bursts of shadow, something moved. Dozens of silhouettes, massive feathered wings flapping. At first, one might mistake them for birds, but their wings were too broad, too familiar in their shape. They drifted in silent formation, casting enormous shadows over the buildings of Rann. “They’re not birds,” Alanna whispered. “No,” Sardath said, reaching for a scanner, “No, they most certainly are not.”
Four, painstaking months, passed, and with every day tethered to Earth, Adam Strange grew more agitated, more restless. But at long last, he stood once more before the Star Labs board of directors, hands dusted with grease and eyes sleepless from weeks of trial and error. Behind him, a pair of small but sleek, curved machines gleamed in polished chrome, his scaled-down zeta teleportation prototypes. They were about the size of a toaster and hummed with volatile energy, like caged storms waiting to be released. With a flick of a switch and a surge of golden light, Adam demonstrated the process. An energy drink can on one platform vanished in a shimmer and reappeared on the other. Applause didn’t come. Instead, the board crowded forward as if searching for the punchline. One of them picked up the can with a gloved hand, inspecting its surface with a digital scanner. “The material shows degradation,” the executive muttered, voice laced with disapproval, “Molecular stability has been compromised.” Adam nodded, “Yes. And that’s exactly the point.” He looked at each board member squarely, standing tall in his suit of soot and circuitry. “This is why I’ve been trying to reach Sardath. I don’t even know if this process is safe at this scale. He has studied precise zeta wave distortion patterns that I haven’t even theorized yet. We are running in circles here, wasting YOUR time and YOUR money, when Sardath might already have the answers.” Murmurs passed among the men in suits. One of them frowned, tapping his fingers against his clipboard. Another adjusted his glasses with an exhausted sigh. Finally, the chairman leaned forward, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll authorize one trip for now. But if you return with nothing, Doctor Strange, your little rocket-ranger adventures are done. Permanently.” Adam didn’t even blink, “Understood,” he said, but he couldn’t fight the smile had already begun to form. The board filed out, leaving Adam alone with his machines. He didn’t waste a second. He raced to the locker, throwing open the steel case that housed his crimson suit. With practiced ease, he slipped back into it, zipping up the back, locking the helmet, feeling the weight settle on his shoulders like an old friend. Moments later, he stood atop the zeta platform, fists clenched with anticipation. The machines whirred to life beneath him, golden light dancing around the edges of his boots. His heart pounded not with fear, but with hope. “I’m coming, Alanna,” he whispered. And in a flash of brilliance, he was gone.
A cone of gold shards unfolded around Adam, setting him down on Sardath’s landing platform, only to be met by silence so unnatural it rang in his helmet. Then the doors crashed open and as Alanna heard and sprinted across the platform, arms flung wide. Their embrace was fierce, hungry, the kind born of calendars ripped in two. But beneath her kiss Adam tasted fear. “What is it? Where’s your father?” he whispered. Tears welled. She tried once, failed, then steadied herself, “Father is dead, Adam. Thanagarian warships descended some time after your last departure. He refused to let them confiscate his research. He would not aid in a conqueror’s quest. They made an … example.” Her voice broke, the lab’s empty consoles suddenly felt like a mausoleum. Adam’s stomach hollowed. “Then we take the data and run. I’m not losing you, too.” “No.” She dragged him to the master panel, “Any and all Raanian science endeavors from pre-Thanagarian occupation have been shut down. And there is no doubt in my mind that the large amount of power drawn from the grid would has already been noticed by the commander’s office. It is only a matter of time before they show up here.” Adam responds, “Let them come. I won’t let them hurt you. And if they try, they will pay.” His eyes grew dark. As if summoned by Alanna’s dread, the mag-steel doors hissed apart. Two helmed troopers stalked in, flanking a taller figure plated in gold, “Welcome, Commander Hol,” one of the troopers said as Sheyera entered the room, eyes like hardened amber. Her mace hung at her hip, a promise of pain in every barb. “Unauthorized energy flux detected,” Shayera barked, “Identify yourselves and disclose the apparatus.” Adam planted himself between Alanna and the soldiers. “Doctor Adam Strange, Earth. This equipment is my property.” Shayera’s wings snapped out with a predator’s warning, “Your property now belongs to Thanagar.” The troopers advanced, their weapons held firm. Adam’s hand twitched toward his side-arm. Too slow, the tension coiled to its breaking point. Alanna made the choice for both of them. “I love you,” she made her declaration, and shoved him backward onto the pad. Her free hand slammed the activation stud, her other leveled her blaster at the platform’s power core. “Alanna, NO—!” Golden light erupted. Through the blinding latticework, Adam caught a final, heart-searing image, Alanna jerking the blaster toward the platform’s circuit housings, Shayera’s mace arcing down toward her skull, sparks and feathers framing them like a funeral wreath. Then the zeta beam tore him away, and Rann, its conquered, its dead, the woman he loved, were lost.
The moment Adam’s boots hit the Star Labs pad he crumpled, not from impact, but from the tidal wave of grief roaring through his chest. The bombardment of zeta radiation he’d endured over the last many years finally bared its hidden cost as the trauma caused a dormant mutation Adam never knew he had. Every spike of emotion now tripped a newborn meta-gene, hijacking the residual radiation still fizzing in his cells. Thought became motion. Feeling became flight. And with the Rann platform blasted beyond repair by Alanna’s sacrificial blast, the zeta beams of Raan had only one anchor left, Adam himself. A sob consumed him, and the lab dissolved in gold static. He blinked into the sulfur skies over Venus, free-falling through acid clouds that hissed against his visor-- Terror yanked him to the crushing black of an underwater trench, bioluminescent leviathans scattered as he erupted in their midst, then-- Rage hurled him onto the sun-bleached dunes of Apokolips, where war drums thundered like his pulse before the sand whisked away-- Loneliness flung him to a candle-lit hall where alien monks gasped before he vanished again-- Regret planted him atop a sterling tower in a lightning storm, the next bolt struck air as he flickered out-- But hope, fragile but desperate, cast his mind to the blue marble he once called home. He thought and thought and thought, until-- He spun through a golden tunnel back onto the Star Labs zeta platform on Earth.The Zeta fireflies hovered above him as the world steadied and his powers went quiet. Adam Strange lay stretched across the steel, tears dried, voice gone, no hero, no husband, just a shattered man staring at the ceiling and realizing that, this time, there was no returning to where his heart called home.
Adam didn't come in for days on end. When he finally did, he reeked of bourbon and stale sweat, stumbling through the halls of Star Labs with bloodshot eyes and a hollow smile that tried, and failed, to pass for composure. He stopped answering emails. He didn’t return data logs. The once-promising Dr. Adam Strange, rocket scientist, pioneer of zeta beam theory, had become the company ghost. His lab lit only by half-empty beer bottles and the low hum of machines running repeated tests on nothing. It didn’t take long for the board of directors to make their way down to his lab to see it for themselves. They entered, awaiting an explanation. Adam slouched in his chair and muttered something about "atom-splitting fatigue," but when pressed, he snapped into a cold, deadpan lie. “The zeta beam’s given me cancer,” he said, “Aggressive. Terminal. Everywhere it can grow.” His words slurred just enough to be pitiful, but the malice behind them was clear, “Congratulations. You’ve invented a billion-dollar tumor tailor. Fancy way to kill yourself.” Before anyone could speak, he stood. Staggered. Reached under his coat, and pulled out his space-aged blaster. They gasped as he turned and zapped the original zeta platform, knowing it’d be the last thing Star Labs would ever do with zeta beam technology, sparks and warped metal flew like fireworks, “You wanted answers?” he shouted over the chaos, “Here’s your solution!” Ray Palmer stepped forward, trying to talk him down, his voice caught somewhere between friend and crisis manager. “Adam, wait—I’ve been working on something. Something that can—” But his words were cut short by golden light. Adam’s emotions caused him to vanish mid-step, the echo of his scream still bouncing off the walls. The board froze in stunned silence, blinking at the empty space he had just occupied. Ray stared too, not in disbelief, but in wordless concern for his friend. None of them fully understood what they had just witnessed. But Ray had a feeling, this wasn’t just the teleportation’s fault. It was something worse.
For nearly a decade, Adam Strange stumbled like a lost spirit through the cosmos, no ship, no plan, no home. Just pain and a bottle to chase it with. His jumps came without warning now, triggered by the pain of a memory, a fleeting thought of Alana’s smile, or the way she said his name. He couldn’t control them, not really. He'd try to drink her away, but it never worked. Her memory always crept back in, and then, boom, his atoms scattered again, flung across the stars to some other lonely corner of the galaxy. His beard grew wild, hair grayer by the year. Once a shining figure, he now looked more like an interstellar drifter, a hobo, his suit patched and dirt-streaked, his mind a maze of grief and half-coherent regrets. Certain planets knew him only as the crazy man who appeared in the sky and vanished days later, mumbling about lost love and burning wings. Then, one day, after waking up on a jungle-choked world, coughing up sand and liquor, Adam came face-to-face with a familiar creature from another life. The massive, spiked vines. The hissing spores. That damned plant monster. He tried to stand, blaster raised on reflex, but he stumbled, slower, older, out of shape, and it was going to be the end. Until a red blur tore through the foliage. A streak of motion, a bright crimson cape, crack! The creature reeled back in pain, and standing between Adam and certain death was someone new. A girl. Young. She turned to him with a sideways smile and said, “You have no idea how happy I am to see somebody else.” Adam blinked, dazed. Her cape fluttered behind her like a flag of hope. And for the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel so lost.
(Part Four: The Avenger) A blossom of gold-fractal energy splits the stale air of the command laboratory, and Adam Strange tumbles out of the light. Ragged, half-conscious, hands clamped over a ruby-red stab wound in his abdomen. He hits the deck plating hard, breath hissing through clenched teeth. The ship’s light gray floor painted a grisly shade of red beneath him as blood pools across the glossy alloy. Two figures freeze at their consoles. The first is slender, almost statuesque, her chitinous skin a light teal. Bug-like eyes widen behind a veil of translucent data glyphs, the Reach’s chief xenobiologist, code-designate Xal’Korra. Just behind her, a towering silhouette steps forward, midnight armour, mandibles flexed. Black Beetle. Guardian, executioner… and, at this moment, an instinctive shield to the scientist. Adam tries to push himself upright, but the world tilts sideways. His vision fractures. Xal’Korra chitters a rapid command, sharp, staccato clicks that resonate like glass wind chimes. Black Beetle lowers his arm cannons but does not retract the talons, watching the intruder through a predator’s calm. “Do not terminate,” the scientist said in her native language, smooth and clinical, “Subject demonstrated a physical anomoly. He may be useful.” With a grunt, the hulking Beetle scoops Adam up as though he weighs nothing, spattered blood trailing in graceful crimson arcs. Xal’Korra darts ahead, keying open a stasis cocoon, luminous blue gel swirling behind a hexagonal screen. Metal petals split apart, and Adam, coat, jet-pack, and pain, slides inside. Sedation mist curls around his head, monitors spike, then taper to a slow, steady rhythm. “Stabilize vitals,” Xal’Korra instructs, long fingers dancing over holo-runes. “I want his gene patterns mapped before he regains consciousness. We will learn how a terran tore a hole in space… and whether his secret lies in knowledge or biology.” Black Beetle folds his arms, lenses flickering. The pod seals with a hiss, dimming Adam’s world to a soft cobalt twilight. Somewhere beyond the glass, alien voices drift into silence, and the dying Rocket Man, now prisoner of the Reach, slips into dreamless dark.
Cold, sterile light bathes the Reach lab as data scrolls down suspended screens like glowing silk. Xal’Korra moves with precision, calculating as her long fingers adjust a series of probes surrounding Adam Strange’s unconscious body. He’s still pale, motionless within the containment cradle, but stabilized. Monitors hum softly, displaying complex graphs of neural activity and exotic radiation fluctuations. She leans in, adjusting the scanner to focus on the strange frequency leaking from his cells. Zeta radiation, thick, erratic, and utterly unnatural. The heavy chamber doors part with a hiss. Her attention twitched but she doesn’t look up. A leading voice follows a pair of intentional footsteps, “Sceintist, tell me, why do you dare waste time on keeping a meat bag breathing?” The Reach Ambassador, cloaked in garbs etched with their highest decorations of the empire. He clicks in irritation, his arms folded tightly across his broad chest, “Explain to me why there is still breath in this primitive’s lungs.” Xal’Korra doesn’t flinch. She taps her display and slowly turns toward him, her tone even. “Because he did not enter the ship. He manifested here directly, entirely without warning. One second, empty space. The next, Terran, bleeding and dying. And radiating profuse levels of zeta beam energy.” The Ambassador’s eyes flare with confusion, then suspicion, “You’re saying this is a breach? A threat?” “I’m saying,” she interrupts, raising a hand to him, “that he is something we do not understand. The radiation clings to him on a molecular level, I am assuming, far beyond anything their crude technology could produce. It’s possible he is the transport medium.” A long pause passes as the Ambassador processes the implication. “You believe he is a zeta engine,” he says slowly, “inside a lifeform?” Xal’Korra nods. “And if he is not… then he could teach us to build them. That would be the best case scenario.” At that, the Ambassador’s posture softens. His expression twists from anger into something more deliberate, calculated greed. “Very well. Heal him. Wake him. Find out what he knows.” He turns to leave, the folds of his cloak sweeping behind him like the shadow of conquest. Just before the doors close, he glances back over his shoulder. “And if he refuses to talk…” “Of course,” Xal’Korra replies coolly.
Adam’s eyes flutter open to a strange muted blur. Liquid distorts everything in his view. Curved steel, blue light, and a silhouette of someone watching him. It only takes a moment for the panic to set in. He thrashes against the thick fluid, arms pushing uselessly against the glass of the containment tank. His breath quickens. His fists pound. The tank begins to drain. As the fluid sloshed away, Adam tumbled forward, landing on cold metal. His red suit clinging to him. He wheezes and tries to stand, only to find himself staring up at a sleek, insectile figure with pale chitin and elongated limbs. “Relax,” the voice says through a translator that hangs in front of her mouth, “You were dying. I healed you.” Still coughing, Adam stares. “Well, what is this place?” “I am Xal’Korra,” she answers. “Lead exo-biologist of this fleet. And you are currently aboard a Reach battlestation.” Adam’s gut tightens at the word battlestation. He has a bad taste in his mouth from conquerors, they were engineers of domination. Their empires set to expand and claim innocent lives as collateral. He scrambles back slightly, “So you’re the bad guy trash.” “I’m a scientist,” Xal’Korra corrects him, with a tilt of her head, “And I have questions. Primarily about how you managed to teleport directly into my lab, uninvited and radiating anomalous energy.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Adam lies quickly, his eyes darting toward the heavy figure of Black Beetle looming nearby, “I wasn’t exactly conscious.” “Curious,” Xal’Korra says, unconvinced, “Because your body is exuding zeta radiation signatures, specifically those tied to beam transit. Now, could this be from technology, or you?” She steps to a console and taps a few keys. A scan of Adam’s DNA appears on the display, zooming in on a flickering marker near the bottom of the sequence. “This,” she says, “is not a standard Terran gene. It’s new. Evolutionarily recently developed and likely dormant until triggered. Natural selection doesn’t just hand out zeta-phase abilities. So tell me, can you control it?” “I said I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Adam tries again, more firmly this time. Xal’Korra doesn’t even sigh. She simply turns toward Black Beetle and clicks once. The towering enforcer raises his arm, a plasma cannon beginning to glow with orange fury. “WAIT! Wait wait wait wait!” Adam blurts out, lifting both hands. “Okay, okay, fine! I, I don’t know how it works, but sometimes… it just happens. I get overwhelmed, emotionally, and I kind of… pop somewhere else.” Xal’Korra raises a brow. “Your emotional state triggers displacement.” “Yeah,” Adam nods, eyes wide, “Exactly. It’s not intentional. It’s like blinking. When I feel too much, I vanish.” She studies him carefully, then gestures for Black Beetle to lower his cannon. He does, reluctantly. Xal’Korra turns back to her screen. “Then you are going to learn how to control it. Teleport on command. Or you are going to die.”
Adam stood in a chamber with sensors embedded into the floor. Xal’Korra’s voice crackled in from a speaker mounted high above, “Focus on your breathing. Channel an emotion, fear, excitement, rage. Anything will do.” He groaned, rolling his eyes, “You think I haven’t tried that?” “You haven’t tried it under observation,” she replied flatly, “Now try again.” Another few minutes passed, filled with grunts, gritted teeth, and failed attempts. Adam clenched his fists, shut his eyes, focused on everything from heartbreak to injustice, but nothing. No flicker of golden light, no shift in reality. “I’m not a damn toaster,” Adam growled, “You don’t just push a button and expect toast to pop out.” From the side of the room, a slow clap echoed in the silence that came from never having eaten toast. The door had opened without Adam noticing, and the Reach Ambassador stepped through, smug and amused, “Perhaps what you need isn’t more science,” the Ambassador said, voice smooth and calculating, “Perhaps what you need is purpose.” Adam scoffed, “My purpose burned up years ago.” “Oh? The woman, yes? I recall you’ve said the name under your breath before, Alanna?” the Ambassador said with a raised brow, watching Adam flinch at the name. “You’ve avoided mentioning her obvertly. Even now, when we’ve asked you to conjure a trigger, you avoid her image in your mind. Why?” Adam hesitated, shoulders heavy with the weight of memory. “Because if I think of her… it’s too much. My body doesn’t just react. It panics. I teleport randomly. I can’t stop. Could pop up halfway across the galaxy. Maybe kill myself.” The Ambassador nodded slowly, pacing in front of the observation window like a mentor watching a struggling pupil. “So why not do it then? Kill yourself, that is.” Adam’s face shifted from justification to introspection. The Ambassador noticed this and continued, “When you spoke of her just now, I saw the charge spike. Not enough to trigger it, but almost.” “Yeah, well, forgive me if I don’t want to bounce across the universe like a damn pinball every time I feel something,” Adam snapped. The Ambassador leaned in, his tone darkening with intent. “Then redirect that pain. Control it, not for your sake, but for hers.” Adam narrowed his eyes, “What are you playing at?” The Ambassador’s smile was cold, “You said she was killed. Who struck the blow?” Adam looked down, “A damn hawk person… Gold armor. Commander Hol, I heard them say. She was the one.” The air in the room seemed to shift. The Ambassador straightened with a renewed sense of interest, “You don’t know this, Adam, but the Thanagarians are our rivals. Arrogant birds, always flapping about claiming territory that isn’t theirs. Not looking to strengthen the galaxy in Unity, as the Reach does. We are forced to collide on occasion. But you… you are a man with a wound. And I think wounds make fine weapons.” Adam’s brow furrowed, “What are you saying?” “I’m saying we have a common enemy. A shared purpose,” the Ambassador said. “We give you the resources, the focus, and the target. You give us a man who can jump through space with a thought, who has reason to kill one of Thanagar’s golden generals.” Adam stared at him, jaw tight, heart pounding. “Quid pro quo,” the Ambassador said softly, “You help us weaken the Thanagarian grip, and we help you find justice for the love you lost.” And in that moment, Adam Strange felt something sprout from his deep-seaded grief. He felt direction. Purpose. Vengeance on the horizon.
The man who once stumbled through wormholes bleeding and broken was gone. In his place stood something leaner, sharper, reforged by pain and precision. Adam Strange now moved with a confidence that came from the weeks of brutal repetition, surviving drill after drill in the Reach’s artificially simulated warzones. The advanced suit that clung to him was sleeker than the one he’d worn back on Rann, a crimson red composite lined with the ivory accents of Reach tech. He stood in the dim, starlit observation deck of the Reach vessel, arms crossed as the black-glass projection window displayed his target: a Thanagarian command center on Raan. “I’m ready,” he said flatly, voice steeled with fire. The Reach scientist beside him gave a slow nod of approval, her eyes scanning telemetry results. “You’ve made significant progress. The entropy displacement you produce is stable, and your targeting accuracy is near-perfect.” Adam didn’t respond to what he already knew. His gaze was fixed on the command center coordinates, a storm behind his eyes. But behind them both, before Adam made the jump, the Ambassador entered, steps measured and expression unreadable, “You’ve come far, Adam Strange,” he said, tone devoid of mockery for once, “But do not mistake training for triumph. Shayera Hol is not some foot soldier with delusions of grandeur, she is a warrior, bred from a culture of conquest. You will not simply teleport behind her and win.” Adam clenched his jaw, “So what’s the delay? If she’s so dangerous, shouldn’t we strike fast?” The Ambassador raised a hand, “Your enthusiasm is… useful. But misdirected. Before you reach her, you’ll complete a sequence of trials. Lower-tier assassinations. Thanagarian officers, contractors, sympathizers. Test runs.” Adam took a step forward, “You said I’d get justice.” “And you will,” the Ambassador replied, stepping in closer, his tone shifting like a blade being sheathed too slowly, “But on our terms.” Adam's fists curled, “I didn’t sign up to be your contract killer.” “You signed up to survive,” the Ambassador said quietly, eyes locking with his, “Do the jobs. Or next time you teleport, our forces on outposts among the stars will indeed find you and make you regret your insubordination.” For a moment, Adam said nothing. Then, with a shallow breath and heavy eyes, he gave a reluctant nod. “Fine. Where’s this list.”
For just under two weeks, Adam Strange danced in the shadows of war. Numerous alien species, numerous types of locations. Planet to planet, outpost to outpost, he wove a silent path of death, sabotage, and theft. His Reach handlers fed him target after target, traitors, tacticians, corrupt intermediaries, and Adam made them all vanish like smoke in the wind. A rigged explosion on a supply ship. A silent neck-break behind enemy lines. A sabotage job that sent a whole black ops cruiser spiraling into a gas giant. Each mission honed him, stripped away what little softness still clung to his soul. The only thing keeping his conscience from shattering was the single fixed point ahead, Shayera Hol. By the time he returned to the cold observation bay of the Reach ship, his suit bore the scuffs of battle and the silence of a man who'd long since stopped looking in mirrors. He walked in, expecting another name, another strike. Instead, the Reach scientist greeted him with an unexpected calm. The Ambassador stood beside her, arms folded and smiled, faintly, darkly, “You’re ready.” For a beat, Adam forgot to breathe, “Shayera Hol?” he said, voice low. The scientist turned toward the console and brought up a shimmering starmap. A planet appeared, coordinates pinned with ominous precision. “This is still her last known location.” Adam’s heart thudded, loud and arrhythmic. The moment was here. The fire inside him that had burned low and steady for so long now flared so violently it almost felt like it would consume him. The Ambassador opened his mouth, “Make it count.” Adam’s entire body lit up with zeta energy. He gave them a nod, no salute, no final words. As the golden light swallowed him, Adam whispered to himself, not a prayer, but a promise, “For Alanna.” He vanished from the Reach vessel in a storm of brilliance and yellow fire, unaware that this jump wasn’t just a mission. It was his conclusion.
A long time passed. In the sterile quiet of the Reach command deck, the scientist stood alone in front of data screens, each one cycling endlessly through signal logs and telemetry updates. Adam Strange had not returned. Not since the day he departed in a blaze of gold for the mission that had consumed his soul. By now, even the most generous projections marked him as expired. She knew, Adam Strange was gone, but what she did not know were the details of his body extinguished in a grave of vengeance carved by his own hand on the very world where he was born. The doors behind her hissed open. The Ambassador entered with his usual deliberate steps, hands folded behind his back. “He will not be coming back,” she said, without turning. The Ambassador’s expression didn’t change. He studied the quiet bustle of the ship’s monitors before speaking, voice heavy with restrained ambition, “Then we find out where he came from.” The scientist looked over her shoulder. “A Terran planet?” A sharp nod, “Whichever planet that is, wherever it hides, we must find it. A world that produces a man who can become what Strange was? We must assume others carry the same potential. A genetic key capable of surviving, adapting, weaponizing certain waveforms of energy.” He turned his eyes toward the star map now spinning slowly before them. “We’ll find it,” she said. The Ambassador’s gaze burned cold and hungry, “We must. Imagine what an empire could become, with a thousand Adam Stranges in its ranks. Perhaps even, a scarab on each and every one as a trusted asset that would not lose our precious invention.” And with that, the Reach set their sights on the homeworld of Doctor Strange, not for conquest. But for harvest.
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