The door to Orson's room creaked open, a thin sliver of light cutting through the darkness and illuminating the barren room.

"Orson?" the old man's harsh tone was all too familiar to him by now. What was it he was going to be scolded for now? Had he not meticulously calculated his every move to perfection to hold up under his masters scrutiny? What could he have possibly still found to be amiss? 

"there's someone here who wants a word with you", the master stepped aside, revealing a man, looking to be about Orson's age, behind him. In between the two suited men, and especially with the sleek facility corridors as a backdrop, his old fashioned coat looked very out of place. 

The Stanger gestured as if tipping a hat that wasn't there. "Hector Talbot, I'm.. ", he paused for a second, "I'm with administration" 

The old man's eyes met those of Orson. No words were need, Orson knew them too well "do not disappoint me, boy". He wanted to avert the gaze but knew the consequences he would have to face for it. Satisfied that his warning had been understood, the master left Hector and Orson to themselves. 

"Orson Collins", he finally echoed the introduction. 

"I know who you are, I've read your file." 

The implication of the information that might have been inside dared to distract Orson. After having suffered amnesia a few years ago, much of his life before his position here, his childhood and his family was a blur that had become an alluring mystery with the recent development of his ability. And then there was the matter of his eyes, the pitch black, orange banded spheres that, surprisingly, didn't seem to unsettle Hector in the slightest. 

"walk with me, Orson." 

Leaving the dreary accommodations behind, the two men soon reached the oldest part of the complex, carved from stone bricks instead of concrete. 

"Our founder had a dream when she began building this place, that everyone should have the right to a save and peaceful life. As you might know, this is not a world we live in, but there are people who have the ability to change things, for better or for worse. I promised her that I would continue her work and assemble a team of protectors"

Things started to fall into place. Hector might look like a man in his early 30s but the founder of this institution had passed more then a hundred years ago. Despite working here since before the amnesia, Orson only had a vague idea of the things they did and the people that worked here, but this suggested his strange ability was neither unexpected nor unwanted. 

"You are the best candidate we have to lead this team" 

Whatever color there was within Orson's eyes light up. 

"You are giving me command of a team?" 

"a special strike force, as the others in administration want to call it. I like to think of it as a secret weapon."

Orson noded slowly, understand all thought still in disbelief. 

"these will be the rest of the team" 

Hector handed him a stack of three paper folders. The first one was clearly the oldest, dating back to a time Orson could not remember but he would have been a boy at the time.  Something had been found during excavations by one of their subsidiaries, a monsterous creature which had taken the lives of many workers. The file showed a picture of a young man together with a falsified death certificate. The following report detailed how the creature had been able to be subdued but not before its consciousness had taken possession of a bystander. The following pages contained the results of medical exams performed on the host body over the following years. 

"they are reluctant but not opposed to cooperateing" Hector commented while Orson browsed through the file. "It seems they existed long before any of us and are quite confident that they will outlive us too. I wouldn't bother wrapping your head around the details, Containment ensures me they can be reasoned with" 

Following Hector's advice, Orson skipped over the next few pages, eventually gazing at a description summerizeing the subjects physical limits as "far above the human average" 

The next file, quite to Orson's surprise, was a stark contrast to the first, containing the school records of a teenage girl, smiling at him sweetly from her yearbook picture. Slightly above average grades and pictures of cheerleading competitions were eventually followed by a handwritten application letter and then gruesome pictures of a medical procedure. 

"An unfortunate one", Hector interrupted Orson's reading, "I always knew giving the cybernetics department permission to source their own test subjects would lead to trouble. We had to shut them down after this." 

Moving on to the last fille, Orson found it to be almost entirely empty. Papercliped to the only page inside, a photo of a young girl. Wild black hair covering most of her face except for one black eye with a green band in it. Recognizing the similaritie to his own eyes, he read over the rest of the file. A girl without a name or any memories to speak of had been found walking the forest surrounding the facility on her own. She had the ability to control the growth of plants. Was this all there was? Rereading the paper, one handwritten note caught his eye: "possible relation to H.A.L.O. Project" 

"Can you tell me more about what this H.A.L.O. project is?" 

"unfortunately not, the department responsible for it followed secrecy protocols to the letter. Additionally, the inter-department communication wasn't always what it is today. This was during a time where even Administration only got to see the sanitized numbers and end results, if a project even got that far."