Chapter 81 Secret Taskforce [Prologue][John Wolfe]

October 7, 2025. Tuesday. 8:12 a.m.

It wasn’t my fault, really. I was just fishing. The sea was calm, the kind of calm that tricks you into thinking the world has paused. Then to my surprise, I found a kid floating aimlessly in the ocean waters. Pale, half-dead, drifting like flotsam. Of course, I saved him. It was just a kid, for god’s sake. What sort of man wouldn’t?

But the truth had a habit of gnawing at me in the dark. That kid didn’t just live. He thrived, clawed, and burned. He became the single most violent cape the Council of City-States had seen since the Mourner’s reign of terror. Eclipse. Nicholas Caldwell. And every headline, every bloodstain, every cratered street seemed to whisper the same refrain… it’s my fault…

Who am I kidding? Of course, it was my fault!

“Mr. Wolfe, you’ve been working for the SRC as an operative for over two decades, retired for over a year, and now you suddenly want back in the game? Why?”

The interviewer’s voice was slick, practiced, and designed to peel men like me apart. He was mundane, meaning no powers, just sharp wit in a sharp suit. His earpiece hummed faintly when he tilted his head. Four cameras blinked red in the corners, recording every twitch of my face and shift of my breathing.

The room itself was a plain box with no windows and a steel table bolted to the ground. A reminder that even after decades of service, I was still under suspicion. They wanted to measure me, dissect me, and see if John Wolfe still had fangs left.

I had two options. Confess that I’d once saved Eclipse’s life, or lie. But lying was pointless. Somewhere beyond these walls, a telepath’s shadow was already brushing against my skull, or an empath stealthily sniffing for weakness.

So I told the truth.

“I met the kid once. I was fishing in my boat when I picked up a young man, seemingly drowning. He wasn’t conscious, barely breathing. I gave him water, warmth, and when he came to, I let him go. At the time, I thought the world of capes and superpowers were beyond me. I was retired, remember? Done with ghosts. But later, I learned the young man had been Nicholas Caldwell… otherwise known as Eclipse, after his civilian identity was exposed.”

The interviewer’s eyes narrowed. He leaned forward just enough for the cameras to catch it. “When was this? The day you saved him?”

“March 13th,” I said without hesitation. “And I believe it was around the end of March when the news outlet unmasked him. That’s when I realized he had long-distance phasing capabilities. He wasn’t just another street-level brute with highly violent tendencies. If he could cover miles, maybe cities, in a blink, it could explain how he ended my side of the shore. I provided an anonymous tip with my code. Never heard back.”

He tapped his pen on the folder in front of him, a neat dossier with my name stamped in red. “Why didn’t you come to the SRC immediately? And if you didn’t want to get back on this side of the fence, you could have confessed to your encounter. The SRC could have made great advances in tracking Eclipse if you’d spoken sooner.”

His voice was calm, but the accusation cut deeper than any blade.

I exhaled slowly, dragging the years of service and regret with it. “If you’ve read my dossier, then you ought to know. I’ve got a soft spot for kids. Especially superpowered kids with phasing-class powers.”

The interviewer leaned back, his pen still. “There’s something you are not telling me.”

He was right. And I had no plans of telling him.

The art of omission was a veteran’s trick. Most lie detection capabilities were blunt weapons, good at sniffing out half-truths, but they weren’t scalpels. Omitted facts slipped through like fish between the slats of a net. Unless a psychic-class cape was licensed to dig in my head, and God help the Council if they tried, I could keep my secrets buried.

I leaned forward, my voice roughening, the heat in my chest spilling into my tone. “I’m forty-nine years old and turning fifty tomorrow. I’ve got my whole damn life to live for. Do you really think I came here to sabotage the organization? Do you have any idea what I’ve been through? No, you don’t. You’ve got clean hands and clean shoes, but mine are stained with mud and blood from every city-state you can name.”

His expression didn’t flicker. Just the faintest twitch of his pen against the page.

“I know why these protocols exist,” I pressed on, my words like stones dropping in water, heavy and unavoidable. “In light of SRC’s recent fuckup with Crow slipping past the cracks and infiltrating, of course you’d tighten the leash. The organization’s been bleeding from the inside. You had to stitch it up somehow. I get it.”

I jabbed a finger on the table. “But listen. This is a waste of my time and a waste of SRC’s time. I’m not withholding anything. I’m here, offering to cooperate. If you want to fix what’s broken, I need back in the game. Simple as that.”

The interviewer finally sighed, looking troubled. “Mr. Wolfe… there is no task force dedicated to finding Eclipse.”

The words hit like cold water down my spine.

He folded his hands, the pen now abandoned. “All resources from the Council of City-States are being funneled inward. Strengthening internal control. Recovering from the damage the Markend incident inflicted. The Council has no appetite for external hunts, no matter the target.” His lips thinned into something almost cruel. “So even if we let you back in, even if you wore the badge again… you’d be lucky to get a desk, a lamp, and maybe a file or two. No support. No strike teams. No hunt.”

I knew where he was coming from. Eclipse’s disappearance had stretched almost six months now, and the Council of City-States was spread thin to breaking. To call it a mess didn’t cut it. The Markend incident had set off a chain of dominoes that smashed the delicate balance between powered and mundane. Every state, every city, every neighborhood was questioning the so-called order. The SRC looked less like the hand of law and more like a fractured fist.

And it all traced back to that one kid I should’ve let drown.

“I didn’t come empty-handed,” I said finally, my voice measured, but loud enough for the cameras to record it crisp and clear.

The interviewer’s eyes narrowed. His pen froze mid-tap. “You have information?”

I admitted it with no hesitation. “I do. I’ve been hard at work for the past six months, tracking Eclipse, looking for a way to right my mistakes. With his long-distance phasing, he could be anywhere. But that didn’t stop me. I pulled in old favors, studied patterns, worked my contacts. And now, I’ve got a lead.”

My jaw tightened as I forced the words out. “I just want to right the wrongs I made the day I let that kid live, when I should’ve killed him then and there.”

The admission burned my throat, because it wasn’t the whole truth. My words painted me as blind, a man who had stumbled into saving an unknown. But the truth? I had known. Deep down, I’d felt it when I dragged him onto my boat. He wasn’t ordinary. He had that stillness to him, the kind predators have when they’re waiting for the moment to strike. And still, I spared him.

Now Markend bore the scars for my weakness. Streets blackened, reputations shattered, and families ruined. And yet, ironically, there were those who called Eclipse a hero. Said if not for his meddling, the rot within the SRC and the superhero establishment would’ve stayed hidden in the marrow. He had gutted us, and for some, that was liberation.

The interviewer’s lips pressed into a thin line. “You are making this difficult for us, Mr. Wolfe. Hunting Eclipse now would be reopening an old wound. The SRC has been working tirelessly to muddy the waters, enable censorship, and bury the scandal that we and the superheroes now face. The public is forgetting, and that is a mercy. We don’t want to reignite what they’ve nearly stopped caring about.” He leaned forward. “How accurate is your information even?”

I let the silence stretch before I answered. Then I said the words that tightened the room like a noose.

“I got a name.”

I reached for my briefcase. The metal latches snapped like gunfire in the quiet, and I pulled out a single photograph. The man in it wore black leather and a black helmet, seemingly ordinary.

I set it on the table between us. “This is Eclipse. Or at least what he’s wearing now. Goes by the name of Courier.”

The interviewer raised an eyebrow, but I pressed on before he could scoff. “On paper, Courier’s nothing more than a low-level cape. High Enhancer ratings, peak coordination, fast hands and faster feet. He popped up around the same time Eclipse vanished. Convenient timing, wouldn’t you say?”

I tapped the photo with a calloused finger. “But here’s what most don’t know: Courier has intangibility ratings. He’s shown glimpses of his phasing flickers with his projectile weapon, quick enough to pass as anomalies. Most dismiss it. But I’ve seen the pattern. I know what it is.”

The interviewer shifted in his chair, skeptical. “Projectiles and phasing? That’s quite a leap, Wolfe.”

“Then let me give you something harder,” I growled. “Not long before Courier built his little reputation as a delivery man, a sheriff from a no-name town swore he saw him slaughter over fifty capes in a single bar. Fifty. And not with some new Enhancer trick. With the same kind of phasing Eclipse wielded.”

The photo sat there between us, black helmet reflecting the sterile lights overhead.

“I don’t care what name he goes by now,” I said. “That’s Eclipse. And I aim to prove it.”

The interviewer tapped his pen, lips pursed. Then he said, “I’ve heard of it. They call it the Wolf Massacre, attributing it to the Wolf Pack, a biker gang. A single cape slaughtered them, low-tier ratings mostly, with a mid-to-high-tier cape leading the crew. You got something wrong, Wolfe. The cape responsible for that slaughter was… Reaper—”

I cut him off with a snarl. “He was called Reaper by the town sheriff. According to him, that’s what the goon and their boss called the cape when he walked into that bar. I don’t know who’s running the damn show here, but it sure as hell was sloppy. No one even bothered to interview the child witness. And if someone did, they botched it. Do you know what that kid called the cape who butchered the Wolf Pack?”

The interviewer blinked, irritation flashing behind his eyes. “What?”

I leaned forward, savoring the silence before dropping the weight of it. “Mr. Courier.”

He froze, visibly taken aback. “That… can’t be. Reaper wear empathic camouflage. That’s established. The SRC agents deployed to San Monica after the incident interviewed nearly the entire town. Every account lined up. Reaper uses empathic camouflage and wears a suit. Courier? Courier wears a full helm, keeps his face hidden, rides a—”

His words caught, surprise creeping into his carefully rehearsed tone.

I finished for him, my voice low, sharp, and deliberate. “Rides a big black bike. And the Wolf Pack? A biker gang. Coincidence? I don’t think so. You lot thought Reaper was an entirely different cape from Eclipse because he wasn’t known to have empathic ratings. But you’re wrong. Eclipse doesn’t even need empathic powers to fool you. He knows how to keep to himself, how to disappear in plain sight. Courier is Eclipse, whether you want to admit it or not.”

The interviewer’s pen stilled. His composure cracked, if only for a heartbeat. That flicker of shock was a delight to me. Proof I’d driven the nail in deep.

Before he could gather his words, the heavy steel door to the room clicked open. Hinges groaned.

A woman entered. Her stride was deliberate, heels sharp against the floor. She wore a gray suit tailored so precisely it looked like it had been carved onto her. Over her head was a plain paper bag, the kind you’d get at a corner store, with two eyeholes showing her eyes. Simply known as Paperbag, a cape with an incredible track record, until Eclipse happened. She stopped beside the table, turned her face toward the interviewer, then toward me.

Her voice was flat, almost mechanical. “I will take over from here.”

I leaned back, folding my arms. “So. You’re the one in charge. What do you want?”

“Join my task force,” said the woman. “I believe you’ll prove useful to us.”

“To hunt Eclipse?”

There was the faintest pause, and then she answered. “Not exactly.”

Something cold slid into my gut. I knew this person before me,

Paperbag tilted her head slightly, the motion uncanny with that blank sack over her face. “We are not authorizing resources to chase Eclipse. Not directly. What I want from you is different. I want you to join my task force for a bigger reason, Mr. Wolfe.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Doing what?”

“Monitoring a group of dangerous capes,” she said simply. “They call themselves the Nth Contract. But the world knows them better as the Ten.”

The air in the room grew heavier. The name alone carried weight.

“They always maintain ten members,” she continued. “When one dies, they replace them without fail. They do not turn down jobs. Ever. No matter how bloody, how impossible, how politically explosive… it does not matter. Their contracts are law to them. International assassinations, regime destabilizations, war crimes… all tied to their ledger. And now…”

She leaned closer, the paper bag crinkling faintly as she moved.

“They’ve entered the Council of City-States. And we have reason to believe they are preparing to recruit a new member.”

Her next words landed like a hammer.

“Our assessment shows Eclipse is their primary candidate.”