The warehouse was one of many throughout New York City that was owned by the Future Foundation, however it was one of the few that was owned without public disclosure. To the naked eye, it was an average warehouse that simply stored boxes filled with...something. The warehouse utilized special cloaking technology developed by Jamal that could fool anyone suspicious enough to look through the windows of the warehouse. The sign hanging on the front doors reading 'DO NOT ENTER, VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED!' also helped. There were other features of course, such as soundproofing, which masked the screams coming from within.
"My patience is wearing thin, Jacob..." A man spat. He wore a lab coat, black pants and boots, and gloves that altogether seemed as though it was a costume he'd stolen from a Party City during Halloween. In front of him sat another man, Jacob, strapped to a chair--the two surrounded by 20 armed guards. Connected to the chair was a helmet, which was fixed upon his head. A piece of metal extended forward and then down perpendicular to the ground, and then towards him, parallel to the ground. The tip of the metal piece was an extremely thin needle that was virtually invisible to the naked eye. And it was mere centimeters from the cornea of Jacob's right eye.
"Fuck you." Jacob growled.
"Very well." The man in the lab coat sighed. He raised a remote-like device up in his hand and pressed a button, causing the needle to enter Jacob's eye. Jacob began howling in pain as it slowly dug deeper into his eye. "Ms. Yu-ri is truly diabolical indeed, to design such a torture device. I can poke and prod at your optic nerve all I like, as the needle releases a biological agent that accelerates the regeneration of cells. I could, quite literally, do this all night if necessary. Now, are you going to tell me to whom you sent that message to, and what its contents were?"
Jacob took rapid, deep breaths as the needle emerged from his eye. He then released a pained, but confident chuckle. "What the hell...? Might as well tell you, since you'll find out soon enough." He then looked up and stared the main in the eyes. "She knows." The man in the lab coat understood immediately.
"Pack everything up, now!" He shouted at the men, gesturing at the plethora of alien weaponry scattered around the warehouse --some lying on tables and halfway taken apart while others were being displayed in glass cases.
"Too late." A voice called out from behind. The man in the lab coat whipped around immediately, seeing Jamal--now cleaned up and sporting a purple/yellow suit--standing in front of the warehouse's front doors and staring at him in utter confusion. There was no indication whatsoever that he had even entered the warehouse--the doors were sealed shut, and there were no signs of any of the windows being broken into. "Oh, Dr. Jackson..." Jamal sighed. In an instant, he was standing a mere foot in front of the researcher, "You disappoint me. You know I don't like being disappointed." Dr. Jackson screeched out in fear, and he fumbled backwards, tripping and falling onto his behind. He began clumsily sliding himself backwards on the ground as Jamal casually strolled forward. "I hired you because I trusted you to help turn my ideas into a reality. I have so many of them that unfortunately, there isn't enough time in a day for me to get through them all. Instead, I find you going against a direct order not to get involved with alien weaponry."
Dr. Jackson was barely listening. Instead, he was racking his brain, trying to find answers to a myriad of questions. How did Jamal get into the warehouse? How did Jamal approach him so quickly? Very few individuals knew about his abilities, and Dr. Jackson was most certainly not one of them. But most importantly, he asked himself how he could get out of the situation alive. Dr. Jackson quickly surmised that his best bet at the moment would be to keep Jamal talking until he could find an appropriate course of action to diffuse the situation. He slowly stood up, barely able to contain the shaking of his body that gave away his fear. "I...S-sir, with all due respect, I just don't understand why you disagree with the research I have done here. I have advanced my understanding of science far more than I could have studying mere Earth-based technology."
"And that is exactly the problem." Jamal said, his eyes narrowing. "It's too easy. It's entirely fine if you want to take the easy way out. It's entirely fine if you want to peddle the mindset that humans are inferior, and that we need to be coddled like babies in order to reach our full potential. However, you will not do so while being funded by me. You see, I like to think otherwise--that we can reach that potential with our own intellectual capabilities."
"But--" Dr. Jackson began, but was immediately cut off due to receiving a punch square in the jaw by Jamal. The researcher's knees began to give as he began losing consciousness. Jamal grabbed him by the collar and lightly slapped his cheek multiple times.
"No no, I'm not done here." Jamal scowled. "Even ignoring the philosophical quandary this places us in, it raises practical dilemmas as well. You're dealing with the black market of alien weaponry. You're a scientist, you see. You ultimately hold zero weight in the eyes of the scumbags making up the criminal underground. They operate through fear and money. If one of them figures out your connection to me, because you've hidden your actions from me, I can't be there to scare them. And they'll sell that information to the highest bidder. That forms a crack in the system I've built. And once that crack forms, it's a bitch to fix." Jamal pulled him closer, to where their faces were mere inches apart. "Do you understand?" Jamal asked through gritted teeth, to which Dr. Jackson weakly nodded. "Good." Jamal smiled. He then punched him again. And again. And again. Dr. Jackson's body went limp as he began gurgling due to blood filling his mouth. He then took one last gasp and Jamal released his collar, letting his lifeless body crumple to the ground. Jamal then looked up at the armed guards around the bound Jacob. "I can see it on your faces. 'That was excessive!' No. It was necessary. Get it?" Jamal snarled.
The soldiers were silent and didn't move a single inch. Jamal took their silence as a sign that they definitely did get it. "Excellent." Jamal said, throwing up his hands that were suddenly no longer covered in blood. "Now, do you all remember the last order Dr. Jackson gave you before he met his unfortunate end?" The soldiers collectively nodded. "Good. Well, now I'm giving the order. I suggest you get going post-haste." The soldiers immediately began scrambling to begin cleaning the warehouse of all alien weaponry.
