Chapter dump 1 of 4.
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The first thing Bond noticed after dying was the smell.
It wasn't smoke or fire or scorched atmosphere. It was antiseptic. Faint chemicals, ink, and old paper. A scent he hadn't registered in months. It was the lab. Erskine's lab in Camp Lehigh.
He sat upright instantly, chest heaving, eyes scanning the room.
Glass beakers bubbled softly. The chalkboard was filled with hastily written equations. The dim overhead lights hummed in time with the flicker of analog monitors. On the far side of the room, in a white lab coat, stood Dr. Abraham Erskine, calmly writing notes into a leather-bound journal.
Bond stared, heart pounding.
"You're dead," he muttered.
Erskine didn't turn around. "Yes. So are you, it seems."
Bond stood slowly. His limbs worked. His chest didn't hurt and he didn't feel bloated anymore. There was no sign of the explosion, of Shaw, of the sky erupting. He scanned his body—no pain, no burns.
"I should be dead," Bond said.
Now Erskine turned.
"You miss me that much?" Erskine gently joked.
Bond's throat was dry. "This isn't possible."
"Nothing about you ever was, James."
They stared at one another for a long moment. Finally, Bond exhaled and walked toward the central table.
"I failed," he said, his voice hollow.
Erskine tilted his head. "Did you?"
"I underestimated Shaw. I let him steal Wakanda's vibranium. I let him walk away. I might've just created a villain worse than Red Skull—and I detonated the upper atmosphere for nothing."
He paused. "You were wrong to make me the one to carry your will."
Erskine set the journal down and stepped closer. "Why do you care? You're dead."
The words cut more than they should have.
"I care because it still matters." Bond muttered.
"You say that like you haven't already accepted it," Erskine said. "James… it's over. The world will move on. It always does. New heroes will rise. The next generation will stop Shaw. The weight you've been carrying? Let it go. You've earned your rest."
Bond's eyes flicked up. "And go where?"
Erskine held out his hand. "To peace. To the ones you've lost. You've given enough. Come. Be with them now."
Bond stepped forward.
For a moment, he considered it. Really considered it.
He looked at Erskine's hand. Clean, open. Steady.
His own hand lifted, fingers hovering just inches from Erskine's palm.
Then he froze.
"…I can't."
Erskine didn't move. "Why?"
"I don't want someone else to fix my mistake," Bond said. "Not this one."
Erskine's expression softened. A small smile touched his lips.
"That," he said, "is why you are who you are."
Bond stepped back, exhaling.
"You were never perfect, James," Erskine continued. "But you always tried. And that—trying—is what defines a hero."
Bond turned away, pacing slowly now.
"Heroes aren't chosen by men," Erskine said behind him. "Not by nations. Not by gods."
Bond paused.
Erskine's voice was quiet. "The only one who can choose… is the heart."
Bond closed his eyes, absorbing the words.
"The Heart," he repeated. "You once theorized the Ultimate Serum had three stages. The Body. The Mind. And the Heart."
"Yes," Erskine replied, stepping beside him. "You passed the first two."
"But the Heart… I didn't pass that, did I?"
"You were close," Erskine admitted. "If the Wakandan adaptation had followed my original design exactly, you would've completed it."
"But it didn't."
"No. You added something else." His voice dropped. "The Heart-Shaped Herb. A sacred plant tied to something not fully scientific… something divine. Its energy altered the parameters of the serum. Made the final trial—The Heart—more than just will or intention. It became spiritual. Cosmic."
Bond looked up at the ceiling. "So I was doomed."
Erskine was quiet for a moment. Then, "Not doomed. But you were… mismatched. The formula asked for something even you weren't designed to give."
Bond swallowed. "Is there still a way? A workaround?"
"You're dead, James."
"That doesn't mean its over!" he yelled in frustration
Erskine frowned. "The dead aren't meant to cling to life. If you stay too long, obsess over your regrets, your soul will warp. You'll become a phantom. A lost echo. Doomed to wander, never moving on."
Bond stepped closer. "Then I'll take that chance."
A long silence passed between them.
Then Erskine clapped his hands together once, firmly. "I told him," he muttered to no one in particular. "Told him you wouldn't hesitate. Not the Bond I know."
Bond blinked. "Told who?"
There was a shimmer.
The air rippled.
And then—he appeared.
A tall figure in a white robe, blue sash fluttering, a massive bald head with glowing white eyes and expressionless stillness.
Bond's hand twitched toward his side, instinct screaming.
Erskine raised a hand. "Don't."
The new figure stepped forward without sound.
"Who—"
"He is called the Watcher. An entity tasked with observing every single moment of Earth and record it." Erskine said. "He's the reason we're speaking right now."
Bond turned to the stranger. "You brought me here?"
The Watcher nodded once.
"Why?"
"For observation. For insight. And… perhaps," he said in a low voice, "for possibility."
Bond looked between the two of them. "You're telling me this is real?"
The Watcher spoke for the first time. "I reconstructed Erskine using perfect memory. I have watched every moment of his life. Every breath, every word, every act. From first to final."
Bond turned to Erskine. "So this isn't you?"
Erskine didn't flinch. "Have I spoken like a stranger to you?"
Bond hesitated. Then shook his head.
"Then I'm real enough."
Bond looked back at the Watcher. "Wait you can do this because you're alive?"
"In a manner of speaking," the Watcher replied. "I have existed since before your kind had language. My purpose is singular: to watch. And I have watched you, James Bond, since the moment you were born."
Bond didn't ask for more explanation.
He had a more important question.
"If you're here… does that mean I'm not actually dead?"
The Watcher and Erskine exchanged a look.
"It's complicated," Erskine said.
"Of course it is." Bond sighed.
The Watcher glided forward. "Your body has disintegrated. There is nothing left of it. But your soul… it remains tethered to the mortal world."
Bond's brow furrowed. "Tethered by what?"
The Watcher raised a finger—and snapped.
Reality collapsed like a folding curtain.
The world snapped back into focus.
One second, Bond was standing in Erskine's lab.
The next, he stood inside a chamber unlike anything he had ever seen.
It was silent.
Above him, glowing containment rings spun slowly around a central gravitational platform suspended in a vacuum chamber.
Floating at its center—a miniature sun, barely larger than a basketball, but pulsing with the intensity of a nuclear detonation held on a leash. Layers of containment fields on par with Wakanda's engineering, shimmered around it in rotating geometric patterns, distorting the air with heat mirages.
Bond could feel the energy radiating from it—not just warmth, but something deeper. Something familiar.
"Where… are we?" he asked, his voice low.
The Watcher stood beside him, hands folded calmly in his sleeves. Erskine was a step behind, silent for now.
The answer came a moment later. "You're standing in a secure chamber deep within Attilan," the Watcher said. "This is the lunar stronghold of the Inhumans."
Bond blinked. "There's a civilization on the bloody Moon?"
"Yes."
"Riiigght. And this?" Bond gestured to the miniature sun. "What is it?"
Erskine spoke hesitantly. "That...is you."
Bond stared. "I don't understand."
"Your body," the Watcher explained, "was reduced to nothing. But your soul—your essence—endured. At the moment of your death, the stress on your mind and body led to an evolution of your mutation. The radiation from the Ultimate Serum and your evolved mutation catalyzed something unprecedented. Your soul didn't pass on."
"It adapted," Erskine added. "Anchored itself to this world...as the core of the radiation. An Inhuman probe found this mass of solar radiation floating close to the moon and brought it back for study."
Bond's gaze remained fixed on the sun. "That thing is me?"
"Yes," said the Watcher. "At its core lies your tethered soul. Every moment, it is adapting. Resisting collapse. Becoming something new."
Bond's jaw tightened. "But how?"
"It wasn't supposed to happen this way," Erskine admitted. "Your version of the serum included divine energy. Combined with your cellular adaptations, the result was... beyond anything I theorized."
Bond turned to him. "So I'm still alive?"
The Watcher and Erskine shared a look.
"No," the Watcher said. "Not in any conventional sense."
"You have no body. No pulse. Nothing tying you to the mortal plane except that," Erskine gestured to the containment sun.
Bond narrowed his eyes. "Why show me this?"
"Because you asked," the Watcher said.
"I said I wanted to know how to fix my mistake," Bond replied. "This doesn't help."
The Watcher's head tilted slightly. "Doesn't it?"
Bond took a slow breath. "If my soul is tethered to that... is there a way to bring me back?"
There was a silence.
"A possibility," Erskine admitted. "But untested. And extremely dangerous."
"You've already risked becoming a Phantom," the Watcher added. "You have no body to return to. Even if you could reconstitute yourself, you would be something else. Not human. Not even mutant. Something between."
Bond turned back to the core. "Can it be done?"
"Perhaps," the Watcher said. "But know this: if your soul loses its center—if that sun collapses—then you will not die. You will cease. No afterlife. No rebirth. Just... silence."
Bond didn't flinch.
"I've lived with worse odds."
Erskine let out a breath, half amusement, half sorrow. "Always the soldier."
The chamber lights dimmed briefly as the sun flared. The containment field adjusted automatically, compensating for the surge.
"How long until it's stable?" Bond asked.
"That's the thing," Erskine said. "We don't know if it will ever be 'stable.' Not without...help."
Bond looked between them. "Help from who?"
The Watcher remained silent. But Erskine spoke the words.
"You'll need more than science. More than energy. You'll need someone to believe you still belong on Earth. Someone willing to risk everything to bring you back."
Bond frowned. "Peggy."
"She's still looking," the Watcher confirmed. "And not just her. Sw'Thandi too. Others are beginning to suspect you're not truly gone."
Bond folded his arms. "Then maybe it's time I gave them a reason to keep looking."
The Watcher raised an eyebrow. "Be careful, James Bond. The moment you influence the world again, your soul will no longer be passive. It will become an active force. That will call attention. The unwelcomed kind."
Bond turned to face the glowing core one last time. "Let them come."