Sam had taken off his mask to see them with his own two eyes, the four youngsters that were now laying on beds in front of him. One girl and three boys, all connected to medical machines to monitor their vitals, Layla and Medrano were doing checkups on each of them whilst poor Maxwell was still trying to make sense of everything that was happening around him.

Sam did not blame him either, when they had removed the masks and restraints they had been shocked by the conditions these people were in, the girl had wounds of knives and bruises, broken bones all over her body, at least two of the boys had been tasered and then beaten unconscious while the fourth boy had been shot at least twice with tranquilizer darts.

Doctor Medrano kept cursing in Spanish and Sam knew that Layla was already uploading viruses to computer systems of the organization to vent her frustration (she was so like him in that aspect). He could not blame them, in all his years of dealing with criminal organizations he had never seen young kids get treated like this. The Mafiosi he had contacts with were even strictly against slavery and human trafficking, since they controlled the criminal environment in large parts of the country this kind of thing almost never happened.

But it seemed that even when most criminals wouldn’t do it others would, it was disgusting and more so because he knew why these kids had been so violently captured. “there is only one way to know for sure.” He cracked his fingers, “let’s go hacking shall we.”

He walked to the other side of the room wherein a small circle surrounded by glass windows stood Medrano’s desk. “Doctor may I use your computer for a moment?” Doctor Medrano heard it in her commlink, “yes boss but do not delete my research data okay.” Sam snickered, why would he remove his lead scientists files, she had proven her loyalty to him many times already, the target now was the data vault of the government's black ops organization.

That might have sounded impressive if Sam had not hacked servers with more security than that one before, the hardest part was finding it, but once you found it the hacking was surprisingly easy for him. He had to admit that most hackers still couldn’t get in because some of the hardest hacking techniques didn’t work and yet he’d succeeded because he saw the vault for what it was, just a simple database.

No matter how secure it seemed at first it was still a normal database and after a closer look, Sam had discovered that it was one of those databases vulnerable to a good old SQL injection, a technique that he had used multiple times before to get into databases and that was used mainly for that purpose by hackers all around the world.

AS soon as he sat down behind Medrano’s desk he started the attack on the database, something he had done a lot in the last few years. He began with diving into the dark web, through multiple link gates before finally, the screen showed a logo and a locked site. “gotcha.”

After using the sql injection it was only a few minutes before he found the data vault, millions upon millions of files, all documenting the things the government did not want any people to know about. Names of their employees, spy reports, he had once attempted to copy everything but had realized the government would notice such a thing, it was literally the only safety measure that was stopping him.

Sam had planned to reveal all of it after he found out about what happened to him and what the government did but instead that one nuisance had made it necessary for him to take on the name hackmeister and try it with another approach.

Back then he could have taken the risk and try to hide but now it was too late for that, he had people working for him, a whole organization, and a private army and base with high-tech equipment that was considered science fiction by most people. If he made a mistake all of that would be in danger and he was not planning on letting that happen.

Sam began searching the files and soon found what he looked for, cautiously he inserted a program into the site and began to copy them, the program made sure no one could notice, it was still not strong enough to allow for the obscuring of this whole database being copied but for a few files it could do the job. After about half an hour of waiting the four files which he had wanted to copy appeared in his own database. Sam quickly logged out, leaving no trace behind from his intrusion.

;;;;;;;;;;

Doctor Medrano was still racing across all four beds, checking her new patient's vitals and conditions, her boss had gone to her office some time ago but she did not have any time to wonder about what he was going to do in there, she needed to focus on this job.

“patient one appears to be stabilizing, she mumbled to herself, but her skin texture seems to be changing since she was brought in.” Layla, the hospital AI also monitored the scanners, to monitor them all at once to alert Medrano if needed, she was right now looking dark blue, meaning she was concentrated on her task and not in a mood for jokes which meant she was deadly serious about this. It scared the doctor to see the normally cheerful and carefree AI like this.

From the moment she met Hackmeisters creation in the med bay she had worked together with her and learned that she adapted through experiences and learning almost like a human child, right now she was probably adapting to the role of that what she was made for, the med bay overseer and assistant. She had a free will of course but her primary function was still part of who she was.

The other doctors, two surgeons, and two others were performing small operations and trying to use medication to lift the effect of the drugs used to immobilize these teens. Each one of them had been a private operator for crime lords or other underworld scum but she should probably not judge, she had the nickname, the doctor”, not because she had always been a nice nurse in a hospital, oh no.

But those times now laid behind her, she had found a new job and purpose and she could not let people get away with things like these.

“Medrano, patient 4’s vitals are going down fast!” Layla suddenly yelled as she pointed at the bed where a few doctors were already readying reanimation equipment in preparation for what might happen. She rushed over and watched as the heartbeat of the youth declined.

“Give him an injection with concoction delta, She yelled at the others, do it quickly or his vitals will….” Suddenly the machine that observed the boy's vitals began sending distress signals, the patient's heartbeat had stopped! “inject it and start reanimating him, she roared in panic, we have to stabilize him right now or else….”

“stop!” Her boss was running towards her with a worried expression, “it’s his power kicking in, if you reanimate him it’ll only make it worse, you need to get away from him!"

;;;;;;;;;

Sam felt like a lunatic for saying they should not reanimate the boy to help him but really what could he have said, this kids file showed terrifying details about what was going to happen next, he had to stay calm. “Medrano we have about an hour before the next part of the ability kicks in, move him away from the others and place him under the dome.”

Medrano looked at him as if he had just told her that she was going to turn into a flamingo soon, “there is no time okay, we have 2 minutes before his ability kills us so put him under the dome now!” Layla acted immediately, the bed floated up from the ground and raced towards the metal orb in a corner of the med bay, it opened up and as soon as the boy was inside it closed up again, only through a small window on the side could one still see who was inside.

Medrano walked towards him, “what are you doing, this kid is dead, we still have time to try reanimation, what kind of bullcrap about abilities were you spouting!” Sam looked at her and she immediately backed away, possibly afraid of him, “Medrano, watch.” He and Medrano looked at the orb, suddenly through the window, an orange glow could be seen, getting brighter and brighter, suddenly they could see fire roar up inside the dome, the doctor and Sam stared at it for a minute before the glow started to dim.

“What was that, the doctor looked at him with amazement and terror in her eyes, what happened to that boy? Sam shrugged, “Layla reopen the dome please, Sam said. When the dome opened up the stench of burnt metal and the heat came out into the med bay, luckily the air filtration cleared it up quickly. Inside the dome, in a pool of burnt and molten metal laid the youngster that had been dead a few minutes ago, he lived!

“This kid has a fire-related ability it seems, sam said, he not only controls it but he can also rise from his ashes, he is a human phoenix!” Medrano looked back at him, “I suppose you want us to give him new clothes and put him in another bed sir?”

Sam nodded, “yes, but if I were you I would search for something fire-resistant."