Scott Carr stalked through the shadowy warehouse. His movements slow and deliberate. Despite the darkness, most of his surroundings were distinguishable thanks to a few lights scattered throughout the warehouse’s main floor. Some of the lights flickered like a horror movie and helped to elevate the bad vibe that he felt towards this whole job. His last job.

He made his way to a set of old metal stairs that looked like a tetanus family reunion and began his ascension. The structure produced a creaking and moaning sound that only ancient metal was capable of. Scott climbed, and he thought that the swaying stairs became a perfect metaphor for his internal uneasiness. Upon reaching the top floor, he found it shrouded in thick darkness, consuming everything in its reach and making it impossible to see. It took Scott’s eyes several minutes to adjust to the murky surroundings. Initially, everything in front of him was a dark blob, but gradually the outlines of objects began to take shape. He located the entrance to the office, exactly where his map had predicted.

A woman’s voice echoed from the communication earpiece. "Scott, once you enter the office area, the safe should be on the back wall. I have the combination ready for you, but if you run into any trouble, just let me know, and Alexia can come grab it, and we can open it someplace safer."

"Gotcha, Vanessa. Is everything still quiet outside?" Scott couldn't shake an eerie sense about this job since they had started planning it. Part of him expected something to go wrong, but he always felt some apprehension during any job, and if you didn’t, you were going to be sloppy.

“Yeah, Bricks just gave the all-clear from across the street, Alexia is on the roof, and reported that everything is quiet.”

"When did you become such a nervous Nelly?" A deep voice with a hint of southern twang echoed in his earpiece.

“I told you something feels off about this job, but it's a little late for that now. I'm moving towards the office. Just stay sharp out there, Bricks, and let me know if you see anything.” Scott moved gingerly through a door into a large office area.

"This guy finds out he is going to be a daddy and immediately goes all soft on us." Bricks chuckled

"Wait. He's going to be a what?" A woman's voice said over the communication channel.

"Alexia and Bricks quiet on the line. We are in the middle of a job here. Focus. Scott head to the office." Vaness barked out

Scott waded cautiously into the shadowy office. He was thinking about what a big mouth Bricks had when his nose caught a whiff of something he could not place. A familiar scent, but his recall failed him. Then It hit him; it was the smell of the earth, more specifically the scent of freshly dug dirt. The aroma disoriented him slightly, and he wasn’t able to see most of his surroundings which added to the sensation. Scott reached for his small tactical flashlight in his pocket but froze when the room's lights came to life without warning. Scott stood as still as possible, like a cornered animal. Dark figures clad in tactical gear began to show themselves, creeping out of hiding places previously covered by the veil of darkness. By Scott’s count, ten armed men in military fatigues and carrying MP7 submachine guns filled the previously dark room. Most concerning was the large man wearing a leather duster over an all-black outfit. From Scott's personal experience and years of TV shows and movies, he knew a large man in a leather duster meant nothing good.

“There is no need to play games, Scott. You aren’t going anywhere.” The large man bellowed in a voice that reminded Scott of a lumberjack that had once sold paper towels on television. The man's voice dripped with confidence.

Scott stood motionless, grasping for an exit strategy. His mind raced, one thought kept creeping to the surface, he had known something was wrong from the start of this job, and he should have backed out. Why didn't he listen to his gut? Why didn't he listen to Jeanie? The hefty payday led him to ignore his intuition, the one thing that had kept him safe all these years. Stupid, so much more was at stake now, what good is one last payday if you are in jail. Jeanie had warned him, she said to walk away while he still could, and he didn't listen. He thought about using his ability to escape, but that would probably end with him being filled with bullets.

Suddenly, a tremendous downward force hit Scott’s body pulling him towards the floor. All thoughts cleared from his mind, and he gathered all his strength and tried to fight the downward compulsion but it was no contest, and the force pushed him to the ground. The effect intensified, his insides felt like a wet towel being put through the wringer. Every breath became a struggle, and he gasped to force air into his lungs. The sharp overpowering pain sent his body into shivers of shock. A small whimper was all the sound he could produce.

“Ah, there we go.” Said the leather duster clad man, smugness draped over his face.

“My name is Newton, and as you can see, I can control gravity. So, I can make it so you simply can’t leave, or I can make it much worse Scott. Much worse. So why don’t we just make this easy and you and your crew of flunkies give up?”

“Newton? Shouldn’t you be like Gravitron or Vector Force or something cool like that.” Scott gasped out. Newton had begun to relieve some of the pressure, and he no longer felt like an orange inside a juicer.

“My namesake is Sir Isaac Newton, you ignoramus,” Newton said incredulously

“Scott, Alexia is moving in. She is going to come in through the back window, and Bricks is meeting me upfront, and we are on our way up the stairs.” Vanessa spoke into Scott’s earpiece.

“No, don’t do it!” Scott barked

“Don’t do what?” Newton puzzled, then a nod of recognition flickered on his face. “Oh, you must be talking to your friends over the communication device in your ear. No, please let them come to the party. I've never been a big partier, but I have always been told that the more, the merrier.”

"I’m shocked, you seem like the life of the party," Scott replied

Scott heard the faintest footstep on the roof and knew it was Alexia. Had Newton noticed it? His question quickly answered when Newton looked up at the ceiling, followed by a thudding crash above them.

“Looks like we trapped two for the price of one! Perhaps we can make it the full foursome.” Newton had a look of pleasure that Scott found unnerving and disturbing at the same time.

Scott observed that he no longer had any impairing effects from Newton’s power. He regathered his wits and shook his arms to make sure they still worked and concluded that Newton's ability must be limited to one area at a time. He had encountered others with great abilities but a relatively small range to use them. Scott leaped to his feet and charged the 2 or so steps between him and Newton. With all his weight loaded into the balls of his feet, he sprang, turning himself into a missile and steered his right shoulder directly into Newton’s knees. The knees buckled on contact, and the much larger man came crashing down on Scott’s back and something cracked inside Scott's body. He winced in pain as he tried to breathe and was met with an intense agony and realized he must have broken some ribs.

“RUN! NOW! RUN! ALL OF YOU! IT'S-A SETUP!” Scott screamed as loud as he could muster despite the excruciating pain. He heard running on the roof and prayed it was Alexia escaping.

“I’m not leaving you, man!” Brick's voice boomed in his earpiece.

“I will be fine. You must trust me. GO NOW!” as the last word escaped Scott’s mouth, the familiar pulling sensation on his body returned, forcing him closer to the ground. This time the additional pain in his ribs left him wanting to scream, but he found himself only able to produce a barely audible whimper.

“That was ill-advised Scott. I have no choice but to use extreme force to bring you to justice. You are under arrest by the North-Eastern Territories for attempted robbery and assault on an N.E.T officer.”

The pain that tore through Scott’s body was incomparable. If he had been at the hospital and they asked him to rate his pain on a scale of 1-10 with one being a happy face and 10 being the super sad face. He would rate it a 20 with a squashed face.

Newton now had his foot right next to Scott's head, and the large man leaned down and whispered in his ear “It’s going to get a lot worse.”

Scott had just met Newton, but in that brief time, he got the impression that he was not prone to exaggeration. And in this case, Newton proved his instincts correct, and the downward pulling continued to grow. Scott’s consciousness began fading, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to pass out or die, and at this point, either would come as a relief to the pain he was experiencing. Unexplainably the song “I fought the law” by the Clash began running through his mind. There was tightening over his body, and the pain in his ribs ached like nothing that he had ever experienced. The pain’s intensity made him doubt he knew words to sufficiently describe his anguish.

“I fought the law…”

He had tears streaming down his face; the pain reached a level that his body simply couldn't endure, and he was fading out, and everything began to get blurry. His body was reaching its limit, the pain unbearable, his vision fading away, and his mind became fuzzy.

“I fought the law and the..”

Then the force squeezing him stopped. He rolled on the ground in pain, barely able to catch his breath. His arms wrapped around his body in a defensive posture, and he tried to force breath into his lungs as fast as possible. Every breath strained and left a shooting pain in his rib, and no matter how hard he gasped, he fell short of catching his breath.

"Eh, Eh Scott." Newton wagged his finger at the man writhing in pain on the floor. "Not yet, we are just getting started, Scott. This does not end until I say so! "

Newton stood over Scott, smiling, and reapplied the pressure on him, slowly ramping up. The pain rushed all over Scott’s body, but his center mass was where it became overwhelming.

“I fought the law and the law…”

Newton repeated his attack with precision and dedication that would lead you to believe it was not his first time doing it. He brought Scott to the brink of passing out and let him down. He did this repeatedly with the glee of a schoolyard bully giving out purple nurples and noogies during recess

“I fought the law and the law…. won.”

Finally, Scott's body reached its limit, and everything went black.