Marvel Elysium | Episode Four

#curatorreview

Chapter Four: A Paper Crown Burns Quietly

Confidential Source. Encryption Tier 7. Clearance: Restricted.

> Recipient: Alistair Richardson

Subject: PROJECT HELIOS – Containment [cI]Failure & Unethical Human Experimentation – [cI]URGENT

Attached Files: [Classified dossier bundle: [CI]HLS_Ops_Archive-v7], [Audio: [CI]X3B-Declass-Memo], [Surveillance Stillframe - [CI]Timestamp 11:48], [Autopsy Partial - Operative Omega 6.13]

The message had no sender.

The time stamp blinked on the encrypted drive at exactly 03:01.

---

Alistair Richardson didn’t believe in coincidences. As Editor-in-Chief of The Crown Herald, Britain’s last bastion of serious investigative journalism, he had learned that stories with the quietest origins often led to the loudest revelations.

The folder on his desk was unlabeled—slick black, marked only with a watermark shaped like a helix coiled around a crown. He recognized the symbol. It had once been rumored to appear on weapons dossiers sent to Whitehall during Cold War proxy conflicts. He hadn’t seen it in decades.

And yet here it was. With files far more damning than anything he could’ve imagined.

He read the title again, throat dry.

> PROJECT HELIOS — HUMAN SUBJECT ENHANCEMENT VIA BIOGENIC MANIPULATION AND NEURO-PHARMACOKINETIC CONDITIONING.

He whispered the phrase aloud, like saying it might make it feel less fictional.

His assistant, Claire, poked her head in the door.

“You’ve been at it for hours,” she said, frowning. “Any idea what that drop was?”

He didn’t answer. He reached into the folder, extracting a redacted subject profile. Half the page was blacked out. But one line burned into his memory like acid on vellum.

> Subject Designation: Delta-9X. Status: [CI]Terminated (Presumed). Recent Classification [CI]Update: Alive.

“What is it?” Claire asked, walking in slowly.

“It’s a ghost,” Alistair said. “One we buried under the Thames thirty years ago. But apparently, it's back.”

He handed her one of the attached documents—a partial list of known personnel from Helios, several now deceased under… “unusual circumstances.”

Names. Crossed out.

Only one survivor left.

Delta-9X.

Whoever she was, the intel was clearly meant to protect her identity. Even her training records were anonymized, referred to only in fragments:

> “Neuroplastic testing revealed accelerated synapse reconfiguration within 72 hours of NEDRA-7 compound introduction.”

“Subject demonstrated advanced regenerative behavior—suggesting potential cellular instability.”

“Sterilization and psycho-resilience conditioning executed by operative A.M.”

Alistair's hands clenched.

"A.M." The initials matched the name buried deeper in the second bundle.

> Operative: Adelaine Miller. Clearance Level Omega-Black. Authorized: Directive Theta.

Claire skimmed the paragraph, then looked up sharply.

“They sterilized her?” she whispered. “Whoever Delta-9X was?”

“Without consent. At seventeen.”

>Claire stepped back like she’d touched something electric. “This was sanctioned?”

Alistair leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. “According to this, Helios was a t venture. Off-book. SHIELD, MI6, and a third party—unknown, but linked to an old HYDRA shell network based out of Munich.”

He tapped a paragraph highlighted in the whistle-blower’s annotation.

> “Initiate containment if Delta-9X breaches protocol. Subject’s memory conditioning is unstable. Risk of moral disengagement: HIGH.”

Claire stared at him. “They created something they couldn’t control.”

“No,” Alistair said softly. “They created someone they never intended to let live.”

There was more—transcripts of internal memos between Whitehall officials, audio logs of off-record meetings where “disappearances” were discussed with chilling calm, video surveillance of a black-ops chamber coded “Gideon’s Hollow.”

And at the center of it all: Delta-9X—a shadow shaped like a woman.

Alistair opened the last file, marked simply:

> Witness Testimony – Redacted Identity [SOURCE: M.D.]

He clicked play.

The voice that came through was filtered, but unmistakably exhausted. Controlled, yet personal. Michael Darrow.

> “I was complicit. Not in the direct actions—but in the silence. I was there when they presented the plan. We were told Helios was a countermeasure to an incoming evolution. Super soldiers, metahuman combatants—words they used to justify torture. They needed obedient weapons. Not heroes.”

> “She was a child. American-born, raised off-grid. Her father was on the SHIELD internal loyalty list. I think that’s why she was flagged. Accessible. Trainable. Disposable.”

> “We called her Delta-9X, but she had a name. A real one. I can’t give it to you—not now. Too many eyes. But she survived. And she's coming for the architects of that program. One by one.”

> “Help her. Or get out of her way.”

The audio ended.

Silence held for a long time.

Claire finally exhaled. “Are we publishing?”

“Not yet,” Alistair said. “This… this is war. Not with guns. With information. Every intelligence branch in the world will try to kill this story before it breathes.”

“But if we sit on it—”

“I didn’t say we’d bury it,” he said quietly. “I said not yet.”

He stood, retrieving an old whiskey bottle from the cabinet behind his desk and pouring two glasses.

“To ghosts,” he muttered, handing one to Claire. “And the ones who come back.”

As they drank, he looked once more at the last line in the file.

Handwritten, untraceable. Scrawled in ink across the margin of the final page:

She’s not looking for justice. She’s looking for an ending.

_______________________________________________