Who Is Zachary?

INT. DOCUMENTARY INTERVIEW ROOM – POORLY LIT – CAMERA ROLLING

INTERVIEWER:

Keep it simple. You met him, right? What was that like?

RANDOM PERSON 1 (Mid-30s, working class, fidgeting with collar, nervous):

Yeah… yeah, I met him. Stood right in front of him. Spoke for maybe five minutes. Asked him where he was from. He looked me in the eye and answered, but.. I don't know how to explain it. Even though I was right there, I still don't get the feeling I actually met him, y'know? Something hollow in the way he listens. Like he's acting human. Like he's... watching from somewhere else, a long distance away..

INTERVIEWER:

And what did he say to you?

RANDOM PERSON 1:

Not much. Asked me about the weather. Thanked me for something silly.. I think I held the door open for him? Then just walked away. I tried to make a joke about the local sports team, and he smiled like he understood the joke, but I don't think he did. I think that smile was for me, not for him. Besides that, the smile seemed half a**ed anyways. And the whole time I felt watched. Not by him. By something else.

CUT TO: SURVEILLANCE FOOTAGE – STATIC-LACED – PARK LOT – 98 YARDS AWAY FROM SUBJECT

RANDOM PERSON 2 (Older man, ex-military, now a mechanic):

I've never gotten within a hundred feet of him. Hell, I never wanted to. Just saw him once stepping off a train. He was looking around the station like he was committing it to memory, and something in every corner of me was screaming not to let him see me. Not that I thought he'd kill me or anything, but because, if he saw me, he'd know me. Everything. Who I was. What I'd done. What I'd thought. He felt dangerous and honestly just uncanny..

INTERVIEWER:

Dangerous?

RANDOM PERSON 2:

Very. But not like a guy with a gun dangerous. He's the kind of dangerous you don't know how to prepare for. The kind where you feel like you're hopelessly outmatched and don't even bother.

CUT TO: NEWS CLIP – CITY SCENE – DESTRUCTION – BURNED STREET CORNER

RANDOM PERSON 3 (Young woman, student, standing among debris):

They refer to him as Earth's defense, The Last Resort, The Champion, whatever. But if you saw him in a crowd, you'd think he was just some kid! He's built but not enormous. No glowing eyes or anything silly like that either, unlike these other stupid terrorists. But when he moves, its like lightning! I've seen footage of war zones, cities in flames, armies; all torn apart by the hand of a person who doesn't even seem to be trying. He's never lost. Not even once. And I don't think he can lose. Whatever it is he's doing, it's working.

CUT TO: NOvVa OFFICIAL PRESS CONFERENCE – DARK ROOM – SPOTLIGHT ON SPOKESPERSON

NoVVa OFFICIAL (Clinical, calm, precise tone):

We are now authorized to release some information pertaining to Subject Z-22, "Zachary." This follows after intense public pressure and a chain of classified incidents of large-scale anomalies attributed to his actions. What we are about to share is what we can reveal.

Zachary ___, born August 22, 2000. Citizen of Earth. He was registered threadless at birth, and remained threadless through adolescence. No sign of energetic evolution, no reaction to threading catalysts, no registration with any sanctioned guilds. All biological scans totaled him completely human—absolutely average. Then, one day, he unexpectedly changed. We don't know why. We don't know how. There was no initiating event logged, no exposure to divine material, or cosmic vectors. He simply went dark for 42 hours, and when he returned, he was… different.

Very different.

We saw him weave over 25 different kinds of threads simultaneously—some of which are graded "Prohibited" on the Interversal Law registries—each one performed at a professional grade of control. And yet, biometric scanners still read him as threadless. Let me say that again: He's weaving threads with expert-grade precision, and yet the machinery insists he's not using any threads at all. He appears to have generated what we can only describe as an innate thread—not external, not linked to standard bio-thread circuits. Some sort of independent, armor-like energy that's detached from all known ThreadTech. And yet, it doesn't register a signature.

CUT TO: INTERVIEW – BLACKSITE – LOW-LIGHT ROOM – UNNAMED NoVVa ENGINEER

ENGINEER:

We tried to replicate it. God knows we tried. Even our best custom creations can't hold a candle to what Zachary does. Not even in simulation. He is power. It's natural. Like asking a sunbeam how it's shining.

NOvVa OFFICIAL CONTINUES

Zachary's manifestation corresponds with major disruptions in what we call the Pillars of Creation—the earliest energetic forces we know to affect reality. Previously, when the pillars find expression through human hosts, NoVVa protocol is full-force response. We eliminate the threat, cleanse, and stabilize reality. Unless Zachary is not being used by the Pillars, but rather, he's duplicating them. Worse—there is increasing indication he is them. Now let me be clear—this is theory. But it isn't unfounded. Audio surveillance turns up consistent patterns: Zachary speaks aloud to (seemingly) himself. He carries on entire conversations with voices we can't see or hear. And they aren't mumblings. He responds—asks, rebukes, argues. And it isn't madness. It's structured. Like a council. Like multiple minds using one body as host. A class-consciousness. A living pantheon.

CUT TO: FOOTAGE – WITNESS CAMERA – FLICKERING VIDEO – MOUNTAINSIDE RUINS

WITNESS (Tear-streaked, breathless):

They sent a team after him. Twelve agents. All designed to echo the original Four Pillars. Had backup plans nested inside backup plans. They never stood a chance. He didn’t just beat them. He dismantled them. Like someone taking apart a watch to see how it ticks.

NOvVa OFFICIAL:

We’ve exhausted traditional classifications. The names people throw around—Archangel, Messiah, Lone Star—are insufficient. He is no messiah. He is no soldier. He is a hybrid of power and unpredictability. To the criminal underworld, he is terror incarnate. To the righteous? He is a warning. We cannot say whether Zachary is constrained by law, moral compass, or social contract. But if he is constrained at all, the leash is so fine it might as well not be there. He is—by every metric available—the most dangerous living being in documented Tetraverse history. The only one more reviled is the Hellbringer himself, and even that analogy is becoming obsolete.

INT. DARK ROOM – FINAL INTERVIEW – SHAKY CAMERA – UNKNOWN SURVIVOR

SURVIVOR (Soft, haunted):

You don't understand. It's not that he can't be defeated. It's that you begin to question if it even makes a difference to try and defeat him. Like screaming at the clouds to make a storm end. He doesn't kill because he hates. That's what's scariest.