The sky above was a theater of light and shadow, the sun spitting furious arcs of plasma that screamed across the atmosphere. Gamma Jack leaned against the railing of his penthouse balcony, hair tousled by the morning breeze, blue eyes flashing faint green as the solar storms tickled his senses. In his hand, a coffee mug steamed in the cool air.
He glared at the Sun. “Really? Again?” he said, his voice carrying over the city rooftops with the tone of a man addressing an unruly co-star. “You do realize I have better things to do than listen to you throwing a tantrum, right?” He took a slow, deliberate sip, as if to prove a point, then grimaced at the too-hot coffee. Somewhere far, far away, a black hole howled. Gamma Jack winced but didn’t flinch.
He was the only living being who could hear such things, and it was all because of his unique physiology. His body naturally emitted gamma radiation, a low-level field that resonated with energy patterns across vast distances. Stars, planets, even black holes, they all vibrated in frequencies his gamma field could detect and translate into perceivable signals. Most humans wouldn’t notice a dying star whispering its secrets, or a black hole screaming its hunger, but to him, these were as real as voices.
Sometimes the universe spoke gently, like the calm pulse of the Earth. Sometimes it was indifferent, distant, and cold. And sometimes… horrifying. Solar storms that shrieked across the atmosphere, galaxies colliding, black holes devouring light, they all hit him like raw, screaming voices. His coffee mug in hand, cursing at the Sun? That was just survival, a small way to cope with the cosmic cacophony only he could hear.
To the public, he was a hero: charming, photogenic, a walking headline. He knew exactly how to work a crowd, how to flash that smile just so, how to let his voice drip with confidence until every camera adored him. It was well-deserved, after all.
His arrogance wasn’t only born from public veneration. Deep down, he knew his own biology placed him far apart from the species he protected. His internal structure, saturated with high-energy radiation, made him far closer to a star than to a man. That knowledge gave him an unshakable certainty: he wasn’t just a person standing among billions. He was a singular phenomenon.
He took another sip of coffee, eyes fixed on the horizon. The universe might scream at him, planets might sob their ancient grief, and stars might rage like toddlers denied candy, but Gamma Jack would answer back, with wit, with power, and with all the practiced arrogance of someone who could claim kinship with the very suns themselves.