He stroked the side of the cold glass with one gloved hand. He leaned his head next to the ice as if he could hear a heartbeat. He looked up at her and tried to meet her glazed, dead eyes.

"Penny, do you think they'd believe me if I told them I could brink you back?" he whispered through the glass, the start of the daily ritual. "Penny, do you think you'd remember me if you came back?"

He braced himself on the cylinder and stood up, eye-level with the frozen woman. "It's almost time."

Four years had passed since she had died, and yet she looked not a day older than that evening. He felt that he had aged significantly in those years; though, maybe, he had found the words to say to her, words to explain how he felt. Four years and there hadn't been a day where he hadn't thought of her. Even— especially— when he pulled the trigger and ended Hammer. Even when he and Fury Leika…

He felt disgusting for even doing that.

"I will make it up to you," he whispered to her as he retreated to his workbench. He pulled the goggles over his eyes and pulled the delicate machine's casing apart. In his left hand, he pulled a drawer open and took something from within. On its surface, it appeared to be a sort of laser pointer in cold silver: a small, red button on the side, an aperture at its peak to allow a beam through. However, this small device did far more than just point at things.

With a trembling hand, he pressed the button. An eerie buzz filled the room as he precisely worked with the machine in front of him. It was very nearly complete. He chewed on his lip as the light faded far beyond his reach, losing himself in the project.

Hours passed and he surfaced, standing. He snapped the casing around the insides once more and slipped the bracer onto his arm. He turned toward her, the flickering lights of his lab casting an uneven glow on the glass cylinder. He walked over in three easy strides.

"It's now or never," he whispered and pulled the trigger of the make-shift, sort-of gun.

It pierced a hole through the glass, shattering it into neat fragments that fell to the floor in a matter of soft sound. The ice melted in a sweet, simple line to her heart. Water trickled down the side of the one-cylinder like blood from a sharp wound.

The pulse made contact, and she opened her eyes once more in the hazy red aftermath. She looked him straight in the eye: confused, more than a little scared.

"Billy," she stated, "what have you become?"

Less than a week later, he stood in front of his colleagues with a rattling, curtained cage settled behind him.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the E.L.E.," he began, addressing his crowd. "I stand here before you today to announce that my undeath ray was a tremendous success." A cheer went around the room, his name was called, but it was silenced by a raise of a gloved hand. "I have brought back the dead; in effect, I have control over most things thought impossible to control."

The cage rattled violently behind him. He glanced back to it.

"Unfortunately, through… experimentation," he continued, "it was found that exposing the subject to trauma or shock may lead to unexpected results— psychosis, cannibalism, and…"

One more nervous glance at the cage. "I'll let you see for yourselves."

A hand pushed its way through the bars, clearly outlined through the red curtain that matched his red outfit that matched the red of the ray. He wheeled it closer to the front of the stage; a growling sort of noise was heard clearly by the audience.

He removed the curtain.

Inside was a woman, not more than 25, with stringy reddish hair. Her green-grey eyes were faded to cataract clouds. Her skin was turning pale and greenish, sunken and sullen. She bared her teeth and snarled at the crowd, glaring with no sight. She snapped once, twice, then growled and retreated to a corner.

"Behold," he stated, "the potential effects of the undeath ray."