The Fiery Furnace #1
Philadelphia, 1953. The snow outside Cantrell Chemicals was as gray as factory smoke, clumped in gritty piles along the curb. Matt Harris stood in the lobby, hat in hand, the warmth of the building prickling his scarred skin. His coat was old but pressed, his shoes shined. The receptionist—a young white woman with bright red lipstick—glanced at him, hesitated, then pointed toward the office at the end of the hall.
“Mr. Doyle’s expecting you,” she said, her voice clipped, polite but distant.
Matt nodded, his face calm. “Thank you, ma’am.”
He walked down the corridor, past glass windows that revealed labs filled with gleaming beakers and brass fixtures. He felt the old itch in his hands, the muscle memory of a man who used to command a laboratory, who once wrote formulas that could stop a fire in its tracks. Now, he was here to push a broom.
Inside the office, Mr. Franklin Doyle leaned back in his leather chair, a man of forty-five with hair like polished steel and a mustache that curled at the edges. He didn’t stand to greet Matt.
“So,” Doyle said, glancing at the application on his desk, “you’re Harris.” His tone wasn’t welcoming. “Looking for steady work, huh?”
“Yes, sir.” Matt kept his voice even, humble.
Doyle studied him, eyes pausing on the faint scar that ran along Matt’s jawline. “Night janitor. It’s hard work—mopping, scrubbing, emptying trash. You do every room, every floor. But…” He leaned forward, his voice suddenly sharp. “There’s one door you don’t touch. You see a sign that says OFF LIMITS, you keep walking. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Matt said, lowering his eyes as if he were just another desperate man. “Won’t be a problem.”
“Good.” Doyle’s smirk returned. “I don’t need curious types poking around. This place is dangerous for someone who doesn’t know their way around a chemical bottle. You people…” He paused but didn’t retract the words. “Just do what you’re told, and you’ll get your pay.”
Matt’s fingers curled slightly against his hat brim. He smiled—a small, careful thing. “I’ll do my job, sir. Nothing more, nothing less.”
That night, Matt started his first shift. The building transformed after dark—quiet, humming with the low throb of machines left running, their sound like distant heartbeats. Matt moved from room to room, mop in hand, his mind half on the floor and half on the memories he could never shake.
The accident.
It had been two years since he was shot and killed in his own laboratory when some racist mob shot and killed him and set his place on fire with spilled chemicals. He survived but he bursts into flames, but the flames do not hurt him much.*** (Click here to see how Matt became the Fiery Furance.)***
From that night forward, the fire was part of him. When his emotions surged—anger, fear, even joy—he burst into flames. Clothing turned to ash. His life, his career, everything was gone.
Now, as he polished the floors of Cantrell Chemicals, Matt’s eyes kept drifting to the door marked OFF LIMITS. What was behind it? He could smell something—strange compounds, sharp and metallic, the kind of smell that told him the room beyond wasn’t a storage closet.
By the third night, curiosity gnawed at Matt like a hungry rat.
He waited until the clock struck 1:00 a.m., when the building was silent, when Doyle and his day-shift crew were deep in their beds. Then he approached the door.
He slid the master key into the lock. Click.
Inside was a laboratory unlike anything he’d seen since his own had burned. Chrome counters lined with precision equipment, glass vials glowing faintly under ultraviolet lights, shelves stacked with chemicals that weren’t listed in any public safety manual.
Matt felt a pang of something he hadn’t felt in years: belonging.
Setting his mop aside, he rolled up his sleeves and examined the equipment. It was top-of-the-line, better than anything he’d ever had. His hands moved almost instinctively—testing reagents, scribbling formulas in a small notebook he kept in his coat pocket. He wasn’t just a janitor anymore.
He was Dr. Matthew Harris again.
Hours passed as he worked on a formula that might cure him, a chemical stabilizer to halt the inferno in his blood. He believed it was possible. He had been close to it once before.
Then he saw a folder on the counter.
PROJECT ASH.
The next night, Matt returned, not to clean but to destroy. He had his cure formula scrawled on a single piece of paper, tucked safely in his coat pocket. Everything else in that lab—every vile piece of Project Ash—would burn.
When he stepped into Doyle’s office, the manager smirked. “Harris, you’ve been looking too long at that door. Think I don’t notice? What’ve you been up to?”
Matt looked him in the eye. “You are making people into human bombs with your chemicals.”
Before Doyle could respond, Matt’s skin shimmered with heat. A small flame flickered across his knuckles. Doyle stumbled back, fear replacing arrogance.
“We have to fight communism…” Doyle gasped. “You know this.”
“Communism never oppressed me,” Matt said.
Fire erupted from his hands, catching the office curtains. Doyle screamed as Matt walked past him into the OFF LIMITS lab.
He smashed vials, ripped papers, and ignited the shelves. The fire didn’t hurt him—it danced around him like a loyal pet. Within minutes, the laboratory was an inferno, alarms blaring, sprinklers hissing uselessly as water turned to steam.
By the time the fire brigade arrived, the entire wing of Cantrell Chemicals was in flames. Doyle would live, but Project Ash was gone.
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