Chapter 122. Facility 12
The walls of the underground testing sector were gray and quiet, thickly insulated and far below any place the sun could reach. No windows. No clocks. Just humming machines and flickering biometric scanners. A sterile world where time bled into nothing and people ceased to be people — just data points, failed variables, or if they were lucky... something useful.
Doctor Naehr entered with the calm confidence of a god in his own temple.
His long silver hair was tied back today, fastened with a dark clip shaped like a helix. His lab coat hung pristine, not a wrinkle out of place. He walked with hands behind his back, flanked by two assistants in black uniforms. Both avoided his gaze. Everyone did.
Rows of observation chambers lined the corridor, each one with a thick glass wall and a sealed door. Most were silent. Some weren’t.
"Status of Subject 32?" Naehr asked, pausing before one chamber.
"Cell degradation reached phase three," the assistant replied, pulling up a tablet. "Subject’s skin has begun to flake. Internal organs show strain. Cognitive patterns are... unstable."
Inside the glass, a figure lay on the floor, twitching occasionally. A woman — or rather, what used to be one. Her eyes were glazed, mouth parted in some silent plea or scream. Her skin shimmered faintly under the lights, like something metallic lurked just beneath the surface.
Naehr leaned in, observing her with detached fascination.
"Mutation overtaking faster than predicted," he muttered. "Unstable reactions to genome pairs A7 and C3. Hm."
He made a note on the console.
"Dispose of her. And draw marrow samples before full collapse."
The assistant hesitated. "Doctor... she’s still breathing."