24991120 | 0611

  Sublevel Access II | Shanghai Er Lang Sheng Medical Institute | United China

  31°18′37″ N

  121°31′27″ E

  They descended the steel staircase.

  Vicki attended to Adam diligently.

  She stood beside him, hands folded, eyes forward.

  “Below the ICU,” she said softly, “are the surgical theatres.”

  The word lingered.

  “Where we intervene.”

  They reached a double glass door.

  Restricted access.

  Authorised personnel only.

  Vicki touched her hand to a panel.

  The doors slid open.

  Light spilled out.

  Not the diffuse glow of the ward above.

  Bright.

  Clinical.

  Surgical.

  Rows of recessed luminaires bloomed overhead like sterile suns.

  Bathing the corridor beyond in flawless white.

  The air changed immediately.

  Cooler.

  Drier.

  Filtered through layers Adam could feel in his lungs.

  The operating wing stretched ahead.

  Symmetrical.

  Immaculate.

  Glass walls lined the corridor.

  A hundred surgical theatres.

  Within each room, white-clad staffers moved with choreographed precision.

  Surgeons.

  Technicians.

  Assistants.

  They moved with practiced ease.

  Economical.

  Rehearsed.

  They performed the procedure as iterations.

  A routine.

  No voices were raised.

  No frantic pacing, reactive measures.

  They went about the procedures.

  Their expression placid.

  They stopped when Vicki led the procession past.

  They levelled their gaze at the Harbingers.

  “This level addresses instability,” Vicki continued as they walked.

  Adam gave each room a cursory glance.

  “The stabilization ward allowed the body to reassert baseline function. Here, we test the integrity of that function.”

  Adam’s gaze flicked to her.

  Then he flicked his sights to one of the surgical theatres as they passed.

  A patient lay supine beneath the lights.

  Naked but for a sterile drape.

  Chest rising and falling in measured rhythm.

  Robotic medical arms hovered above him.

  Scalpels, cutting laser, articulate-able claws.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Poised, inactive, awaiting instruction.

  Poised to extract.

  Fiber probes ran into veins.

  Sensors tracking every measurable signal.

  Adam’s eyes fell on the patient.

  The patient did not stir.

  Zora and Gideon did not offer words.

  Their instincts on a knife’s edge.

  “Your theatres,” he remarked, “are operating at full capacity?”

  “We prized efficiency,” she replied, “the more we treat, the more we are able to save.”

  Zora looked to the patient.

  His chest laid gaping.

  His heart still beating.

  His lungs exposed.

  His ribs were missing.

  “You must have a lot of patients,” Adam remarked, “who is in need of your expertise.”

  “Yes, we do, my lord,” Dr Shi replied, “we prize perfection in our craft.”

  “Your craft,” the Harbinger echoed softly.

  Gideon peered.

  Through the glass pane.

  Sitting atop a clean surgical trolley.

  Rows upon rows of steel canisters.

  Each-labelled.

  Serial-numbered.

  For the attention of -

  Dr Vicki Shi, PhD

  Director of Virology.

  Gideon then turned back to the patient.

  Three white-robed attendants had draped a cloth over him.

  They wheeled him out.

  He turned back to catch up with the tour.

  “The contribution of your institute to medical science,” Adam was saying, “truly noteworthy.”

  Vicki did not slow. “Thank you, my lord. We strive to maintain excellence.”

  “Er Lang Sheng,” Adam muttered, “forgive me, my knowledge on the Celestial Pantheon is vague. Who is Er Lang Sheng again?”

  “My lord,” Vicki admonished in mock seriousness, “I will have you flogged.”

  “You would like that, won’t you?” Adam replied.

  “Yes,” she licked her lips.

  “Another time perhaps,” he replied, smiling, “when we are not pressed for time.”

  “Perhaps next we meet; I will have to test your knowledge on the Celestial Pantheon.”

  She turned then.

  “Er Lang Sheng is the Celestial Deity of Judgment and Truth.”

  “Ah, I see.” Adam said, “a rather odd choice, don’t you agree?”

  “Is that blasphemy, my lord?” Vicki asked softly.

  “There are powers in names,” he replied smoothly, “I would ask your forgiveness if I had offended you.”

  “It was an old name,” Vicki admitted, “older than I can remember.”

  “But we did not rename it, in honor of our benefactor.”

  “Ah, Her Eminence,” Adam intoned, “praised be Her Name.”

  “Praised be,” Vicki echoed.

  “Now, come to think of it,” he continued, “it seems rather apt.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” Vicki said.

  They stopped before a sealed door marked only with a symbol.

  An abstract eye encircled by concentric rings.

  Er Lang Sheng.

  She pressed her palm to the panel.

  The door slid open.

  24991119 | 2358

  Interior Deck II | UNHCR Salvation of the Sea | Eastern Mediterranean Sea

  34°58′12″ N

  25°06′45″ E

  Viper braced his shoulder against the hatch and pushed.

  The hatch gave way with a groan of protesting metal.

  He forced it open the rest of the way.

  Rifle shouldered, light slicing through darkness.

  The corridor beyond sloped downward, angled subtly toward the ship’s belly.

  The air here was stale.

  Thicker.

  Tinged with the scent of antiseptic.

  A linger atmosphere, entombed.

  “Rebreathers,” Cobra said quietly.

  They all reached for their units.

  “Scans indicate the air is clean, chief.”

  “Not taking that chance.” He replied, “not sure what they were brewing down here.”

  Python shrugged.

  “Better safe than sorry.”

  A click, a hiss.

  “On me.” Viper said.

  They moved in single file.

  The ship’s interior was dark.

  Groan and creaks.

  The dull thud of the waves.

  “Check your six,” Cobra said.

  A reminder.

  They walked past living quarters.

  Medical bays.

  Laboratory.

  Bulkhead upon bulkhead of medical wards.

  The ship revealed itself as they dwelt deeper.

  Passageways narrowed.

  Bulkheads closed in.

  The paint changed from faded white to bare metal.

  Then to composite panels reinforced against pressure and containment.

  They reached a junction.

  A sign hung crooked above a sealed door.

  Surgery.

  Boa exhaled slowly. “Figures.”

  Cobra keyed the lock.

  It resisted.

  He hit it again.

  It yielded with a reluctant click.

  Cobra unhooked the lock and tossed it.

  It landed with a deafening clank.

  “Chief!” Python cried.

  “Don’t be a wuss,” Boa snickered.

  “You ever watched that old holo, Ghost Ship?”

  “What about it?”

  “Well, you are in one!”

  Cobra sighed.

  Viper was first through the door.

  “Clear,” he whispered after his sweep.

  They stepped into the operating theatre.

  Lights hung overhead.

  Some shattered.

  Others dangling by exposed wiring.

  One still glowed faintly.

  Flickering as a scene out of a horror movie.

  Surgical trays stood arranged beside the central table.

  Tools laid out upon a sterile steel tray.

  Scalpels, clamps, retractors.

  All rusted, frozen mid-purpose.

  The table itself was clean.

  Too clean.

  “No bodies,” Viper muttered.

  “But stains,” Boa said, gesturing toward the floor.

  Pale discolorations.

  “This room’s been scrubbed.” Python said.

  “Guys.” Boa said.

  They turned to where she is looking.

  Dozens of operating tables.

  “Why do they need so many?” Boa asked softly.

  “You already know the answer, Lieutenant,” Viper answered grimly.

  “This is a body farm.”

  Rusted steel canisters.

  Some neatly arranged within a glass cabinet.

  Others upon the deck, rolling with the tide.

  Eroded in the salt and grime.

  A holographic sat dormant atop a rolling stand by the far wall.

  Python moved toward it.

  He tapped it.

  The machine hummed.

  Then flickered to life.

  An image bloomed on the cracked screen.

  Human anatomy.

  Layered.

  Annotated.

  Overlaid with symbols and lines that traced pathways.

  Vascular networks.

  Neural clusters.

  Thermal gradients.

  “They were mapping responses,” Python said. “Not anatomical. Reactionary.”

  “To what?” Boa asked.

  Python didn’t answer immediately.

  He pulled out his download jacks.

  “Stress,” he said, jacking in.

  As the data downloaded into his slate, he zoomed in on the projected image.

  Annotations crawled across the anatomy diagram.

  Notes layered atop one another in multiple languages.

  Some half-erased, others emphasized.

  “Look at this,” he said, pointing. “Viral propagation, progressive timeline.”

  “Variables, strain, cross-strain interactions.”

  “Live subjects.” Cobra said, grim.

  “War crime.” Viper added.

  Boa moved closer to the table.

  She ran a gloved hand along its surface.

  Her gloved fingers tracing the faint outline of the manacles.

  Where restraints had once been mounted.

  They were loose in their housing.

  “They opened them up,” she said softly. “Alive.”

  Viper cursed.

  “Pack up,” Cobra said, “we are leaving.”

  No one disagreed.

  Python pulled his jacks and shut down the projector.

  The screen went dark, but the afterimage lingered in their minds.

  They moved toward the door.

  He glanced toward the far end of the theatre.

  Another door stood sealed.

  Marked with a symbol.

  An irregular circular sigil.

  “What’s that?” Python asked, angling his flashlight.

  “Occultism,” Cobra said dismissively, “the Church loves iconography.”

  “Shall we?” Viper asked.

  “After you, old friend.” Cobra said.