24991120 | 0702

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

  31°18′37″ N

  121°31′27″ E

  The corridor widened as they descended.

  The architecture changed subtly.

  The clinical symmetry and sterile aesthetics fell away.

  Walls transitioned from sterile white to muted gray.

  more intentional design.

  The lighting softened.

  Illumination glowed in recesses deeper into the ceiling.

  Adam walked behind Vicki Shi, flanked by his Harbingers.

  The light cast fewer reflections off their scripture-etched armor.

  Carpets and acoustic dampeners swallowed their footsteps.

  The only audible rhythm was the synchronized tread of their steel greaves.

  The director led them on.

  She did not hurry.

  She did not glance back to ensure they followed.

  She walked with the quiet assurance of one who guided many guests before them.

  “Here,” she said, “is where we observe.”

  Glass panels appeared along the corridor walls, revealing chambers beyond.

  Inside each chamber, a patient lay restrained.

  Not harshly, but thoroughly.

  Limbs secured.

  Heads cradled.

  There were many of them.

  Men, women.

  Young, old.

  Their bodies were exposed beneath soft surgical lighting.

  The doctor’s attendants were observing the subjects.

  They held data-slates, making notes.

  Heedless of their subjects’ modesty or dignity.

  Adam took a quick glance.

  No trauma.

  No blood.

  No visible injury.

  Only the subtle signs of strain.

  Tension in jawlines.

  Involuntary tremors beneath skin.

  Eyes flickering behind half-lowered lids.

  Other observers stood behind the glass.

  Clinicians.

  Administrators.

  A few figures shrouded in the dark.

  They wore unmarked attire.

  Their posture betraying little.

  No one spoke loudly.

  Some did not speak at all.

  Data scrolled across transparent displays before them in elegant, abstract patterns.

  Arcs of color, shifting lattices, pulsing geometries.

  As he watched, one of the attendants lifted the patient’s hair.

  Then he spoke to his colleague.

  Judgment.

  Assessment.

  Not malice.

  Not hatred.

  Disinterest.

  “These are not treatment rooms,” Zora spoke up.

  Vicki inclined her head. “Correct.”

  Zora’s gauntleted hand flexed once. “Then what are they?”

  Vicki stopped before a broad observation window.

  Beyond it, a man lay awake.

  Not thrashing. Not screaming.

  Awake.

  His eyes tracked the movement of instruments above him.

  His breathing was controlled, deliberate.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  As though he became accustomed to the discomfort.

  Sensors traced every reaction.

  Subtle changes in skin temperature were magnified on displays.

  Neural activity flared and receded like tides.

  The attendant leaned in, she seemed to be asking a question.

  The patient answered, his lips moving.

  He did not look at the woman in the room with him.

  “He is compatible,” Vicki stated.

  Adam turned to her.

  “I do not follow,” Adam said quietly.

  “He is compatible,” Vicki replied. “his body developed resistance to the viral strain.”

  Zora turned toward her. “You are infecting them?”

  Vicki met her gaze evenly.

  “How else are we to develop the strain? To understand it? To perfect it?”

  Zora’s face twisted in outrage.

  She took a step forward.

  Adam held up a hand.

  Forestalling her.

  “What if…” Adam asked, “he was found wanting?”

  A deflection.

  “Then he was found wanting.” Vicki replied.

  She turned and walked away.

  No apology forthcoming.

  Zora was about to pursue the matter.

  Adam placed an open palm upon her chest.

  He shook his head slightly.

  She backed off.

  He looked into her eyes.

  We are only here for the canisters.

  She assented in silence.

  They kept moving.

  24991120 | 0021

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

  34°58′12″ N

  25°06′45″ E

  The stairwell ended in a sealed door.

  Python bypassed the lock with practiced efficiency.

  He unhooked the lock.

  And placed it gently on the floor.

  Cobra sighed.

  “What?” he said, unlatching the bolt.

  The door slid open to reveal a room that should have been bustling.

  It wasn’t.

  Rows of consoles faced a curved wall of screens.

  Some displays were dark.

  Others glowed faintly, frozen mid-feed.

  The air was stale, thick with dust and ozone.

  “This was their nerve center,” Python said.

  “Sir,” Viper said.

  Cobra looked to him.

  “This ship’s been adrift for decades.” Viper said, “there’s no way…”

  “I know,” Cobra said, “that the systems or equipment still works.”

  Python and Boa looked at him.

  “The logical conclusion? The Church had been operating on this derelict.”

  “All this time?” Viper asked.

  “I’ll venture to say - always.” Cobra replied.

  They all looked at him.

  Horrified.

  “We just never noticed.” He finished.

  “Let’s move, we have data to dredge.”

  Boa moved to one of the consoles.

  She brushed dust aside.

  Revealing markings where equipment had been removed in haste.

  “Or abandoned,” she said.

  Python powered up a terminal.

  Video feeds flickered to life.

  Grainy footage of the observation chambers.

  Patients restrained.

  Awake.

  Sensors recording biometrics and vitals.

  The staffers standing impassively.

  Not intervening.

  Not comforting.

  Only observing.

  One feed looped repeatedly.

  A woman’s vitals spiked suddenly.

  Her breathing quickened.

  Her eyes widened.

  Staffer not intervening.

  She was screaming.

  The feed cut out moments later.

  Another showed a man convulsing briefly before going still.

  Data continued to scroll long after.

  “Hundreds… no, thousands.” Boa whispered, flipping through a stack of folios.

  “They’ve been here for a long time.” Cobra said.

  Python jacked in.

  He scrolled through logs.

  Entries were clinical.

  Cold.

  Detached.

  SUBJECT 5409-F — THERMAL RESPONSE EXCEEDED

  SUBJECT 6812-A — NEUROLOGICAL DISCIPLINE MAINTAINED

  SUBJECT 7154-C — FAILURE TO STABILIZE

  “Look at this,” Python said, highlighting a section.

  Cobra leaned closer.

  “IDs” Python said, his voice grim. “And…”

  “Death certificates.” Cobra whispered.

  “There’s where they’ve been getting the bodies,” Viper said.

  Hundreds of thousands of names.

  Hundreds of thousands of IDs.

  Global National Registry.

  Global Archival Photos.

  Global missing person lists.

  Hospital records.

  Registry of Cadavers.

  “The undesirables,” Viper said softly, “the deplorables.”

  “The impoverished, the sex workers, the political dissidents.” Cobra continued.

  “Taken. Sedated. Move through cadavers’ flight. NGOs.” Boa added.

  “The unseen. The phantom population. Missing persons.”

  “Global predation. Systemic erasure.”

  “Damn the Church.”

  “Grab everything.” Cobra said.

  “Take it all with us.”

  “Command will answer for this.”

  24991120 | 0712

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

  31°18′37″ N

  121°31′27″ E

  They reached the central gallery.

  The space opened into a vast amphitheater of glass and steel.

  Below, multiple tiers of chambers descended in a terraced arrangement.

  Each visible from above.

  The effect was unsettling.

  A cathedral of observation, where bodies replaced altars.

  Adam stood at the railing.

  He beheld patients enduring beneath him.

  Some lay still, eyes closed.

  Others stared upward, gazes unfocused.

  A few looked up, aware they were being watched.

  Data flowed continuously.

  “Here,” Vicki said, “here, you can see everything,”

  Adam did not look away. “As a god?”

  “Judgment,” she replied.

  Zora stepped forward beside Adam.

  “Judgment,” Zora echoed softly.

  “Who else worthier,” Vicki replied steadily.

  “As a god?” Adam said quietly.

  A glint of steel.

  “No,” she said.

  “As a servant, to bring about Her Will.”

  The glint faded.

  He turned to regard the amphitheatre.

  Those who endured the suffering as an act of faith.

  Those who endured the trials as an act of penance.

  “And what of those who exceed expectation?”

  Vicki allowed herself a small smile.

  “They progress, my lord.”

  “Progress to what?” Zora pressed.

  Vicki gestured downward.

  “To the next iteration.”

  Adam felt the gravity of her words.

  “The next cycle.”

  “The next strain.” Adam added, his eyes cold.

  “Yes.” She replied.

  “You are not looking for the immunity gene,” Adam continued.

  “The certainty that survival was not the endpoint. It was merely the prerequisite.”

  “Their survival was irrelevant,” Adam said.

  “You will test them till they break.”

  Vicki considered her answer.

  “There will always be a new strain.”

  “So long as I remain.”

  Adam was struck silent.

  “So long as this facility remains, we serve Her Will.”

  “A tool that endures is preferable to one that breaks.”

  Zora’s clenched her fist.

  Adam raised his hand.

  Subtly.

  A signal.

  “Why show us this?” Adam asked, disdain creeping in.

  “I thought you would like to know,” Vicki replied with a slight smile.

  “What you are tasked to carry.”

  24991120 | 0032

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

  34°58′12″ N

  25°06′45″ E

  Boa rummaged through the folios along the shelf along the far wall.

  Old, dusty, archaic.

  Many had been burned halfway.

  Pages curled and blackened.

  She frowned.

  Someone had tried to destroy them.

  Quickly.

  And failed.

  Python picked one up carefully.

  “What do you have?” Python asked as he came over.

  “Nothing much. They destroyed the research.”

  “A purge.” Python said.

  Viper’s jaw tightened. “Why though?”

  Python turned to him. “What do you mean why?”

  “They spent all this time? All these efforts? All these resources? Just to burn it all?”

  His words gave pause to the Cobra.

  “He’s right,” Cobra said. “Something doesn’t add up.”

  “What are we missing.”

  On the screen, the footage kept looping.

  “Python,” Boa said, “bring up the log again.”

  He complied.

  Boa stared at it.

  Hard.

  “What do you see?” Cobra asked.

  “Bring up the strains.”

  Python tapped a button.

  The registry of strains came up.

  She pressed the bundle of burnt notes on the table.

  “The fifth one.”

  “Strain Five, Designation S-V,” Boa pointed.

  He tapped in.

  Thousands of variants.

  “Zoom in,” she said.

  Python did, his eyes widened.

  “Got it.” She said, smiling.

  Catastrophic failure.

  Collapse at the cellular level.

  Every strain past five.

  Success rate:

  Strain 5 – 19.7% – Below acceptable threshold

  Strain 6 – 7.4% – Below acceptable threshold

  Strain 7 – 0.2% – Below acceptable threshold

  Viral strain:

  Incubation – Unstable.

  Infection – Unstable.

  Propagation – Unstable

  She sifted through the folios.

  “Bingo.” Boa smiled, holding up the page.

  Scrawled upon the burnt note.

  We cannot breed a miracle.

  Miracles are the realms of the gods.

  “Good work,” Cobra said.

  “Pack this up.”