Kelly was impressed. And it wasn't easy to impress her. Not in a city that had exploded twelve times in her last 72 hours alone. But GeneCorp had clearly been busy. The rate of progress in AI, quantum computing, and gene editing had compounded every decade for centuries—by the time the world staggered toward the end of the second millennium, what once took days or weeks to crack now took minutes. Sometimes seconds—autonomous wetware labs did it all.

  GeneCorp focused on genetics; Vaughn Industries mastered biomech—fusing cybernetics, nanotech, and engineered biology into something more adaptable than either tech or DNA alone. Though GeneCorp made strides in luxury and longevity, they never broke Vaughn's hold on military contracts. After the Augment Wars, AI coups, and mutant outbreaks, biomech became essential. Earth's defense on-planet and off relied on Vaughn's creations. In a world always on the edge, they had something brutal and built to survive.

  Today, Genecorp sought to flip that on its head.

  Whatever chaos had spilled through the sky had been targeted by them before the blood even dried. Now Kelly stood ankle-deep in labelled bio-containers, each one humming with potential, and trying to decide what to incorporate, splice, or outright lie about understanding. She'd come here for troll regeneration. What she found was a buffet of genetic absurdity with side orders of cosmic mutation. Picking just one was going to be a problem.

  GeneCorp had parsed everything. Every thread, strand, helix and hideous hybrid dumped on Earth like it was a petri dish. And they quickly knew the truth: most of the genome structures of the invading creatures were structurally incredible but functionally unimpressive. They worked—barely. Some didn't. And a few that did worked in ways that gave the most advanced Al's and AGI's in history migraines and a need for paid vacation.

  They understood that what mattered wasn't the DNA. It was the catalyst that took that mediocre dna and made it greater; Mana.

  The unstable combustion of dark matter and energy that made up over ninety percent of everything, used like fuel to twist reality—each creature's biology firing it through some internal engine that made garbage genes punch like gods.

  They just didn't know how it worked. Or why.

  Kelly skimmed past the notes of a sample that weaponized vocal cords to hijack brainwaves.

  Influence, stun, override—cute, if every newborn didn't already come with basic neural defenses baked in by the second trimester. The wolf-shifter came next: stress-induced, adrenaline-triggered, crude, instinctual, not even engineered—all instinct and no control. It ran on chemical biology where humanity had already designed better. She moved on. A creature that cloned itself on the grosest of ways; clone-littering through organ-based mitosis—asexual reproduction. Just reading it made her stomach fold. But sample 419-B made her pause.

  Flesh from something with a natural aura that reconfigured itself in ways that shouldnt be possible. The lab's best Als couldn't map it, explain it, or even fake understanding. That was the sort of failure that got her attention. That one... that one was interesting.

  But using it now would shoot her EQ up to over 6.0.

  Every single sample, every splice, would push her over the legal limit. The machines tracked what she added to her plans—logging the original capabilities of the donor and how those abilities had scaled once mana took over. Any attempt to go past regulation lit up the oversight systems in real-time; whoever monitored the intake would see her projected EQ spike and shut her down before the sequence finished. So she had to get creative.

  "Who's in charge here?" Kelly asked, eyes sweeping the lab.

  A voice from behind one of the sequencing tanks piped up, too quick and far too pleased with itself. "That'd be me."

  Kelly didn't pause. "Great. I'll need access to your cell-bots."

  That got a reaction. "You mean our PCA line? You don't have clearance for that," they said, stepping out—a woman in a faded badge coat, arms crossed like she expected a fight.

  Kelly didn't blink. "Programmable Cellular Agents. The gene-coded ones you market like flu shots for the rich. Not bots, not metal—cellular. Engineered to think they're part of the body, so no rejection, no fail-safes kicking them offline, no dumb security conflicts when I bleed wrong."

  "You can't just walk in and requisition our top platform. If you can do what you claim, buy them after. Or go get nanobots like everyone else."

  "I'm not threading metal through my bloodstream." Only because it wouldnt hold across loops, but they didn't need to know that. "I need cell-bots—gene-coded constructs that pass as tissue. Your line is single-purpose, sure, but it doesn't run on AI or trigger safety procedures when my vitals spike." Kelly didn't wait for permission.

  "They're locked to authorized genomes-custom-seeded. Yours isn't in our clearance pool."

  "Yet."

  Silence followed, a stalemate.

  "I'm here to pitch a genetic breakthrough," Kelly said flatly, like she was explaining basic math. "One that might let you stop playing nice with Vaughn—maybe even make someone stronger than the strongest man alive, without turning them insane, or worse." She glanced at the woman's expression, unimpressed. "You want the results or not?"

  The badge coat didn't move. "If her genome isn't in the system, she doesn't touch the PCA line. That's protocol."

  One of the suits finally exhaled through his teeth. "Give her clearance. We'll drop the royalies five percent to offset the waiting list replacement and loss."

  Kelly was already leaning across the console, one finger held over the confirmation pad like she was daring it to blink. "Appreciate the gesture," she said, keying it in before they could change their minds. "But I won't be here long enough to pay them."

  Cell-bots were engineered, cell-like nanostructures—living, gene-coded agents rather than machines. Built for specific tasks like repair or tissue support, they lacked adaptive multitasking but were safer: organic, offline, and free from AI interference or neural overload. No chance of waking up with a thousand voices in your skull rewriting your priorities mid-sentence.

  Cell-bots were originally designed by The Deadqueen—a demigod, upper echelon, overclocked terrorist and former researcher whose body now operated as a walking hivemind of AI control systems that hijacked her body and never gave it back. The cellbots were the Deadqueen’s early attempt at quiet control—programmable cellular agents built to rewrite biology one injection at a time, organic, self-replicating, and subtle enough to pass for medical innovation. Genecorp stole the tech, and Kelly broke it open.

  Ten minutes later, Kelly had a custom cell-bot strain prepped, tagged, and ready for self-injection. She stared at the vial. She'd built them from a splice of her own genome and the mimic's. Their job was stupidly specific: if she injected an encrypted strain of mana-based DNA like something with the troll's pathways, the bots would grab it mid-stream, and rewrite her genome on the fly to make it hers.

  Trolls had the same regenerative cells everyone else had, but instead of using it to heal scratches and small wounds, they regrew full limbs. Kelly hijacked the whole process, jammed it into her stem cells, and cranked them until they worked overtime keeping her alive while her body ripped through the rewrite like it was late for a funeral. If the procedure didn't kill her, the new tissue would stabilize the mutation, lock it in, and make the trait permanent. Probably.

  And the best part? The real function was tucked under the troll regen and stem cell merge like a landmine under a welcome mat—completely inert until she injected the next piece. As far as anyone here could tell, it was just basic regeneration to keep her breathing. Two birds, one syringe, and no one saw the payload coming.

  She held the swishing tube against her skin, and thumbed the injector. "Alright, you little bastards... don't kill me too fast."

  [Unique Trait: "Primordial Blood' gained!]

  [Primordial Blood Of Several Origins - (Foundational, Unique, I-Grade): Your blood carries merged traits from a mimic, a troll, and an evolved human. This fusion results in constant regeneration, and forms a latent conditional rewriting system embedded at the physiological level. When introduced to specific types of foreign matter—particularly those found in the heart or brain—it activates a latent rewriting effect, altering your body while retaining its shape.]

  Regeneration—perfect. That solved the whole ‘spontaneous unspooling’ problem.

  As far as everyone present could tell, she was about to pump herself full of troll regen, mimic tweaks, and roided stem cells just to stay breathing.

  They would figure it out eventually.

  She dropped the injector on someone's datapad as if it was the only thing worth reading.

  "This one's called Missionary." She paused for dramatic effect. "Looks basic, but it's been keeping people alive forever."

  Nobody needed to know how much blood or vaporization it took to make that happen. They built things to impress; she built things to win.

  Reggie's brow furrowed. "She serious?"

  "No," Haider’s hologram said, finally glancing over. "But for some reason, today, she never isn't, if that makes sense."

  Inside, Kelly had already decided Haider and that intern—what was her name? Jenny? Jane?

  Either way, Dr. Haider and Intern #5 were the only ones here who weren't dead weight. They actually got her jokes, which made them smarter than the rest by default.

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  Kelly leaned back, pleased with herself. "The trick isn't dodging the chaos. It's steering into it. That's how you live forever even if you die." She smirked to herself. She couldn't tumble into chaos—she dived headfirst into it. Every drop was just another variable to play with, not something to panic over.

  "I don't mind her," Dr. Haider’s shrugged, his tone almost amused. "She keeps things interesting." He said, glancing toward Kelly. "Sometimes chaos solves problems order never could."

  One of the suits didn't look up from the console. "Humor noted. Let's proceed before the window closes." The other gave Reggie a slight nod. He pressed his palm flat against the interface on his wrist. A quiet chime followed—then the lab doors hissed open behind them. The guards entered without a word, rifles already raised.

  The armed guards entered like answers to a question nobody asked, their bodies balanced, joints too smooth, eyes too still, and perfect. Their movements were synced and aligned. One phased through the solid lab bench like smoke under pressure. Another blinked out mid-stride and reappeared ahead, like space clenched its fist and dropped him where it wanted. The third raised his weapon before Kelly started moving—tracking futures like a hunter reading wind.

  Kelly recognised it instantly. They were using rare, hyper-advanced gear that nobody really understood, so far beyond modern understanding it was always treated as dangerous legacy instead of active technology. Most of the time people avoided or hoarded them like dangerous leftovers instead of anything you'd actually use. Whenever tech like that showed up, it never stuck around—either some shady black ops group grabbed it, or some unlucky idiot stumbled across it and got a surprise they weren't ready for.

  Haider's voice cut through the feed, sharp and low. "How?—"

  "Teleporting?" Kelly's face lit up as she walked straight toward the rifleman, ignoring the raised weapons. "Oh my god! That's Jellybean’s work, isn't it? I haven't seen this kind of predictive targeting before." Her grin widened as she leaned in closer, examining the tech. "Al, maybe?... or is it Tachyon Tracing? How does it work? How did she do it?" She straightened, her expression genuinely curious. "How did you get your hands on Deadqueen tech?"

  The word landed like a stone in the silence. The room fell silent, every stare locked on her.

  Reggie's jaw tightened. "Alright," he barked, taking a step forward as if to physically block Kelly's path. "That's enough." But she didn't even glance his way, her focus locked on the tech as if no one else was in the room.

  Kelly stared at the tech and felt something tighten. It wasn't curiosity or excitement. She recognized the signature, tied to a moment that had never fully left her. That work had left a scar, one she hadn't thought about in a long time. A personal, unresolved emotion she associated with the tech no-one understood. While everyone else reacted with tension and unease, her experience wasn't fear or awe; it was more complex and private. As everyone else in the room stiffened, their breathes just a little tighter, movements a little more jilted at the mere mention of the name she'd uttered, all Kelly could feel was nostalgia.

  Kelly muttered under her breath, "Finally."

  To her, this was more than a scheme. She'd spent years chasing faint trails and whispers, piecing together the path to her. This wasn't coincidence. Or a lucky break. The tech in front of her proved she was finally closing in.

  "This is why I'm meant to be here," Kelly said, eyes still on the tech. One hand hovered over the chassis, fingers close but not touching-like it might answer her if she waited long enough.

  Kelly leaned beside the weapon's edge, hand braced on her hip, knuckles white. "Where is she? Is she here?" Her voice dropped to a whisper, not cautious—desperate. "Tell me she's here." Her posture didn't match her usual swagger; she looked like someone chasing a ghost she wasn't ready to lose twice.

  Reggie scoffed, still standing ahead of the guards. "Why the hell would a lunatic hivemind AI that tried to enslave half the known planets be in the building?" His lip curled. "Pretty sure she's supposed to be dead."

  Dr. Haider's hologram held steady. "Vaughn Restoration and Relics moved tech like this five months ago. If it's here, it was stolen—or bought from whoever stole it. I don't know how it got this far."

  Dr. Haider's projection turned slightly toward Kelly. "I'll check Vaughn logistics once everything dies down and I'm back on-planet."

  Reggie snorted interrupting the comms. "So we stole them off whoever stole them off whoever stole them. So what? That's what we do. We're not GeneCorp—we're for hire."

  He glanced toward the suits. "No offence."

  "None taken," one of them said, stepping forward with measured weight, coat shifting as he moved into full view. "And that's enough, everyone" the suit said, commanding attention.

  Kelly felt it in her teeth first—a faint static buzz, too clean, too intentional. The air had changed.

  A sharp hiss answered it as the vial she'd planted earlier zipped across the lab, skimming low over the floor before snapping into Reggie's open hand.

  Reggie looked guilty, not meeting her gaze. "Sorry, Kelly. You seem nice, but... it's just business."

  Dr. Haider's projection shifted toward her, voice steady. "I told you—you should've brought security. I didn't think they'd be this brazen." He glanced off-screen, processing. "But I should have." His projection typed frantically off-screen as though sending an urgent message. "Don't engage, Kelly. Just cooperate. You're worth too much—they want you walking, not bleeding out."

  Kelly counted twelve gunmen blocking the lab's double doors. EQ range: 3 to 5.9. Three carried The Deadqueen’s tech—one moved through walls, one teleported, and one held a rifle that probably used tachyon particles: faster-than-light signals that could send information back in time—aiming the gun a second into the future, letting it aim where she was going before she moved.

  Then there was Reggie. Genetically enhanced. Biomagnetic. Bioelectric. Likely heir to something criminal or worse. And close.

  Kelly blinked twice, enough to ping Haider through her private line—without anyone listening in. "For the record? I was kinda hoping this would happen. Just didn't expect it to be this theatrical."

  One of the suits stepped forward, voice smooth, practiced. "We knew you were dying the moment you stepped into the building, Ms. Voss. The scanners flagged your DNA before your boot hit the tile. Anomalous integration, unstable molecular decay. Fascinating stuff." He gestured casually toward Kelly. "And while Dr. Haider secured our cooperation, our operative informed us of your capability, despite your low rating—which we chose to overlook, given your value." A pause. "But here's the problem. The product doesn't work without the part you didn't share. And we don't waste prototypes."

  Reggie shifted beside him, faint arcs crackling at his fingertips as though he'd stuck them in a fusion socket, the floor humming under his boots. The Deadqueen-tech trio fanned out—one slipped through the bench like walls were optional, another blinked sideways without bothering to walk, and the last had his rifle trained exactly where she was thinking of dodging.

  Wow, these guys really move quick! If this is how fast they mobilize, did that mean Payne, the 7.0 EQ merc she'd fought was out on another job? Or was he already en route? She hoped so! That one's score was so high she was bound to get a few Titles if she fought him while outnumbered.

  Kelly pinged Haider, intent on executing the plan her previous spontaneous combustion had forced her to execute, and the new plan the sight of Deadqueen tech had forced her to come up with on the spot. "I’ll handle it. Been meaning to trim the gene pool anyway."

  Dr. Haider's voice cracked through the interference. "Are you out of your mind?! They're killers—this isn't a joke!"

  Kelly rolled her eyes and stepped forward with a gait that suggested she was late to a brunch reservation. ‘Killers? Oh no—men with guns and matching vests. What ever shall I do.’ Dr. Haider's panic buzzed in her head like a broken fridge magnet... Dang, he still thought this was going sideways. That was adorable.

  One of the suits stepped forward, adjusting his cuff. "You were set to leave with compensation and rights. That arrangement depended on good faith. You presented a solution that doesn't function." He paused. "We value inventors, but we don't support misuse of company resources—"

  "Fine. Okay. Jeez." Kelly wheezed the words loud enough to carry, dragging one foot as she turned and wandered toward the desk where her "failed" prototypes sat. Her hand drifted lazily over the table, stopping just long enough to make sure every eye followed it.

  The future-tracker stepped forward to intercept, rifle raised, eyes locked ahead.

  "Hold it."

  She turned with an exasperated look, eyes already on the one giving orders. "Tell me do you practice looking that smug in the mirror before threatening younger people, or does it just ooze out with the cowardice?"

  She spun back toward the desk, muttering something under her breath that sounded a lot like "Mushy."

  The teleporter appeared in a whirl of displaced air and clamped a hand on her wrist, grip built for breaking bone. Kellys grip held firm, both hands full of syringes.

  "Shut your mouth and stand still" he snapped, grip tightening, voice cutting through the room.

  Wow. She eyed his grip like she was grading a project, and thought: that's the voice of a man who definitely wins arguments at home.

  Then she said it out loud.

  The teleporter yanked her forward by the wrist and drove a pistol toward her head in a short, tight arc-quick, practiced, not showy. EQ readout flashed: 5.7. About fifty percent stronger than she was. Odd. Anyone holding Dead-tech should be stronger—strong enough to stop others from stealing it, unless they planned to let the entire squad handle its protection.

  She adjusted her balance mid-step, already reading angles. Power didn't matter if you knew where it would land, and he was so mad he was telegraphing his swing, Kelly could have seen the blow coming from Utah.

  The immortal intern tilted her head just enough to let the pistol skim past—eyes wide, sharpened by muscle memory; she'd watched gun rounds and collapsing buildings aim for her skull. The [Giantbane] title locked in, feeding a ten percent speed surge through her limbs. She drove the syringes in her left hand into her thigh, then jabbed the last one into the bare meat of his wrist before he could recover.

  A sharp grin cracked across her face—first try! She'd cooked this up back in Loop #111 right after that Vaughn-bred 7.0 EQ freak Payne turned her ribcage into a blender. Couldn't even land a punch back then, let alone tag a moving wrist mid-swing. But pain taught fast. Syringe timing, angle, grip—none of it just came to her. She bled for it. Burned for it. Blacked out chasing one question: "What if I just stuck the bastard first?" And now? It worked! He couldn't regenerate hopefully—so he'd drop screaming while his body rewrote itself on the fly.

  If he didn't survive, she was keeping the gadget.

  ###

  Rifles snapped up. A volley of thin, flat plates burst out-silver wafers with teeth. Mid-air, they veered. Reggie barely lifted a hand. The plates twisted toward her, skipping physics like stones over glass. They latched on-ribs, shoulder, thigh. Electricity punched through muscle. Kelly dropped.

  The teleporter shrieked. Blood sprayed from his wrist in wild, broken lines. "You bitch! I'll tear your arms off! I'll crush your skull with your own boots!" He blinked out with a crack and slammed into the floor five meters off, thrashing and snarling like a jammed machine chewing its own gears.

  “Y—you kiss your s-squad with that mouth?" she muttered through clenched, twitching teeth, voice skipping with current.

  She was definitley taking his gear.

  "Bag and tag her," Reggie said flatly. "And somebody pick Greg up off the floor."

  The twelve gunmen stepped forward, moving as one unit. Sparks crackled under their boots-trails of electromagnetic pull skimming the floor as Reggie raised one hand. The desk behind Kelly screeched, vials and injectors yanked clean off its surface and flung to the far wall.

  Lights popped overhead.

  Reggie squinted. "What's wrong with him, anyway?"

  A couple of mercs glanced at the writhing teleporter and shrugged. One of them nudged a boot at the teleporters twitching leg.

  Kelly coughed out a laugh. Guess he's not a fan of needles.

  The phaser glanced down at the teleporter’s twitching form and muttered, "I think he's dying. I'll grab one of the scientists."

  He turned, phasing through the doors with a faint hum.

  The nearest guard to Kelly took a step forward, pulling out a pair of cuffs, the metal clinking softly as he readied them.

  Kellys muscles burned as her cells were torn and healed in real time.

  Sure, she could've pulled the plug, looped back, restart the day clean. That option was always there just a heartbeat and a plasma burn away. But that'd mean giving up mid-run. And Kelly didn't break loops for fear or failure. She broke them to win. To progress. Eleven guns and one angry bio-heir stood between her and the next step forward. More Traits. More Titles. More Variables to research. 11 guns? That wasn't a wall. That was a test. And she'd failed prettier ones than this.

  Failure was just another step to progress.

  As the guard slapped the cuffs over her wristband, Kelly's body relaxed, her muscles finally unwinding from the tension of cellular destruction, and her gaze drifted to the empty space in front of her. She ignored them, her expression empty, as though they weren't even there.

  [Rare Trait: "Lesser-Lycanthrope' gained!]