Chapter 3: Prologue, Part 3: Monster Stirs

“Three weeks have passed, Academician,” a female voice said. The woman whom Number One thought of as her mother stepped closer to the slab, running a finger over the girl’s ribs. “She couldn’t even make it to the city. Waste of efforts, as I stated in my earlier report. If you had bothered to read it, we could have saved ourselves the oopsie.”

“Be that as it may, she caused us too much trouble,” a nervous voice interjected. A whitecoat stepped closer, fidgeting nervously with his tie. “The government became aware of the mutants and powers. The UPDC task force had raided our island facility; we had to cull the awakened subjects, and my daughter is in police custody. If the rumors are true, if those test subjects truly spoke… The bitch fucked us over, Academician! We’re ruined, they’ll see us rotting in prison!”

Could it be true? The revelations stole her breath. The information about the powers seemed important, the way the man had phrased it implied that they were something separate from the products. She had thought that those scummy teens had used some kind of technology, like the way the orange fiends fired searing rays from their weapons. But why use such a strange word to describe it? The products had acid spits, the ability to shoot barbed spikes, some could survive in a vacuum, and so on. The whitecoats never referred to these abilities by such a word.

But it wasn’t important. The test subjects spoke? Did anyone escape this hell? Or did this government rescue them? Number One cried through heart-stopping terror, happy at the news. Live! Live for me, my brothers, my sisters, or whoever you are. Please live and never feel regret in your entire life!

“Cease your panic, fool.” A man in a brown buttoned business suit approached, flanked by six orange fiends. She had never seen him before. His gray hair was slicked back, the fiery crimson irises of his eyes scrutinized the vat born with passing interest, and he used a long cane to help himself around. “Eugenia is a minor. Worst-case scenario: she’ll be in a juvenile hall until the age of eighteen. Be silent.” The man raised his cane. “She won’t stay there. Let the lawyers grease some hands, and the girl will be home by Sunday. I promise you this. We are not without friends. It should be easy to arrange for a cargo ship to fall on the medical center holding our escaped animals. As for the UPDC’s reaction… Who cares? The company had announced our relocation to the Red Planet four years ago. We were never here.” He lightly patted the nervous whitecoat on his chin. “See? Everything’s fine; everything’s solvable if you breathe and think. Our problems are little more than a setback. Such things happen in research. Once the soldiers are ready, the UPDC will forget the incident and concentrate on rearmament.”

No. Number One bit her lip and almost had a stroke. No, don’t you dare, you scum, filth, monster, prey! Her kin escaped; they are free! Academician had to die. There was no other way. She had to kill him, even at the cost of her own life. More than one. More than one of her siblings survived. Medical center. A place of healing by the sound of it. She won’t let them be hurt.

“What about the girl, Academician?” the woman inquired.

“Her physicals are no good. But her mind is another matter. She may yet serve in another role if she is subservient enough…”

Academician leaned closer. He left the cane pressed against the slab and reached for the girl. His hands grasped her, checking the location of the healed wound on her side, running up and down her body, groping her. His clean, sterile breath lacked even the faintest scent of a stuck piece of food. She’d never faced anything like it. Any other whitecoat smelled of something they had eaten; the woman had a pleasant scent of grapes coming from her mouth. He had nothing.

He kissed her, running his tongue over her fangs. It shocked Number One, but it also opened up the possibility of vengeance and the salvation of her kin, however small. The vat born heard of the products taken by the whitecoats for amusement purposes. Some even lived for many years until their masters grew bored. They paraded some of them, the shapes who smiled wildly, jumping up at their owners’ slightest gesture, all the while having dull, lifeless eyes befitting a husk. The products didn’t blame them. They pitied those who humiliated themselves to live another day, trading their bodies for the time, only to curse the deal and welcome the sweet release of oblivion that would let them forget what had happened. She didn’t care about prolonging her life and used her fear to create an image of a broken person, drawing his tongue to explore deeper. And then she bit.

The cane rammed between her fangs, breaking two of them, and Academician rose, spitting in disgust.

“Clever animal,” he said, dusting off the collar of his white shirt. “Too obstinate for pleasure, too weak for combat, and predictable to boot. A failure.”

“Useless,” the woman said.

“Not useless,” Academician corrected her. “The beast had enough wits to solve an equation on how to bypass the basic defense mechanism. And the increased reaction times, followed by a sudden mutation, gave us a clue on how to improve the next model. Intelligence-wise, she is up to par.” He smiled at the startled eyes. “Yes. Your collar. It collected information—everything from a pulse to a brainwave—and stored it inside a chip. Then the central mainframe translated your brainwaves into words. We know your dreams, hopes, every thought you’ve ever had. I wonder if the voice speaking to you is a figment of your imagination, manifested by your power, or a mutated version of a Siamese twin? No matter. We’ll learn soon enough. You never had even a lick of chance of running away, former Number One.” Academician moved to the doors leading out of the Room. “Vivisect her. Preserve the brain; the rest goes into recycling after you remove the glow from the bones. Prepare the prototype for extraction. And begin to purge the secondary facility of the inferiors.”

“But we had agreed that they were fit for combat, sir,” the woman said.

Stolen story; please report.

“Indeed, it is a shame,” Academician sighed. “The problem is, they can reproduce. A bio-soldier is useless on the market if we can only sell one batch and our customer is satisfied. Make the next ones sterile.”

“We can sterilize this generation,” the woman argued.

“Potentially,” Academician conceded. “But it is not one hundred percent guaranteed. The mooks demonstrated impressive healing capabilities. If even one is able to regain fertility by chance... No, there is no point in risking the profits. The next chassis should not even have this function.”

“Hai, Academician,” the nervous whitecoat said, picking up a slate. He pressed something, summoning mechanical arms from above. “I am going to enjoy this, degenerate. You took my little baby’s ear. Don’t think I’ll let you get off easy.”

“Stop! Let my kin live! Please!” The vat born pleaded, lying through her fangs. The arm drew closer. A laser beam flashed between the pincer’s claws, coloring her red. Metal rings tightened, pinning her limbs even tighter. “Promise not to touch them, and I’ll do everything you want!” Academician left the room, ignoring her.

We will not die. Said the voice in her head.

“Hmmm?” mused the female whitecoat. She glanced at a display next to the examination slab. “Her brain activity has peaked. As if she had received a dopamine injection.”

We will not let you kill us.

“Warning,” an electric voice boomed in the room. “Unauthorized mutation has been detected. All personnel must evacuate until security teams have contained the threat. Warning…”

The vat born jerked her arm. Something exploded in her arm, heating it up. She imagined her muscles coming apart, dissolving over the bones. But there was no fear over a moment of weakness. An itch, similar to the one she had experienced during regeneration, awoke in every cell of her body. The amber light of her eyes flashed, beating back the crimson of the laser. She jerked her arms again, cutting her wrist against the metal. The restraint creaked.

“Stop it already, you assholes!” she roared, her voice echoing off the walls, growing deeper. The laser touched her belly. She thrashed again, hearing a loud metallic click.

“What…” the male whitecoat stuttered. “The hell is going on? Her muscle mass is increasing, the glow levels are rising… It’s not possible, the glow can’t self-replicate!”

“Cut her head off, idiot! End the bitch right now!” the female screamed.

Never. We will never be weak. I want to kill them. The girl thought. She wasn’t sure what was happening. Words she never knew flowed into her mind, and knowledge he never learned raced through the synapses of her brain. You will. Now and forever, we are one. Hunt! A finger touched her heart as if starting an engine.

Number One pushed again, shattering the restraints as if they were made of glass. Her neck grew too thick for the collar. Its metal whined, pushed aside by the growing muscles, unable to contain the growing bones. The itching continued, now tormenting her organs. She didn’t see them, but she knew that some were splitting; the heart increased in size, gaining more chambers, and the lungs were transforming into something entirely new. Perfection was her right.

A paw, covered by the thick black fur, grasped the laser pincer, tearing it clean from the ceiling. She swung the metal remnants, burying them in the male’s neck. He gasped for air as a metal spike pierced his neck from the base and entered under his jaw. The sight of his blood triggered the desire to feed. The vat born didn’t fight the urge this time. Her jaws opened, biting off the man’s head along with the neck and the metal spike.

Change! Number One popped his head against the palate, gulping down everything: brains, eyes, bones. A murder. She just murdered someone. And she didn’t feel even a little bit bad. The vat born stood to the full height; her face changing, her ears growing sharper, and her eyes picking up the smallest particles of dust in the air. Change! There were no gods, no Spirits, nothing. Perfection hid itself in her cell, unleashed by chance. A round slice severed the arching metal limbs coming at her. They fell to the floor in a rain of steel. She spread her arms, heard the wet pops of new joints, moved her fingers—so big, so mighty.

“Number One.” The female whitecoat retreated. Strangely, the woman seemed to shrink in size as the shadow cast by the monster grew larger, covering the woman entirely. The whitecoat spoke in a high-pitched, pleading voice. “Amazing. You are so beautiful. I always knew you had it in you. Pardon the little scare; I had to push you to your limits for your own good. It was all a game. I wouldn’t have let anyone hurt you. Come, let’s leave this place together. The UPDC will gladly accept us. Academician won’t be a problem, and you will have a moth…”

A claw’s tip pierced through her mouth, emerging from the back of her neck. Broken teeth and bone shards drummed against the wall, propelled by the otherworldly thrust as the monster lifted the woman, marveling at the size of her claw. So long, white, and sturdy. A saber rather than a claw!

“Sorry. Had to wash your mouth clean of lies.” The monster smiled. “Is this where you imagined your life choices would take you, or is something not up to your standards? Would you prefer to perish another way? Gurgle me some ideas.”

“Warning! Warning! The vivisectorium has been compromised. All personnel must wear respirators and protective gear. Containment protocols are now online.” The synthesized voice announced.

Containment protocols? What could it be? The heightened perception of time slowed everything down. The monster thought at a far faster rate than ever, her mind clear. How do you stop a dangerous subject? Flame, obviously. It stopped regeneration by burning through the stored reserves allocated for healing. But the whitecoats were here. This means there was another way.

Gas. She lifted her head at a hissing sound, spotting openings in the ceiling. The monster tore her claw free, dropping the woman she wanted to call mother face down on the floor. A pool of blood began to spread around the feebly struggling body, but she had already forgotten her presence. Two whitecoats who had killed Six-Four-Six tried to reach the doors leading outside, pulling on the cowls of their coats, zipping them up, and putting on gas masks.

A single step brought her to them. The air torn by the repositioning of her body sent a tremble over the closest slabs, swapping aside meat and almost knocking down her captors. Her paws closed around the screaming people, the tips of her thumb claws slipping under the masks. And sliced them off, leaving the bastards unharmed.

“Breathe,” the monster ordered them, inhaling the air. She experienced a brief dizziness. There was a burning sensation in her stomach. It passed right away; the immune system of her new body had adapted to the poison. The begging eyes of the trapped man and woman never left her face, silently pleading with her to save them. She waited as they struggled not to breathe. They closed their eyes, bleeding crimson from under their eyelids. “Breathe,” she purred. Death to the dealers of death. No mercy for the merciless.

They collapsed, gasping for air. Blisters grew on their cheeks. She dropped them, letting the people scratch their own necks as their airways inflated, cracking the skin. Blood vessels burst. Organs failed. A paralytic gas poisoned the nervous system until it collapsed completely, while preserving the brain. Their deaths were mercifully swift.