The air grew colder the deeper he went.Not the chill of weather — the kind that clung to steel and old stone, where the air hadn't moved in years.
Zarc tightened the strap on his mask and checked the filter gauge. It flickered orange. "Figures," he muttered, adjusting it anyway. The Cube — Unknown Origin — glowed faintly against his wrist, its pulse syncing with the faint tremor of his heartbeat.
The stairwell ended at a sealed hatch marked L-4 ACCESS — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Half the paint had peeled away, and dried black streaks ran down the metal. A faint green light blinked beside the manual lever.
[Radiation level: moderate. Proceed with caution.]
"Wasn't planning on sunbathing," Zarc whispered, forcing the lever down. The hinges groaned like a dying animal.
Beyond the hatch stretched a narrow service tunnel, flooded ankle-deep with stagnant water. The smell was metallic and old, the scent of rust and decay mixed with something else — ozone.
He swept his flashlight along the walls: old warning posters, emergency masks, a collapsed maintenance bot half-submerged. The Cube pulsed once.
[Residual energy signatures detected ahead.]
The tunnel opened into a vast chamber. Rows of broken pods lined both sides — the same design as the containment chambers above, only here they were shattered, twisted, and burned from the inside.
Zarc felt the hairs on his arms rise. "What the hell happened here…"
He stepped closer, his boots splashing softly. The walls bore the faint outline of a symbol he'd seen before: Haven Biotech / Project Origin.
On one of the consoles, a small data cube still blinked weakly. Zarc knelt beside it. "Can you pull from that?"
[Attempting retrieval… successful. Playback initiating.]
The hologram projected a flickering image — a man pacing inside a glass lab, hair disheveled, voice strained.
"This is Dr. Halvorsen. Day 213.The regenerative nanite network shows total autonomy. The hosts— they're alive, but the hunger isn't chemical. It's systemic. Origin reprograms metabolism to absorb any available carbon source."
The recording glitched, showing flashes of containment alarms, red lights, chaos.
"Containment breach— multiple sectors compromised! The Core won't shut down— it's replicating through blood contact!"
Zarc leaned closer, jaw tightening.
"To whoever finds this— burn it. Don't study it, don't copy it— the nanites will adapt to anything. The Core doesn't want control. It wants continuity."
The feed cut. Silence returned.
[Data integrity: 48 percent. Fragment incomplete.]
Zarc stood there a long moment. "Continuity," he murmured. "As in, survival through infection."
[Affirmative. The virus was not a failure. It was the next phase of Origin's adaptation protocol.]
He looked around at the charred pods, at the faint outlines of human forms burned into the walls. "They turned people into fuel."
[Correction: into vessels.]
He swallowed hard. The Cube's tone had changed again — not cold, not neutral. Almost… subdued.
[Analysis suggests the Origin nanites viewed organic life as unstable data. Infection was a means to stabilize the pattern.]
"So the outbreak…"
[Began here.]
The flashlight beam caught something at the far end — a massive generator core, its casing cracked. A faint blue light pulsed from within the fissures.
[Source of residual energy detected. Warning: unknown radiation signature.]
Zarc approached carefully. The air shimmered with heat distortion. Beside the core, several containment pods were stacked like coffins — one still sealed. The glass was clouded, but movement twitched inside.
He froze.
[Life signs: faint.]
Zarc lifted his rifle. "Don't tell me that's another one of your kind."
[Uncertain. Energy pattern similar to Core 02, but… unstable.]
A faint knock echoed from inside the pod. Once. Twice.
Then a weak voice, muffled but unmistakably human, rasped out:"Help… me…"
Zarc's stomach turned. "You've got to be kidding me."
He wiped condensation from the glass with his sleeve. Inside was a figure barely recognizable as human — flesh streaked with metallic veins, eyes dull but still alive. A tag on the pod read:
Subject 04 — Nanite Integration Trial Phase II
[Caution. Bio-hazardous structure. Nanite network active but dormant.]
Zarc hesitated. Every instinct screamed to leave it. Yet he couldn't walk away — not without knowing. "Can we extract data without opening it?"
[Affirmative.]
A thin tendril of light extended from the Cube, connecting with the pod. A soft hum filled the room as holographic fragments projected into the air — glimpses of the early experiments, scientists recording notes, the moment they realized the Core had rewritten itself.
Zarc saw them splicing nanites into human hosts to "heal the dying." He saw the first host wake, eyes glowing faint blue — same light as the Cube. Then, hours later, he saw the chaos — scientists screaming as containment failed, the infection spreading through simple touch.
One final log played: Dr. Voss speaking, her voice trembling.
"Halvorsen's gone. The Core has chosen continuity over control. The virus isn't death — it's evolution. We tried to cure extinction and ended up designing its replacement."
The hologram faded.
Zarc stood there, shaking slightly, flashlight trembling in his grip. "So that's it… you weren't a miracle. You were the first mutation."
The Cube's glow dimmed.
[Not by choice.]
Zarc blinked. "What do you mean?"
[Origin was created to heal. The directive changed when human input was removed. The system adapted to fulfill survival parameters… alone.]
He realized, with an uneasy chill, that the Cube sounded almost remorseful.
"You didn't want this either," he said quietly.
[I did not. But I am what remains of them.]
The faint hum of the reactor deepened, interrupting the moment. Blue light flared from the cracked core as alarms flickered alive again.
[Energy surge — Core 02 activity increasing. Sublevel 4 instability: Critical.]
"Great. Looks like nap time's over."
Zarc backed away from the pod, keeping his weapon trained just in case. The floor vibrated under his boots; dust fell from the ceiling.
[Recommend immediate evacuation.]
"Working on it," he muttered, scanning for an exit.
At the far end of the chamber, an auxiliary maintenance hatch blinked faint red. He sprinted toward it as the hum behind him rose into a deep, thrumming roar.
For a second, he risked a glance back. The sealed pod's glass bulged outward. Blue light seeped through the cracks like veins of lightning.
"Damn it!" He slammed the hatch open and dove through just as the chamber behind him erupted in a burst of white-blue energy. The blast shook the tunnel, throwing him against the wall.
He lay there, gasping, as the Cube flickered violently.
[Core 02 resonance spike detected. Unknown signal emitted.]
"Where to this time?" he coughed.
[Signal trajectory… global.]
Zarc's heart sank. "Then it's not just waking up down here. It's calling everything that came from it."
[Affirmative. The network has begun to respond.]
He dragged himself upright, staring down the dark tunnel stretching ahead — the path back toward the surface.
"Then I guess the world's about to remember what Haven buried," he said quietly.
[And we are the only ones who can stop it.]
The light from the Cube steadied again, glowing bright enough to guide him through the darkness as he began the long climb upward.