The reinforced blast door to the Project Asura sub-level control nexus groaned in protest as Mike, guided by PIXEL's structural analysis, found the manual override. It screeched open onto a scene of eerie preservation. Unlike the devastated labs, this circular chamber was largely intact, albeit dark and silent. Banks of consoles formed concentric rings around a central holographic projector, currently dormant. Dust lay thick, but there was less outright destruction.
«PIXEL: Control room environment stable. Primary power offline, but auxiliary systems appear to have emergency battery reserves. Searching for active network ports…»
"Rakshasa Labs built this place like a bunker within a bunker," Anya murmured, her voice echoing slightly. Her sapphire eyes swept the consoles. "This was the nerve center for Project Asura on this island. If there are answers, they are here." She moved to a primary terminal, PIXEL guiding her via Mike's enhanced sight and direct data feed to the specs he wore. "Alright, PIXEL, interface with Mr. Willson's glasses. Let's see if we can wake up Rakshasa Labs' ghosts."
«PIXEL: Attempting handshake with Rakshasa Labs Sub-Level Asura Prime Network Node 7. Encryption detected: Tier Gamma. Brute-forcing initial security layers…» A series of complex, glowing cryptographic strings scrolled across Mike's HUD. After a tense minute, PIXEL's calm voice returned. «Firewall breached. Accessing local Rakshasa Labs archives. Caution: multiple corrupted sectors and data traps detected. Proceeding with heuristic data recovery.»
The central holographic projector flickered, then sputtered to life, casting a ghostly blue light. Symbols, then garbled text, then finally, the Rakshasa Labs insignia shimmered above it.
"Incredible," Mike breathed, PIXEL already feeding him telemetry on the projector's energy consumption and data feed.
"Rakshasa Labs documented everything," Anya said, her fingers flying across a newly activated touch-sensitive interface, PIXEL displaying her keystrokes for Mike. "Their triumphs, their failures, their… rationalizations. I'm accessing deep archive logs – histories that weren't meant for general Rakshasa Labs personnel. The very bedrock of their research… Project Rakshasa, Project Asura… it all stems from one thing."
The hologram shifted, displaying a slowly rotating, iridescent, complex molecular structure that pulsed with an inner light. It looked alien, intricate, and fundamentally alive.
«PIXEL: Displaying Rakshasa Labs Central File: Origin Designation – 'VITA'. Extraterrestrial origin confirmed via hyper-isotopic analysis of deep-core meteoritic samples. Arrival signature indicates journey from beyond the Orion Arm. Core property: Extreme genetic plasticity. Capable of absorbing, analyzing, and initiating radical, adaptive integration with any known biological framework.»
"The Rakshasa Labs designation that all their deep Project Rakshasa files converged on," Anya began, her voice hushed, "was VITA. The irony, of course, is that 'Vita' is Latin, our own ancient word for 'life'. A terrestrial term for something so profoundly... other. But for them, it officially stood for Variational Initiator and Transformative Architect."
"The 'Variational' component," she explained, "is because at its core, much like the very engine of Darwinian evolution, VITA's first impact is to introduce an explosion of genetic variation into any ecosystem it encounters. It shatters biological stasis, forcing life onto countless new potential pathways, a key ingredient for adaptation."
"As an 'Initiator'," she continued, her voice almost reverent as she watched the complex, swirling representation of VITA on the hologram, "it actively kickstarts specific evolutionary cascades. Rakshasa Labs believed VITA probes the host's genome, senses environmental pressures, and then launches chains of adaptation designed for survival in those new conditions – a hyper-accelerated, almost violent form of natural selection, driven by an intelligence so ancient it predates our star."
"And 'Transformative Architect'," Anya said, a chill in her tone that belied the failing facility's humid air, "is how Rakshasa Labs saw its capacity to not just alter, but to re-design life itself. It doesn't just break genetic codes; it rebuilds them. It acts like a master architect wielding an incomprehensible, extraterrestrial blueprint, using the raw material of a planet's native DNA to construct new forms, new functions, new beings. Each perfectly, brutally adapted to persist. They called it VITA because they saw it as the ultimate source of novelty in life, the power to create anew. Rakshasa Labs, with their Project Rakshasa, aimed to become the directors of that creative force for humanity. They wanted to define what 'life' – our life – would become. But VITA, this… entity… it carries the untamed essence of 'life' from a scale we can barely comprehend, a vitality from beyond our world that proved far too potent, too wildly creative, to be so easily dictated by human ambition."
Mike absorbed this, his COG-7 enhanced mind wrestling with the scale of it. VITA wasn't just an organism; it was a cosmic force, a driver of evolution made manifest. His own enhanced state, Anna's agility, Elara's strange healing – all ripples from this alien stone cast into humanity's pond.
He thought of the vague historical connections PIXEL had hinted at before, of colonial powers and whispered legends. "So, this VITA... Rakshasa Labs wasn't the first to find it?"
Anya nodded grimly. "No. The logs I'm accessing suggest Rakshasa Labs built upon centuries of fragmented, often deliberately obscured research. British imperial expeditions in India, Africa, late 19th, early 20th century. Reports of 'sacred sites' with unusually adapted flora and fauna, local populations with 'gifts' or 'curses' – often isolated communities that had lived in proximity to dormant VITA impact zones for generations. Early, unethical experiments by these colonial powers, attempting to weaponize what they couldn't understand, led to disastrous 'Berserker Plagues' – localized VITA outbreaks that transformed or killed subjects indiscriminately."
The hologram shifted, showing censored images of military debacles and strange, blurred figures. «PIXEL: Cross-referencing. Pre-WWI European military medical archives report localized 'hyper-aggressive mania syndromes' and 'spontaneous teratogenic incidents' near certain colonial research outposts. Consistent with uncontrolled VITA exposure.»
"The world wars only accelerated the hidden race," Anya continued. "The Americans, the Soviets, all chasing after rumors of VITA's potential, seeing it as the ultimate strategic advantage. Apex Ascendant Technologies, the corporation behind Rakshasa Labs' modern Project Rakshasa execution, they inherited this legacy of ruthless ambition. They truly believed they could refine VITA, to sculpt the next stage of human evolution, to achieve immortality, cognitive godhood. Dr. Aris Thorne, their visionary here… he saw VITA as his divine clay."
"And now?" Mike asked, a knot forming in his stomach.
Anya's face, illuminated by the ghostly blue light of the consoles, grew stark.
Then, PIXEL's calm voice cut through the loaded silence, its tone, for the first time since its activation, carrying a distinct undercurrent of synthesized urgency.
«PIXEL: CRITICAL ALERT. Attempting to synthesize last burst-transmissions from Rakshasa Labs Global Watch Network before complete external signal blackout… Data packets severely corrupted, time-stamped within the last 72 standard hours… Decrypting… User Anya, the phrase 'Bog moy' is often an expression of profound shock. I advise preparation for information of extreme negative impact.»
Anya paled. "Report, PIXEL."
The central hologram flickered, then shifted from the VITA molecular structure to a horrifying, patchwork collage: thermal satellite imagery showing widespread, chaotic heat signatures in major urban centers; distorted, terrifying ground-level video fragments of human figures writhing, their bodies contorting, mutating into monstrous, bestial forms; and stark epidemiological charts showing an almost vertical spike in "anomalous biological transformations" globally.
«PIXEL: Comprehensive analysis of available data indicates a globally synchronous, aggressive VITA-based mutagenic event. Airborne and fluid-contact vectors confirmed. Mutation viability appears linked to complex immuno-genetic profiles; individuals with insufficient adaptive capacity or compromised systems are undergoing uncontrolled metamorphosis into what Rakshasa Labs' last panicked reports designated 'Aberrant Strains'.»
«PIXEL: Primary Catastrophe Zones: Major population centers in the United Kingdom, United States Eastern Seaboard, and East Asian Coastal Regions, including widespread infrastructure collapse. Reports from China indicate critical failures at nuclear facilities, likely due to Aberrant Strain incursions or internal sabotage, resulting in extensive radioactive dead zones compounding the VITA crisis. Russian Federation, Singaporean Collective, and Israeli Protectorate are reporting… severe, ongoing VITA outbreaks but attempting 'dynamic population assimilation protocols' with highly variable success. Overall global human population estimate: Approximately 30% baseline human or minimally VITA-integrated survivors, 45% actively transforming or fully manifested Aberrant Strains, 25% deceased. All global communication networks have definitively collapsed. My link to any external Rakshasa Labs or public network is now permanently severed.»
The final words echoed in the sudden, oppressive silence of the control room. Mike stared at the horrific mosaic on the hologram, his COG-7 enhanced mind trying and failing to fully quantify the scale of the disaster, the sheer human cost. Billions… dead, or worse. The architect in him saw structures falling; the VITA-enhanced part saw patterns of apocalyptic biological warfare.
Anya gripped the console, her knuckles white, her sapphire eyes wide with a despair that seemed to swallow the dim light. "Net..." she whispered, her voice cracking. "Eto… eto ne mozhet byt' pravdoy." (No… This… this cannot be true.)
The dream of returning to any semblance of civilization was obliterated. The island, once their prison, was now just a tiny, insignificant speck in a world tearing itself apart, a world where the "life" promised by VITA had become a global nightmare. Rakshasa Labs hadn't just been experimenting on an island; they'd been tampering with the trigger of a planetary metamorphosis.