Chapter12:
Project Asterion
The glass didn't just break.
It screamed.
A high, crystalline shriek tore through the chamber as the pod ruptured outward, exploding in a starburst of jagged fragments that embedded themselves in everything. The walls, the floor, us. A shard grazed my cheek, drawing a thin line of fire across my skin, but I barely registered the pain. My entire body had gone numb, locked in a paralysis of pure, animal terror.
The thing inside unfolded itself.
Not like a person waking. Not like any living thing rising from sleep. It was all wrong angles and impossible contortions, limbs extending too far, joints bending in directions that made my stomach heave. It moved with liquid grace, each motion too smooth, too precise, like it had studied human movement from a distance and replicated it without understanding the soul behind it.
Its skin was the color of curdled milk, translucent enough that I could see the network beneath-veins that weren't veins at all, but pulsing blue-black tendrils branching like circuitry beneath its flesh. Like something mechanical had been grafted into its very being.
And its face...
God, its face.
Smooth. Blank. No eyes, no nose, no mouth, just that single, branching vein pulsing across the empty expanse where features should have been.
Yet I felt it looking at me.
Nia's fingers clamped around my arm like a vise, her nails biting deep enough to draw blood.
"They're waking up," she whispered, and her voice wasn't just afraid. It was knowing. Like she recognized them. Like she'd dreamed them.
Sarin didn't hesitate.
His rifle cracked twice, the muzzle flash blinding in the dim chamber. The rounds punched into the creature's chest with wet, meaty thunks, sending blackish fluid splattering across the cracked tile floor.
The thing staggered.
Then it rippled.
The flesh around the wounds moved, undulating like disturbed water, the torn tissue knitting itself back together before my eyes. The bullets pushed themselves out, clattering to the floor, and the holes sealed shut like they'd never been there at all.
"Fuck," Sarin spat, already shoving me back. His face was pale beneath the grime, his jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscle twitching. "That's not normal."
The figure in the tattered lab coat-Dr. Elias Veyra, according to the rusted name tag still clinging to its breast-smiled. Its lips stretched too wide, splitting at the corners like overripe fruit, revealing teeth that were just a little too sharp, a little too many.
"Normal is a construct, Mr. Sarin," it said, and its voice was wrong. Too smooth. Too perfect. Like a recording played back through broken speakers, layered with something buzzing and mechanical beneath. "And constructs can be deconstructed."
Another pod shattered.
Then another.
The sound wasn't just in the room. It was inside me, vibrating behind my teeth, crawling under my skin like a swarm of insects. I clapped my hands over my ears, but it didn't help. The noise wasn't coming from outside.
It was coming from me.
From the thing coiled in my blood, in my bones, the thing HelixMed had put there.
Subject CAT-7.
Terminated.
Except I wasn't.
Nia lurched forward, her hands flying to her temples. The black veins beneath her skin writhed, pulsing in time with the creatures' movements, spreading like cracks in glass.
"They're calling," she gasped, her voice fraying at the edges. "They're—oh god—they're inside—"
One of the creatures lunged.
Sarin fired again. This time, he aimed for the head.
The bullet tore through the smooth, vein-laced expanse where its face should have been. The creature crumpled, its body twitching.
For a second, I thought it had worked.
Then the others stopped.
All of them.
Frozen.
Watching.
The fallen creature shuddered. Its limbs spasmed. And then...
Its skin split!
Not like flesh tearing. Like something shedding.
The outer layer sloughed off in wet, glistening strips, peeling away like old paint. What emerged from beneath wasn't another monster.
It was Nia.
Or something wearing her face.
Its-her-eyes snapped open. Black. Depthless. No whites, no irises, just endless dark. When it spoke, the voice was hers, but wrong. Stretched. Like a recording played at half-speed.
"You were never supposed to wake up," it said, staring straight at me. "You were just the carrier."
The words hit me like a physical blow.
Carrier.
The files in my hands suddenly made sense.
Immune carriers.
False immunity.
HelixMed hadn't been trying to cure the outbreak. They'd been weaponizing it. Using people like me, like Nia, to spread it under the guise of protection. We weren't survivors.
We were delivery systems.
And the things in the pods?
They weren't failed experiments.
They were the upgrades.
Dr. Veyra took another step forward, the syringe in its hand glinting under the flickering lights.
"The ZERA strain was always meant to evolve," it said, its voice dripping with something like pride. "To adapt. But human hosts were... fragile. Prone to rejection. So we built better ones." It gestured to the creatures with a too-long finger. "Asterion was never about curing the plague. It was about replacing it."
Sarin's rifle clicked empty.
The Nia-thing smiled.
And then the real Nia screamed.
It wasn't a sound of pain. It was a sound of unraveling.
Her body arched, her spine bending too far, her skin splitting at the seams as something moved beneath it. The black veins erupted, spreading like cracks in glass, branching across her skin in jagged, pulsing lines.
Then, her left arm twisted.
Bone snapped. Muscle reconfigured. Tendons snarled like overstretched cables. And when the transformation finished, it wasn't an arm anymore.
It was a weapon.
Smooth. Chitinous. Ending in three hooked claws that gleamed like obsidian.
The Nia-thing's smile faltered.
The real Nia, or what was left of her, looked at me, her remaining human eye wide with terror.
"Run," she begged.
Then she attacked.
Her mutated arm lashed out, carving through the nearest creature like it was made of wet paper. Black fluid sprayed the walls, sizzling where it landed, eating through the metal like acid. The other creatures shrieked, their voices harmonizing into that awful, brain-scrambling frequency.
Sarin grabbed my arm, his grip iron-tight. "We need to go!"
But Dr. Veyra was faster.
Its hand closed around my wrist, the syringe plunging toward my neck.
"Don't fight it, CAT-7," it whispered, its breath smelling of antiseptic and rotting meat. "You were always meant to be-"
Nia's claw tore through its chest from behind.
The syringe fell, shattering on the floor. The black liquid inside hissed, eating through the tile like acid.
Dr. Veyra crumpled, but its smile never faded.
"Too late," it gurgled, black fluid bubbling from its lips. "The signal's already sent."
And then the entire facility woke up.
Alarms blared.
Lights flashed red.
Somewhere deep below us, something groaned. A sound so massive it vibrated in my ribs, in my teeth.
Nia staggered back, her mutated arm retracting, the black veins receding. But the damage was done. Whatever she'd just unleashed, whatever she'd become, there was no coming back from it.
Her human eye met mine.
"They're coming," she said.
And then the floor gave way.
We fell into darkness.
Into the heart of Project Asterion.
Into the place where HelixMed had built their new gods.
And as the screams of the creatures echoed above us, one truth burned brighter than anything else.
We were never the cure.
We were the infection.