- 'If the extermination of a species will not be total, it will likely return, immune to the previous threat...'
---
It was always obvious.
Lucius Vex demanded the center. The axis. The pivot of the room.
Never the outskirts — where the flies gather. Never beside the moist breath of mediocrity.
He repeated it to himself: I am not them. I am not them. I am not them.
If it meant peeling the skin from his own bones to prove it, he would. If it meant tearing the wires from his soul and stitching them back in wrong, he would.
5:00 a.m.
The mirror was cold, but his reflection was warmer than flesh deserved to be. He studied it. Worshipped it. Dressed like he was sealing himself into armor.
Worth, he told himself, must be rehearsed until it is flawless.
Workout. Train. Meditate.
Workout. Train. Study.
Muscle. Mind. Control. Repeat until reality bends to it.
---
By 8:00 a.m., he stepped into the classroom.
Took his seat. Notes already known. Weeks ahead. Months ahead. He wore his superiority like a tailored coat, uncreased, unshared.
School was leisure to him — the hours between actual life. A public aquarium of the underdeveloped. He liked to watch.
And then, one day —
Kael Malevoleux.
Grey streak in a collapse of oak-brown hair. Eyes hidden. Posture unremarkable. Yet… something. Not the typical larva.
Lucius stared. Kael drew jagged lines in a notebook, a chaos of ink and unspoken thought.
Bored.
But what could boredom do, when tested?
---
The teacher prodded him with a question. Last week's material.
Kael mumbled that he'd learned it all before transferring. All of it. The year's worth. Just in case.
A signal.
Lucius's eyes snapped. Could he be of the same kind?
He would find out.
Win him over. Secure him. A tool. A witness.
---
Kael was soon targeted. Mocked. The usual insect behavior.
Lucius intervened — not from kindness. But because degradation was inefficient. A potential ally must be kept intact.
"I think I know what you're like," Lucius said without preamble.
Kael barely moved.
A stack of banknotes landed on the desk.
"I work part-time at the university labs. Join me. I need an ally for running tests."
Silence.
"Why should I?"
"It pays. You're different enough to be accepted. It will look good on your record. Entry requires a recommendation or brutal effort. I can give the first. So—"
"I get it. Quiet."
Lucius's smile was not for friendship. But perhaps for ownership.
He took the seat beside him. It was empty — naturally. No one wanted to sit near the outcast.
"If you say yes, your future will be secure."
"And why is that?"
"I think you're worth my attention. I invest in value."
Kael's lips twitched. "Seems you have a good eye."
Partnership. Or the beginning of one.
Kael didn't yet understand.
Lucius intended to raze the colony of crawling things around them —
And Kael… would have the privilege of watching the harvest from the front row.
---
After school, the laboratory after hours was alike to an emptied cathedral.
Cold light spilled from ceiling panels in a sterile flood, too white to be natural, too steady to breathe. The hum of refrigeration lined the air with a static edge, and the metal tables reflected every movement with a soft, warped ghost-image.
Lucius didn't wait for Kael. He moved straight to the cages under the surgical lamp, snapping on gloves with the kind of precision that suggested he had never done it slowly in his life. The rats huddled in the far corners, their pale fur twitching like wind-ruffled grass. The scent of disinfectant fought a losing battle against the animal musk.
Kael arrived quieter, but not hesitant. He closed the door without glancing at the animals, went to the supply cart, and opened the second drawer. Inside: blister packs of syringes, glass vials glowing faintly amber in the overhead light.
Without being told, he began filling the first syringe.
Lucius glanced once. "You remember the dosage."
"I remember everything," Kael said, capping the needle.
---
Lucius pulled the first rat from its cage. It kicked in small, hopeless arcs; claws scratched his glove, but he didn't adjust his grip. His fingers pinned it to the table, thumb on the ribcage, feeling the stutter of its breath.
Kael slid the syringe toward him, point first, a gesture halfway between offering and challenge.
Lucius took it without thanks, without looking away from the rat's glass bead eye.
The needle slid in clean. The animal jerked once, and Lucius held it still until the tremors passed.
Kael was already writing — dosage, specimen number, time — his handwriting narrow, angled, disciplined. Not the kind of script a teacher would praise. The kind that wastes no space.
---
They fell into a rhythm:
Lucius — select, pin, inject, observe.
Kael — load, hand over, record, watch.
It was not equal. Lucius set the pace, exacting as clockwork. Kael matched it perfectly, never slowing him, never hurrying him.
Halfway through the second cage, Kael asked, "Do you ever wonder what it feels like for them?"
Lucius didn't pause. "It's irrelevant. The outcome is the same."
"That's not what I asked."
Lucius's smirk was small and sharp. "I prefer to imagine they feel everything."
Kael looked up from the clipboard. His eyes didn't soften; they sharpened. "Then you're thorough."
---
Lucius restrained the next rat longer than necessary after the injection, feeling its ribs slow beneath his thumb. Kael noticed, but didn't comment. Instead, he prepared another syringe, slightly overfilling it by a fraction of a milliliter.
When he handed it over, Lucius caught the difference instantly. His gaze flicked to Kael's face.
"Testing me?"
Kael tilted his head. "Would it matter if I was?"
Lucius injected the animal without hesitation. "No. It doesn't change the result."
Kael made a small note on the page — not about the rat.
---
By the time they reached the last cage, the air in the lab felt heavier. The small sounds of claws on plastic, the occasional squeak, were a backdrop to something else: the unspoken calculus running between them.
Lucius set down the final empty syringe, gloves speckled faintly from where the rats had bitten or scratched against them. "You adapt quickly," he said.
Kael stacked the clipboard on the counter. "You expect control. I expect competence. We both got what we wanted."
Lucius studied him, surgical light bleaching the color from his eyes. "And if I wanted more?"
Kael met the look without shifting. "You'd have to earn it."
Lucius's smile was thin, almost unreadable. "Fair."
---
They cleaned in silence — Kael wiping the counters, Lucius replacing tools in perfect alignment. When the last of the cages was covered, Lucius stood in the doorway, holding it open.
Kael passed him without a glance.
But in the reflection of the glass wall, Lucius watched him.
In Kael's measured stride, in the way he didn't ask questions, Lucius saw something rare: a person who could be kept close without being possessed.
In Lucius's steady hands and unbroken stare, Kael saw something equally rare: a person who would use him without apology, and without insult.
They understood each other in that moment, and just for then, it was enough. Enough to spark curiosity and urge to destruct with the other as the audience.