The Rust, Decommissioned Orbital Habitat, Asteroid Belt
"The Rust" was a fitting name. It was a cluster of old mining hab-modules, cargo containers, and salvaged starship hulls welded together around a central spire, floating in the debris field of a played-out asteroid belt. It looked like a junkyard held together by prayer and patch kits. Perfect for disappearing.
Aelia docked the shuttle in a concealed bay that smelled of grease and ozone. She led Kaine, limping heavily, through a maze of dripping corridors and pressurized tunnels. The miners had been dropped at a Guild safehouse two jumps back. It was just the two of them now.
They entered a module that was a chaotic fusion of clinic and mad scientist's lab. Schematics for DNA helices were pinned next to grease-stained engine diagrams. Holo-screens displayed scrolling genetic code alongside life support diagnostics for the station. In the center, hunched over a microscope linked to a humming centrifuge, was an old man.
Doctor Victor Chen was a slight man with a wild crown of white hair and eyes magnified to owlish proportions by thick glasses. He wore a stained lab coat over a worn jumpsuit.
"Aelia! Back so soon? And with a guest! Fascinating biosignature, even from here. Elevated pro-inflammatory cytokines, strange energy decay signatures in the mitochondria… and is that raw Godshard residue in his dermal layers?" Victor bustled over, peering at Kaine with intense curiosity, not disgust.
"Doctor. This is Kaine. He requires your expertise," Aelia said. "He was exposed to a Gene-Lock and subsequently exhibited a… compilation event."
Victor's eyebrows shot up. "Compilation? Without a Chamber? My dear boy, that's supposed to be impossible! The somatic stress alone would reduce your nervous system to soup!" He ushered Kaine onto a med-bed. "Let's have a look. Non-invasive, I promise. Mostly."
As Victor attached sensor pads, he chattered. "Aelia's told me a little. You hate Olympus. Good start. Most people here do. This place is full of 'deviates,' 'unstable mods,' and folks who just want to be left alone by the gene-police." He gestured to a screen that began populating with Kaine's biological data. Streams of code, chemical formulas, and 3D models of his DNA helix appeared.
Kaine's own headache spiked. The code on the screen… it was a crude, simplified echo of what he'd seen in the lab. The luminous, living code.
"What is a 'compilation'?" Kaine asked, watching as Victor's expression grew more and more astonished.
"Ah! The big question!" Victor tapped the screen. "You see, boy, the Olympians, the Asgardians, all of them… their 'divinity' is just highly advanced, stabilized genetic code. 'Mythic-genes.' A Godshard is a physical crystal of that code. A Gene-Lock weapon unwrites that code, causing it to unravel chaotically. An Adaptation Chamber tries to splice a piece of that code into a human host, with a horrific failure rate. But compilation…" He leaned in, his voice dropping. "…is the theoretical process of not just splicing, but reading, understanding, and rewriting that code on the fly. Integrating its functional essence temporarily. It's what the ancient Progenitors were said to be capable of. It's the holy grail of biotech R&D that got your father murdered."
The world tilted. "My father?"
Victor's face softened. "Lin Zhengyu. Brilliant man. My friend. He worked for Olympus R&D, on the Adaptation project. He believed compilation was the key to humanity evolving with the mythic genes, not as slaves to them. He called it the 'Compiler Protocol.' Olympus wanted a controllable army of gene-soldiers. He refused. The 'lab accident' that killed him and your mother… was no accident."
The pieces slammed together in Kaine's mind. The necklace. The warmth. The voice. Fenrir.
"The compiler…" Kaine breathed, his hand going to the pendant. "He put it in me."
Victor nodded gravely, looking at the data stream. "And it seems, in a moment of extreme duress, it activated. It read the Ares-gene signature from the Hound's own armor or weapons, compiled a fragment, and gave you its power for a few seconds. But your body isn't built for it. Look here." He pointed to Kaine's DNA model. Sections were highlighted in angry red, fraying at the ends. "The compiled code is corrupting. It's not integrating; it's a foreign body, decaying and poisoning you. Each time you do this, it will get worse. Without a specific stabilizing agent keyed to the compiled gene, the next time might be your last."
Aelia, who had been silently monitoring the station's security feeds, spoke up, her voice tight. "Doctor. We have a problem. Long-range scopes are picking up a stealth signature on an intercept course. Corvette-class. Olympian registry, Hound-type. It's him. The Lead Hound. He must have planted a tracker on the shuttle or the miners."
Victor paled. "They're here? So fast? Aelia, you need to go. Take the boy. Take the data."
"I'm not leaving you, Victor," Aelia said, her hand going to a sidearm at her thigh.
"You must! My work, his data, it's more important than one old man!" Victor turned to Kaine, desperation in his eyes. "The stabilizer you need for the Ares-fragment… the formula is here, but the key component is a high-purity Zeus-line Godshard. The only place to get one is the primary Olympus Gene Vault on Earth-orbital station 'New Athens.' It's a fortress!"
Kaine pushed himself off the bed, his leg screaming. The fear was gone, burned away by a cold, sharp clarity. They'd killed his parents. They'd hunt him forever. They'd kill this old man who'd known his father. The hollow in his chest filled with that now-familiar, burning rage.
"Then that's where I'm going," Kaine said, his voice low.
"It's suicide!" Victor cried.
"Maybe." Kaine looked at Aelia. "You said you wanted data on the variable. How about a field test? Help me get that shard. I'll give you all the data you can handle."
Aelia studied him. The tactical calculator was turning behind her grey eyes. The Hound was here for Kaine. Letting him be captured was not an option—the data would be lost. Helping him was insane, but it was the only play that kept the variable active.
"The vault's security protocols update every six hours. I have the current cycle's encryption keys, thanks to my former employment," she said flatly. "We have a forty-three minute window during the shift change where a targeted, rapid incursion has a 12.7% chance of success. Not good odds."
"Better than zero," Kaine said, a grim smile touching his lips. The pain in his head was a drumbeat now, matching the pulse of the corrupted code in his veins. "What's the plan, 'Athena'?"
Outside, in the cold dark, the hunter's ship closed in.