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"Don't let it twitch, or we lose the neural link," a voice snapped.
Cold steel pressed into my shoulder, pinning me down. I tried to gasp, but my throat felt like it had been replaced by a wet sponge. I couldn't feel my fingers. I couldn't feel my toes. In fact, I couldn't feel my skin at all.
"Is it conscious?" another voice asked. This one was smoother, like silk over a razor blade.
"Hard to tell. The glitch-rate is spiking. If the core doesn't stabilize, we're just wasting a perfectly good specimen."
I forced my eyes open. Everything was a blur of sterile white and blinding fluorescent strips. Above me, a woman in a lab coat leaned in. Dr. Vivian. She didn't look at me like a patient; she looked at me like a piece of meat that might actually be edible if she cooked it right.
"Can you hear me, Subject 42?" she whispered. Her breath smelled like peppermint and chemicals. She reached out, her gloved finger tracing the line of my jaw—or where my jaw should have been.
I tried to scream. I tried to tell her to get the hell away from me. But what came out wasn't a voice. It was a wet, guttural hiss that vibrated in my chest.
"Oh, listen to that," Vivian murmured. She stepped back, a small, cruel smile playing on her lips. "The vocal cords are completely mutated. Fascinating. Let's see how the motor functions are holding up. Turn the voltage up to ten percent."
*No. Wait—*
BZZZT.
Pain didn't just hit me; it exploded. It felt like someone had poured boiling acid into my veins. My back arched, my muscles snapping tight. I tried to thrash, but my limbs felt wrong. Heavy. Too many joints. I looked down and my stomach turned.
My arms weren't arms. They were grey, translucent things, slick with a shimmering slime, ending in three jagged, obsidian claws. My chest was a ribbed cage of cartilage and pulsing purple veins. I wasn't a man anymore. I was a mistake.
"Voltage at ten. He's reacting," the first voice said. "Should I increase it?"
"Wait," Vivian said, her eyes gleaming. "Look at the pupils. There's still a flicker of human consciousness in there. He's terrified. I want to see the exact moment the instinct takes over. Give me twenty percent."
*You bitch. You absolute psychopath.*
I couldn't speak, but I could think. And as the second surge of electricity ripped through me, something inside my chest—something dark and hungry—snapped. It wasn't pain anymore. It was rage. Pure, unfiltered hate.
I didn't think. I just moved.
One of my claws slammed into the metal restraint on my left arm. The steel didn't just bend; it shattered. The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet lab.
"What the hell?" the technician yelled. "The restraints are Grade 5! How did he—"
I didn't let him finish. I lunged.
I wasn't fast—not yet—but I was explosive. I launched myself off the table, the slime on my skin acting like a lubricant. I flew through the air, a grey blur of claws and hunger. I aimed straight for Vivian's throat. I wanted to feel her windpipe collapse under my grip. I wanted to see the look on her face when the 'specimen' decided to eat the doctor.
*Clang!*
I didn't hit skin. I hit glass.
A thick, reinforced pane of bulletproof acrylic slammed down from the ceiling, separating me from her by a mere inch. I slammed into it with a sickening thud, my claws screeching against the surface, leaving deep, jagged gouges in the glass.
Vivian didn't even flinch. She just stood there, leaning in, her face inches from mine on the other side of the barrier. She looked delighted.
"Look at that aggression," she whispered, her eyes scanning my mutated form with clinical hunger. "The glitch didn't destroy the frontal lobe; it amplified the fight-or-flight response. You're not just a monster, 42. You're a weapon."
I hissed, slamming my shoulder against the glass again and again. *Let me out. Let me kill you. I'll rip your heart out through your ribs.*
"Now, now," she said, tapping the glass with a manicured nail. "We can't have you breaking the equipment. You're far too expensive to replace. Guards! Clear the floor. We need to recalibrate the neural dampeners."
From the shadows of the lab, four men stepped out. They weren't doctors. They were mercenaries in tactical gear, carrying high-caliber rifles. They didn't look worried; they looked bored.
"Takedown order," Vivian commanded, stepping back. "Non-lethal, if possible. I still need his spinal fluid for the next batch. But if he gets too close, feel free to ventilate his lungs."
"Copy that," the lead guard said.
He didn't use a taser. He didn't use a net. He just raised his rifle and fired.
The first bullet hit me in the shoulder. It didn't feel like a bullet; it felt like a hot poker being driven through my meat. I shrieked—a sound that was half-human, half-animal—and scrambled backward, my claws slipping on the tile.
"Stop moving, glitch," the guard barked.
I tried to stand, but my legs were shaking. I looked at the wound. Instead of red blood, a thick, iridescent silver fluid was leaking out. I felt a strange sensation then—not pain, but a craving. I wanted to fill the hole. I wanted something to plug the gap in my flesh.
*Tsk tsk,* Vivian's voice came over the intercom. "You're failing, 42. Your body is rejecting the evolution. You're just a glitch in the system. A mistake that needs to be erased."
I glared at her, my vision pulsing red. I didn't care about evolution. I didn't care about being a weapon. I just wanted her dead.
I lunged again, not at her, but at the nearest guard. I managed to sink my teeth—jagged, needle-like things—into his calf. He screamed, a raw, guttural sound, and instinctively hammered the butt of his rifle into the side of my head.
CRACK.
My world tilted. I hit the floor hard, the taste of copper and ozone filling my mouth. I could see the boots of the guards closing in. I could see Vivian watching from behind the glass, her expression one of mild disappointment, like a child watching an ant struggle under a magnifying glass.
"He's too unstable," Vivian sighed. "Terminate the current cycle. We'll start over with a fresh consciousness. The loop is the only way to refine the gene-shard."
"Wait—" I tried to say. It came out as a pathetic, wet wheeze.
"Goodnight, 42," she whispered.
Then the world turned into fire.
Four rifles fired simultaneously. The bullets tore through my chest, my stomach, my neck. I felt my consciousness splinter. I felt my organs rupture. For a second, there was a blinding white light and the feeling of being pulled through a straw.
And then, silence.
Cold. Hard. Metal.
I gasped, my lungs suddenly filling with air. My eyes snapped open.
White ceiling. Fluorescent strips. The smell of peppermint and chemicals.
"Don't let it twitch, or we lose the neural link," a voice snapped.
I froze. My heart hammered against my ribs—ribs that felt too tight, too wrong. I looked down. Grey skin. Obsidian claws.
I was back on the table.