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"Still ticking, Kane?" The shock hit before I could answer.
My whole body seized on the table. Teeth clacked. Some new, wrong muscle in my back spasmed and slammed me against the straps.
"Good," Dr. Vivian said. She was right on the other side of the glass, close enough I could see the fog of her breath on it. "Pain response is faster this time. You're learning."
"Fuck you," I spat. My voice came out wet and broken. Not human. "Let me off this table."
She smiled. That cold, pretty, lab-coat smile. "No. You haven't earned that yet."
The glass between us was thick. Bulletproof. Last time I'd lunged for her throat and bounced right off it. She knew it. I knew it. That's why she leaned in.
"You died thirty-seven seconds after wake-up last loop," she said, tapping something on her tablet. My collar buzzed in answer. "Sloppy. Predictable. You ran straight at the glass like every other glitch-beast. Do you know how boring that is?"
"You shot me," I snarled. My claws scraped the metal table. They were still stubby, useless. Pathetic crawler claws. "You had four guns on me. What was I supposed to do, ask nicely?"
"You were supposed to survive," she said. "That's the whole point of you, pet. Survive. Adapt. Entertain me."
She flicked her finger. The straps on my wrists popped open.
I sat up too fast. The room spun. Same white lab. Same drain in the floor. Same red light blinking over the door that said TEST IN PROGRESS.
"What's the trick this time?" I asked. My throat clicked when I swallowed. "More guns?"
"Better." She stepped back and the lights changed. "You want off the table? You want a chance? Then you have to take it from someone else."
A door on the far wall hissed open.
Something else was in there with us.
It was big. Low to the ground, all muscle and scarred hide, breathing hard. Another glitch-beast. But not a crawler like me. This thing was a full tier up. Its shoulders were twice as wide as mine. Its jaw hung open and drool hit the floor with a sizzle.
"Oh, hell no," I said. I swung my legs off the table. My knees almost gave out. "You want me to fight that?"
"I want you to try," Vivian said. Her voice was light. Amused. "He's been starved for three days, Kane. You're fresh meat. Let's see who wants it more."
"And if I don't?"
"Then you die again." She tapped her tablet again. The collar around my neck tightened a fraction. Cold metal kissing my weird, bumpy skin. "And we reset. And you do it again. And again. Until you get it right or you break. I wonder which comes first?"
The beast in the pit saw me. Its head snapped up. Yellow eyes locked on.
"You need me alive," I said, fast. Talking to her, not it. "Right? That's why you keep resetting me. If I was just trash you'd leave me dead. So you need something from me."
Her eyebrow lifted. Just a little. "Clever boy. Keep going."
"So you can't just kill me," I pushed. I backed up a step as the beast started to crawl forward, claws clicking on concrete. "You need me to do something. Evolve or whatever. So what's stopping me from just sitting here and letting him eat me? You lose your data, Doctor."
She laughed. Actually laughed. The sound hit the glass and bounced.
"Oh, Kane. You think that's leverage?" She pressed her palm flat to the glass. Her nails were perfect. Red. "I have a hundred of you in tanks downstairs. I can grow another one while you're still bleeding out. You're not special. You're just... my favorite failure so far."
The beast lunged.
It wasn't fast. It was heavy. It covered half the room in one slide and slammed into me before I could get my claws up.
We hit the floor hard. Air punched out of my chest. Its weight crushed my ribs. I could smell it — rot and old blood and chemicals.
"Get off!" I shouted and shoved. Nothing. It was like pushing a car.
Its jaws opened over my face. Teeth the size of my fingers. Hot breath. I got an arm up. It bit down on my forearm and I screamed. Not a human scream. A raw, glitching screech that hurt my own ears.
"Come on, Kane!" Vivian called from behind the glass, almost cheerful. "Show me something exquisite!"
I kicked. I thrashed. My claws raked its side and barely left a scratch. It shook its head and my skin tore. Blood — dark, weirdly bright blood — hit the floor.
It was going to kill me. Again. Thirty-seven seconds again. Reset again.
No.
Something hot and pissed off snapped in my chest.
"You want exquisite?" I snarled at her, at it, at both of them. "Fine. Watch this."
I stopped pulling away. I went in.
I threw my weight forward and sank my own teeth into its throat.
My teeth were small. Dull. Crawler teeth. They shouldn't have done shit. But I bit and I held and I twisted like an animal.
The beast shrieked and thrashed. It tried to shake me off. I locked my jaws tighter. I could taste copper and acid and something else — something buzzing, like static on my tongue.
Then it cracked.
A shard of light under its skin. Right where I was biting. Glowing red-hot. Pulsing.
"What —" Vivian's voice changed. Sharp. She stepped right up to the glass. "No. Don't you dare —"
I bit harder. The shard burned my mouth. I swallowed.
It went down like broken glass and fire. It lit up my whole throat, my chest, my gut. My back arched off the floor.
The beast under me convulsed. Once. Twice. Then went still. Its weight turned dead and heavy on top of me.
I shoved it off, gasping. My hands were shaking. My whole body was shaking. But the burn was spreading, not fading. Like wires rewriting themselves under my skin.
"You swallowed it," Vivian whispered. She wasn't smiling anymore. Her palm was still on the glass, fingers splayed. Her breath was fast now. "You actually swallowed a raw genetic shard. Do you have any idea what you just did?"
"I won," I coughed. My voice was already changing. Deeper. Rougher. "That's what I did. I took your toy's power. So what now, Doctor? You gonna reset me again and waste it?"
Her eyes flicked to her tablet. To the monitors. Her perfect composure cracked for half a second. I saw it.
She needed that shard. She needed me to keep it.
That was the leash. Not the collar on my neck. The data in my gut.
"You can't reset me now," I said, and I pushed up to my feet. My claws dug into the concrete and left marks this time. Deeper marks. "If you kill me, you lose the evolution. You lose everything you just saw. So you have to let me keep it. You have to let me live."
"You think you have me trapped?" she said, but her voice was lower now. Thinner.
"I think you're scared to hit that button," I said. I walked to the glass. One step. Another. I was still a monster, but I was a bigger monster now. I stopped inches from her hand. Only the glass between us. I could see the heat of her skin. Smell her perfume, faint under the antiseptic. "You need me, Vivian. Say it."
She stared at me. Her lips parted. For a second neither of us moved. The air between us felt too tight, too hot.
"Don't flatter yourself, pet," she said finally, but she didn't pull her hand away. Her eyes dropped to my mouth, to my throat where the light was still pulsing under the skin. "You have no idea how to use what you stole. You'll burn out in an hour."
"Then teach me," I said. My claw lifted. I didn't touch the glass. I hovered, a centimeter away from her palm, mirroring her. "Or are you afraid I'll learn too fast?"
Her breath hitched. Just barely. I heard it through the speaker.
Then the red text exploded across my vision.
Not on a monitor. In my eyes. Burning behind them.
[DEVOUR COMPLETE]
[FIRST EVOLUTION STARTING]
Pain — not the shock collar pain — ripped down my spine. My knees buckled. I caught myself on the glass with both hands. My claws screeched against it.
"Kane?" Vivian's voice snapped back to clinical, but her hand jerked as if she wanted to reach through. "Kane, look at me. Don't fight it. Let it —"
"Don't," I gasped. My skin was splitting. Reforming. Something was pushing out of my back, my shoulders. "Don't you touch that reset —"
"I wasn't going to," she whispered. And she was smiling again. But it was different now. Hungry. Her palm pressed harder to the glass, right against mine, heat bleeding through. "Oh, Kane. Do you even know what you just became for me —"