The next morning, Youri woke to the alarm that rang through the chamber rooms at exactly half past seven. It sounded like an old mechanical clock, cold, hollow, impossible to ignore. One by one the lights in the ceiling flickered on and bathed the hall in sterile white. Across from him, the other subjects were rising from their beds as well, each of them moving with a practiced stiffness before coming to stand silently in front of their glass.
Youri glanced at them, taking in their hollow stares. Then the glass in front of him shimmered, and a projection of Malden appeared on it, crisp and towering, with a tablet in one hand while he adjusted his glasses with the other.
"Welcome to your first day at Altex," he said. "Today you will be issued a subject name, and from now on that is what you will be called. Whenever your name is called, you are to appear in front of the glass — and that goes for every morning too, for the daily inspection. Your new name is EH36. Your seller requested that you receive the number thirty-six in particular, so take that as a gift."
At the sound of thirty-six, a faint smile tugged at Youri's lips. The number echoed in his head and pulled him back to Six — his brother, Thirty-Five. It was a small and fragile comfort, but it was something.
Malden went on without pausing. "Today will be your first test. Oh — and allow me to introduce your neighbors. To your left is EH17, one of the oldest subjects we have. He's a tough one, but the new treatment has taken its toll on him. Across from you is EH26, who has also been with us for quite some time; he very much enjoys the white in here. And beside him is another new subject — well, he's been here three years, actually — EH33. He's a little shy, so don't mind him. I'd say I hope you all get along, but unfortunately none of them are much for talking. So for whatever time you spend outside the experimental room, you are free to enjoy the glow of the chamber room."
The projection vanished, leaving only Youri's own reflection in the glass.
He sat back down on the bed. Time felt distorted inside Altex — unmeasured and suspended — and the minutes blurred into hours without any sound or sign to mark them. Finally a sharp hiss broke the silence and a metal arm slid out of the slot in the wall with a tray. On it sat two plates and a metal cup. One plate held a thick, gray pile of protein mash; the other, a translucent green, gelatinous dessert; and beside them lay a strange utensil, a spoon with little forked prongs at its tip.
It had been more than a day since Youri had eaten anything, so after a moment's hesitation he picked it up and began on the mash. It was flavorless, heavy and unpleasant. With every bite the realization settled a little deeper: this place had been built for one purpose only, and that was human experimentation. Everything else, even the food, existed only to serve it.
He had barely finished when Malden's voice rang out over the speakers. "EH36, you are next."
Youri rose at once and stood in front of the glass. Footsteps echoed down the hall as two men in white coats approached. They were identical — tall, broad-shouldered and imposing, moving in perfect unison in their white coats and dark trousers, with blond hair slicked neatly back, faint mustaches, and identical gray eyes behind thick black-framed glasses. The only visible difference between them was their shirts: one was patterned with red dots and the other with black.
They stopped at Youri's room. One of them tapped twice on the glass, and the door slid open.
"Come out, EH36," said the one in the red-dotted shirt.
"Doctor Malden is waiting for you," said the other.
They fell in behind him, one at each shoulder, and walked him down a vast corridor of smooth white panels, which opened at intervals onto wide windows looking out on the endless void of space. Nobody else walked there. There was only the quiet rhythm of their steps. At last they stopped in front of a metal door, and it hissed open on an operating room.
At its center stood a sleek operating table, surrounded by robotic surgical arms locked in place and waiting, with round surgical lights glowing above it that lit every surface evenly. All around the room, high-resolution monitors displayed medical scans and floating digital models — organs, neural patterns, streams of data. Metal carts lined the walls in perfect order. To the left, perched on a tall stool, sat Malden.
He turned as the doors opened, set his tablet down carefully on a nearby cart, and stepped down onto the floor. "Welcome, EH36. I see you've already met the twins. Allow me to introduce them. To your left, in the red, is Jean, and to your right, in the black, is Zayn. Aren't they great?" He smiled broadly. "They are living proof of human alteration — identical down to the very last strand of hair. To look at them, you would never know which was which. If only their personalities matched as well. But then, there is no progress without setbacks."
Jean and Zayn pushed Youri forward to the operating table, laid him down on it, and fastened the restraints around his limbs.
"Alright, then," Malden said, pressing a button on his tablet. "Let's begin the first test."
The robotic arms came to life. Their tips glowed as fine lasers formed at their ends. They came down toward Youri's body and began, one by one, to cut — precisely, surgically, mercilessly. Pain exploded through him, beyond anything he could have imagined. And yet Youri did not scream. He did not cry. He lay perfectly still with his eyes open and his breathing steady while the machines dissected and sampled him.
Malden watched from his stool with Jean and Zayn standing behind him. All three of them stared in silent disbelief at the boy's expressionless face. Where there should have been fear, there was endurance. Where there should have been resistance, there was acceptance. It unsettled them.
When the arms had finished their work, Malden glanced down at his tablet — and froze. Youri's DNA readings were scrolling across the screen and forming patterns he had never seen before. Unique. Extraordinary.
And for the first time, the smile on Malden's face faltered.