Joseph Langford - September 2120
The observation window is streaked with blood and claw marks, each line vibrating faintly under the pressure of the girl's sustained screaming. The noise is constant, grating, but irrelevant.
I stand before the reinforced glass with my hands clasped behind my back. My posture does not shift. My breathing remains steady. The girl moves in erratic loops within the containment room, though even her chaos has begun forming patterns.
She tears clumps of her own hair free with mechanical repetition, strands collecting across the floor in uneven piles. Her motor function remains intact despite the self-inflicted trauma.
Every few steps, she attacks. Water discharges from her hands in uncontrolled bursts, each impact ringing against the window with predictable resonance. No deliberate aim. No strategic intent. Only reflexive aggression.
I check my watch.
Hour 3: Continuous water projection. Absence of burnout symptoms.
The data is noteworthy. Under controlled conditions, it would be considered groundbreaking. But this subject is not a product of Lunex.
She is the product of an unknown variable. A counterfeit process.
A minor irritation registers. Someone has engineered a formulation capable of suppressing or bypassing burnout entirely. This contradicts every known limitation. I have spent years refining Lunex, calculating, recalculating, dismantling biological constraints. Even the most promising iterations of the burnout cure remain partial solutions.
And yet this specimen has maintained three hours of uninterrupted ability usage.
The cost is evident: cognitive degradation, loss of identity, reduction of self-preservation instincts. She cannot reason. She cannot understand. She only attacks.
The Special Operation Division retrieved her after she eliminated three civilians and attempted to drown a fourth. Subdual required four armed guards and two Division, certified ability users.
I analyse her movement patterns again. The pacing loop is steady, approximately eight steps before turning. She scratches the window until the skin splits. She removes hair. She attacks. The cycle repeats without deviation.
Dr Williams stands beside me, grip tight on his clipboard. His pulse is elevated; unnecessary.
"Based on her blood results, I don't understand how she's still moving," he reports. "Her burnout level exceeds 91%. She shouldn't be alive."
Dr Williams flicks through his notes and speaks up again "We finished the full metabolic sequencing," he says. "There is… something else."
I do not respond. He continues under pressure.
"Her cells are rewriting themselves mid-use. Burnout markers rise, but instead of triggering collapse, the affected tissue is replaced. Rapidly. It shouldn't be possible."
I take the tablet.
The data confirms it. Self-repair at the cellular level, triggered by ability strain. Not accelerated healing. Not regeneration. A controlled biological overwrite.
"Someone has created a formulation that integrates with the host's genome," I conclude. "A permanent alteration."
"We think it's stable," Dr Williams adds. "If replicated, it could eliminate burnout in every subject."
Eliminate burnout.
"We will replicate it," I say. "But on our terms. We need more test subjects. Any similar anomalies must be brought in immediately."
He hesitates. "Sir… we won't be able to handle so many unpredictable subjects"
I allow several seconds of silence. It forces him to feel the weight of his own inadequacy.
Then I speak.
"We require more subjects" I say. "Locate more that exhibit similar traits. Or acquire the vials that produced her."
I turn and exit the observation chamber without waiting for his response.
The sooner additional specimens are collected, the sooner I can dismantle this mutation and isolate its structure.
As I step into the corridor, one of my guards is positioned beside the door, waiting, silent, rigid, alert.
"Officer," I acknowledge as I move past him. He immediately falls into step beside me.
"Dr Langford," he says. "I am here to deliver my latest report. There is… something I believe you will want to see."
I stop walking and turn my head slightly toward him. "We will discuss it in my office."
He nods once. No further words. He follows precisely two paces behind me until we reach my office.
Inside, I take my seat behind the desk and gesture for him to begin.
"As ordered, we have continued monitoring the activities of the GeneX board members," he reports, hands clasped behind his back.
After the board meeting, I anticipated the need for leverage. Their misguided enthusiasm toward Noah and their attempts to sideline me required a countermeasure. Discrediting them is not preference, it is necessity. I will not let them try to push me out of the company I built.
I ordered my personal security division to gather material suitable for coercion.
I incline my head for him to continue.
"We recently focused primarily on Board Member Christopher Oswald. His behavioural patterns show several deviations. Historically, he frequented a particular club downtown. However, recently he stopped attending entirely."
The guard shifts slightly. "When we investigated further, images surfaced. Mr Oswald was seen with significant injuries to his face. His medical records confirm treatment from his last night at that same club."
I lean forward slightly. "You suspect an incident occurred at there that we can exploit."
"Correct, sir. We retrieved the CCTV footage from that evening. It revealed several relevant details."
He turns to the screen, connects his device, and the footage begins to play.
"At 19:16, Mr Oswald enters the club and proceeds to the private rooms upstairs. No cameras are installed in those areas."
The guard advances the footage.
"At 19:52, a blond-haired male arrives and is escorted upstairs by Mr Oswald's personal security."
I lift a hand, stopping him mid-sentence.
"Zoom in."
He enlarges the image. I narrow my eyes.
Test Subject: 012.
A statistical anomaly. His last confirmed visual was on Kai's mission feed prior to his disappearance. What concerns me is his proximity to Oswald. That connection alone elevates the risk of disruption.
I motion for the guard to continue.
"At 21:08, an individual enters through the back door leading to the VIP fire exit."
He hesitates before tapping the next timestamp.
"At 21:19, a second individual enters the same doorway." He pauses. "Test Subject: 004 is visible and accompanied by another party."
The footage freezes.
Kai.
I sit back. The image is undeniable.
Two of my test subjects. Together. Entering a private meeting with a GeneX board member.
"Later footage shows all four individuals, Test Subject 004, the blond male, and two others, leaving in a vehicle."
"Identities," I say.
"We matched them to Test Subject 004 - Kai Langford, Test Subject 012—Ethan Knox, and an unknow individual Daniel Shaw. The fourth individual remains unidentified."
"Did you track the vehicle?"
"We attempted to. The car exited the city limits. After that, tracking was lost."
I remain silent for several seconds, processing.
Kai's appearance answers a question that has lingered since his disappearance.
He was not interrogated. He was not neutralised.
He chose not to return.
The implication is undeniable, Kai has abandoned the facility. He has deliberately removed himself from my control. He has aligned himself with unpredictable group. And it's unacceptable.
The statistical probability of defection has now crossed the threshold I consider acceptable. Kai has defected.
His association with Chritophere Oswald only heightens the risk.
And with that risk the likelihood of him attempting contact with Noah is near absolute. Noah's susceptibility to Kai's influence is dangerously predictable. Noah's intellect is sharp, but his emotional stability is easily disrupted where his twin is involved. Kai has always had the ability to override Noah's logic, to break through the walls that keep Noah functional and contained. If he reaches Noah before I regain control, the effects will ripple through every system I command.
Lunex research would be compromised. GeneX's operational security would collapse. Board support would fracture under pressure. The legacy I constructed piece by piece, molecule by molecule, would be dismantled without hesitation.
My jaw tightens, not with sentiment, but with calculation. Kai Langford. Test Subject 004. My son.
He is now a threat. A severe one.
I turn my attention back to the guard, my expression unchanged.
"Send a transmission to all divisions," I say calmly. "Test Subject 004 is to be classified as a traitor. Effective immediately, he is to be terminated on sight."
I lace my fingers together and rest them against my lips, the gesture composed, deliberate, final.
There is no hesitation in my hands, no flicker of doubt in my mind.
Emotion never enters the equation. Kai made his choice.He severed himself from the organisation. He aligned himself with instability, rebellion, and sentiment.
He is no longer an asset. He is an obstacle. And obstacles, regardless of origin, are removed.
Kai must not be allowed to approach Noah.
And if Kai intends to move against GeneX, against Lunex, against me, he will not succeed. He will not survive long enough to reach Noah. He will not dismantle what I have built.
The guard remains rigid, silent, waiting for instruction. I dismiss him with a single, precise motion. The door closes behind him, sealing the room in sterile silence.
Kai Langford is now a target and I am the overseer of his fate.