Sofía (The Muscle) POV
The distance between us and the creature that used to be Julián was less than ten feet. In a room this small, that wasn't a gap—it was a death sentence.
"Move!" I barked, shoving Miguel's shivering form behind the heavy steel table.
Julián didn't run. He exploded from his crouch.
It wasn't human movement. It was the tension release of a steel cable snapping under load. He covered the distance in a blur of violet light and radiating heat. I brought the machete up, not to slash, but to block, turning the flat of the blade against his incoming strike.
CLANG.
The impact rattled my teeth. My boots skidded backward on the slick concrete, scraping through the dust. The force was like getting hit by a runaway motorcycle.
"Julián, snap out of it!" Camila screamed, her voice cracking.
He didn't hear her. He was gripping my machete blade with his bare hand. The calluses on his palm hissed as they made contact with the cold steel, but he didn't flinch. He was grinning—a rictus of pure, overheated euphoria. His eyes were boiling pools of black and red.
"So... warm..." he croaked.
I twisted the handle, trying to break his grip, but his fingers were like hydraulic clamps. The heat rolling off him was suffocating, smelling of ozone and scorched meat.
"Elena!" I gritted out, the veins in my neck bulging as I fought to keep the blade from being shoved back into my own throat. "Do the science thing! Now!"
"I'm looking!" Elena yelled from the periphery.
Julián roared, a sound that vibrated in his chest cavity like a subwoofer. With a flick of his wrist, he wrenched the machete to the side, taking me with it. I slammed into the brick wall, the air leaving my lungs in a painful whoosh.
My tactical vest absorbed the worst of it, but stars danced in my vision. I scrambled to regain my footing, but he was already moving. Not toward me.
Toward the generator. Toward the heat.
He grabbed the red-hot coil heater again. This time, he didn't just hold it; he hugged it. The metal cage groaned and warped against his chest. The violet bioluminescence in his veins flared so bright it cast harsh, strobe-like shadows against the bunker walls. He was charging up.
"He's going to overload!" Elena shouted. "If his core temp goes too high, the virus will accelerate. He'll burn through his own cellular structure in minutes!"
"I can't stop him without cutting his head off!" I roared, recovering my stance. I switched my grip on the machete. The flat of the blade hadn't worked. I might have to take a limb. "Elena, give me a non-lethal option, or I'm making him an amputee!"
Julián turned. The heater was crushed against his chest, the power cord ripped from the generator, sparking wildly. He looked at me, then at Miguel.
Miguel was the coldest thing in the room. To a heat-seeking predator, he must have looked like a void. A target.
Julián dropped the broken heater and lunged for the kid.
"No!" Camila threw herself in the path.
"Don't!" I screamed, launching myself forward.
I wasn't fast enough. But Julián didn't strike Camila. He backhanded her—a casual, dismissive swat that sent her sprawling into the pallets—and grabbed Miguel by the throat.
He lifted the boy one-handed, feet dangling off the floor. Miguel clawed at Julián's burning arm, his face turning from blue to purple.
"Share..." Julián whispered, leaning his fever-hot forehead against Miguel's freezing one. "Share the fire."
He was cooking the kid. I could see steam beginning to rise from Miguel's damp clothes where they touched Julián's skin.
I raised the machete. I had a clear shot at the elbow joint.
"Sofía, down!"
The command was sharp, clinical, and absolute. I recognized Elena's tone. It was the tone she used when she held a scalpel.
I dropped to my knees without thinking.
Dr. Elena Vargas POV
The physics of the situation were a nightmare, but the chemistry was simple.
Problem: Subject is undergoing a rapid hypermetabolic cascade triggered by external thermal absorption. Objective: Induce immediate thermal shock to reset the hypothalamus and force the virus into dormancy. Tool: Halon suppression system.
I had spotted it when we first entered—a red canister mounted near the rusted ventilation shaft. It wasn't a standard water extinguisher; this was a data-center grade bunker. It was a vintage Halon 1301 cylinder, likely illegal now, designed to suck the oxygen out of a fire and freeze the air instantly.
I ripped the safety pin out. It was rusted, requiring me to use both thumbs and a grunt of effort that nearly popped a vessel in my eye.
"Sofía, down!" I screamed.
Sofía dropped.
I squeezed the trigger handle.
FWOOOOSH.
The recoil nearly dislocated my shoulder. A jet of freezing white gas and chemical suppressant blasted across the room, engulfing Julián and Miguel.
The sound was like a jet engine taking off. The temperature in the bunker plummeted from a tropical thirty degrees to sub-zero in a heartbeat. The fog was thick, opaque, and tasted chemically metallic.
"Miguel!" Camila's voice cut through the hiss.
I released the trigger. The cylinder clangoring to the floor.
Silence returned to the room, heavier than before. The white fog swirled around our ankles, clinging to the floor like dry ice.
I stepped forward, pulling my shirt up over my nose to avoid inhaling the remaining Halon.
"Clear," Sofía coughed, her chem-light cutting through the mist.
In the center of the room, two figures lay on the concrete.
Miguel was gasping for air, shivering violently, curled into a fetal ball. But he was alive.
Julián was on his knees.
He looked like a statue carved from ash. The violet light in his veins was flickering, dimming, pulsing weakly like a dying neon sign. His skin was gray, covered in a layer of frost.
He blinked. The black sclera receded, revealing confused, terrified brown eyes.
"E-Elena?" his voice was a broken whisper, his teeth chattering so hard I thought they might crack. "Why... why is it so c-cold?"
I rushed to him, stripping off my tactical gloves to check his pulse. It was erratic, thready, but slowing down. The heat fever had broken.
"We had to cool you down, pendejo," Sofía said, her voice rough but relieved. She walked over to Miguel and threw her dry jacket over him.
"I..." Julián looked at his hands, watching the last of the violet light fade into his skin. He looked at the dented steel table. He looked at Camila, who was nursing a bruising cheekbone. Horror washed over his face. "I did that?"
" The virus did that," I corrected firmly, grabbing his chin and forcing him to look at me. "Listen to me, Julián. You are a thermal conductor now. You cannot get hot. Do you understand? The heat wakes it up."
"I wanted to eat the fire," he murmured, a tear leaking from his eye and freezing on his cheek. "It felt like... like love."
"It's not love," Sofía grunted, sheathing her machete. "It's biology trying to kill us."
I looked around the room. The generator was dead. The heater was destroyed. The Halon had sucked the warmth out of the air. We were back to square one: freezing, wet, and trapped in a concrete box.
"Status check," I called out, shivering as the adrenaline faded.
"Miguel is stable, but he needs warmth, Elena," Camila said, holding the boy tight. "Real warmth. Not... whatever that was."
"We can't use the generator," I said, rubbing my arms. "The noise. The heat. It's too dangerous with Julián in this state."
Sofía walked to the heavy iron door we had entered through. She pressed her ear against it.
"We have another problem," she said quietly.
"What?"
"The screaming hinge. The generator firing up. The fight." Sofía stepped back from the door, drawing her machete again. "We rang the dinner bell."
From the other side of the iron door, deep within the dark tunnels of the sewers, came a sound.
It wasn't the chittering of rats. It wasn't the groan of settling earth.
It was a wet, slapping sound. Like wet meat hitting concrete. Dozens of them. And they were getting closer.
" Las Plagas," Julián whispered, his eyes widening. "They can smell the heat residue."
Sofía looked at me. "Doctor, please tell me there's a back exit."
I swept my light across the back of the bunker. There was nothing but the ventilation shaft high up on the wall—too small for a person—and the solid concrete of the city foundation.
"No exit," I said, my stomach dropping.
Sofía turned to the door. She dragged the heavy steel table—the one Julián had dented—and jammed it against the handle.
THUD.
Something hit the door from the outside. Something heavy.
THUD. THUD.
" barricade!" Sofía yelled. "Everyone on the door! Now!"
We scrambled. Even Miguel, weak as he was, threw his shoulder against the table. Julián, shivering and terrified, joined us. I could feel the cold radiating off him now.
SCREEEEEE.
Metal claws raked against the outside of the iron.
"There's too many of them," Camila whimpered.
"Hold the line," Sofía growled.
I looked at Julián. He was trembling, eyes squeezed shut.
"Julián," I whispered.
He opened his eyes.
"If they break through," I said, my mind racing through terrible calculations. "If they get in here... you might be the only weapon we have."
"No," he pleaded. "I can't control it."
"You might have to try."
The door buckled inward. The rust showered down on us. The siege of the Smuggler's Hearth had begun.