The city glittered with the illusion of safety.
Autumn had settled over Manhattan like a hush—leaves scraping across concrete, scarves tight around chilled throats, steam rising from subway grates in thin white ribbons. On 42nd Street, tourists snapped selfies beneath neon marquees while a saxophonist played something slow and low beside a halal cart. Laughter spilled from doorways. A child's balloon drifted upward, unnoticed.
But five blocks southeast, at the corner of Delancey and Eldridge, the illusion cracked.
Harrison's Market slouched in the shadow of a scaffolded apartment tower, its flickering neon sign casting broken letters onto the sidewalk. Fluorescents buzzed inside. Behind the grime-streaked window, a clerk sat slouched at the counter, counting bills. His hands moved with mechanical rhythm beneath the humming light. Jazz leaked from the radio, half-lost in static.
The door jingled.
A delivery man stepped inside, shaking the rain from his shoulders. His eyes flicked to the corners—register, shelves, cooler case. He didn't smile. He leaned in close, voice nearly lost beneath the saxophone's wail.
"Project Eden is live."
The clerk blinked once. Nodded. Without a word, he reached beneath the counter and pressed a hidden switch.
At the back of the market, hidden behind a tower of canned goods, a narrow door slid open with a hydraulic hiss. The elevator beyond was unmarked and rusted, its interior lit by cold white strips. A retinal scanner blinked red, then green. The delivery man stepped inside. The doors closed behind him with the finality of a vault.
Outside, a homeless man leaned against the brick, muttering to himself. He scratched his beard absently, unaware of the three black SUVs idling across the street, engines whispering as heat shimmered from the hoods. Behind tinted glass, dark-suited men watched the market through mirrored lenses, hands resting on compact rifles nestled between seats.
Beneath the surface, the descent began.
The elevator moved like a falling thought—soundless, disorienting. Klaus Ritter stood with his hands clasped before him, trying not to stare at his own reflection in the steel-paneled walls. His tie sat slightly crooked. His eye twitched once. It had taken war to do that. Brussels. Damascus. But this… this silence carried weight.
When the doors parted, he stepped into a corridor shaped like a scalpel wound—long, metallic, sterile. White light ran in clean lines across the ceiling. Shadows pooled in the corners where security cameras swiveled like curious insects.
A woman approached from the far end, heels clicking evenly, clipboard tucked under one arm. She wore a white mask without expression.
"Ambassador Ritter," she said, voice muffled but clear. "Surrender all weapons, electronics, and submit for blood verification."
No protest. He handed over his sidearm, placed his phone on the tray, and held out his arm.
Once pricked, scanned, and cleared, the final door awaited. This one loomed taller than the others, its surface matte black, framed in a soft red glow. As Ritter passed through, he felt a pulse—not sound, but vibration—as the threshold scanned his skeletal structure.
He stepped into silence, but not solitude.
The domed atrium expanded like a planetarium. Glass panels arched overhead, revealing a false sky painted in soft gradients of blue. The floor was obsidian-polished, reflecting the flicker of ambient light. Waiters in white moved like wraiths between small groups, balancing trays of champagne that trembled faintly in their hands.
It had the shape of a gala. But the atmosphere was wrong.
No laughter. No music. Just the hum—a low, omnipresent vibration in the air, like something caged and pacing.
Ritter joined the gathered elite: titans of industry, media moguls, pharmaceutical giants. They stood in loosely formed clusters beneath the crystal chandeliers, sipping from flutes without tasting, watching one another like predators in neutral territory.
Then the lights dimmed.
All turned.
From behind a velvet curtain, a figure stepped onto the stage.
Dr. Elias Voss. Tall. Composed. No dramatic entrance—no robes or augmented spectacle. Just a dark suit, perfectly tailored, silver hair swept back, and a stare that weighed each guest in silence before a word was spoken.
"My friends," he said, voice smooth and quiet, "our world is a garden strangled by weeds."
A ripple moved through the crowd—some discomfort, some curiosity.
"We built the architecture of progress. The satellites. The networks. The financial arteries of civilization. But parasites—breeders, claimants, the chronically dependent—have turned society into a hospice. They demand equity where there is no value. Rights without contribution. Noise without purpose."
He paused. Not for effect—but to let the air tighten.
Then he gestured.
The curtain behind him swept aside.
A cylindrical glass chamber dominated the stage. Seven inches thick. Inside, a little girl stood barefoot on a metal disc, her white dress starched, her braid tightly wound behind her. She stood with hands at her sides. Perfectly still. Eyes fixed forward—not fearful, not confused.
"Subject Alpha," Voss said. "The first integration of the Ascendancy genome. Immune. Adaptive. Loyal by design."
A second chamber opened.
The thing they released had once been human. Its body moved with uneven, twitchy momentum—limbs overlong, veins stark against pallid skin, pupils blown wide and staring. Its mouth hung open, jaw trembling, the sound it made dry and wrong. No roar. No scream. Just breath, shallow and stuttering.
The girl didn't move.
The thing lunged.
It crossed half the chamber in the blink of an eye, arms outstretched, mouth opening wider—
—and collapsed mid-air.
The sound was sudden and obscene. A muffled crack, then a screech as its left femur burst inward. Bone tore through muscle. It fell, twitching, shrieking with a raw, distinctly human pitch.
The girl didn't blink.
She raised one hand, fingers curled slightly. The air in the chamber shimmered. With another pulse—barely audible—the thing's skull compressed inward. Its cry ended in a pop. Blood hit the glass in chaotic arcs. Fragments of brain tissue slid down the interior like insects on ice.
The mist hovered for a moment, suspended mid-air—then formed into perfect spheres. They orbited the girl like moons.
The atrium froze.
Someone gasped. Another clutched their chest. Champagne flutes hit the ground, some shattering. One executive turned away and vomited quietly into a potted fern. Still, The girl's gaze did not shift.
Not to the body.
To them.
A single tear, dark and thin, traced down her cheek and vanished into her collar.
Then came the applause.
Tentative at first. Then louder. Some clapped with awe. Others with the forced energy of men convincing themselves they were on the winning side of history.
Voss waited. Then opened a slim black briefcase.
Inside: syringes arranged in velvet—silver like mercury, humming faintly in the dim light.
"The Elysium Serum," he said. "Guaranteed immunity. One dose secures your bloodline."
Screens blinked to life on every wall. Twelve hours. A red countdown ticked downward.
Klaus Ritter sipped his champagne. The glass trembled slightly—not from fear. From analysis.
He studied the crowd: the Russian oilman already texting a proxy buyer, the tech heiress from Singapore running population models in her head. Ritter knew that look. He'd seen it on diplomats dividing borders. Voss had not just introduced salvation. He'd offered territory.
Then Ritter looked back—sharply.
The girl was watching the case. Not the people. Her focus was absolute. Her fingers twitched once, a reflex—no gesture, no command. Just a reaction.
She'd seen the serum.
Marked it.
Asset demonstrates object fixation, Ritter noted mentally. Possible breach risk. Possible will.
Voss continued, arms raised.
"At midnight, the virus blooms. The world becomes our inheritance. The rest—"
He smiled faintly.
"Collateral."
Then he was gone, swept into the wings.
Above, the illusion began to die.
The homeless man outside arched suddenly, as if yanked by a wire. His spine bowed backward with a crunch. He fell sideways into the alley, gasping, mouth frothing. Veins blackened beneath his skin in quick pulses, spiderwebbing toward the heart.
Across the street, a woman turned to speak—then screamed. Her boyfriend had dropped to one knee. He clamped his jaw into her shoulder without a sound. No moan. No cry. Just a sickening thunk as teeth met bone.
Nearby, a cyclist flipped over the hood of a sedan, his bike skidding across the sidewalk. Blood smeared the pavement.
Sirens broke the night—first one, then a wave. Red light stuttered across the glass towers as helicopters rose from hidden roofs, rotors slicing the air in perfect synchrony.
And far below, motion returned.
In the elevator, Klaus Ritter braced both hands against the walls as his stomach rebelled. He bent forward, retched, then straightened—eyes closed.
Somewhere above, in corridors built for decades of catastrophe, the elite were ushered into hardened sanctuaries.
And back in the chamber, Subject Alpha—the girl— remained where she had always been.
Motionless.
Expressionless.
Her gaze never left the glass.