«My super-human body is riddled with limitations I dare not break lest I face terrible consequences, but what if these consequences were rendered irrelevant?»
It was white, the room that is—not in a good way—no, rather it was sickening, blinding to the gaze.
Everything from the walls to the ceiling reflected shades of sterile clinical white in an unnatural way, a room without sound nor warmth, leaving only the low hum of the air freshener.
In this room, a child sat rigid before a humming monitor, his small fingers dancing over a mechanical keyboard.
The screen flickered through streams of complex equations, and one by one, he solved them, each equation more convoluted than the last, each solution spat out faster than any adult could read the problem.
He was not fidgeting, nor was his breathing too heavy; he was not even blinking.
By all intents, and purposes HE WAS NOT A CHILD.
At least not in the way most would imagine. He did look like a child though, his small legs dangling childishly above the floor
Beside him stood a woman with silver hair tied into a tight, clinical bun.
Her lab coat gleamed like polished bone, and she held a translucent clipboard, its glass interface glowing faintly with diagrams and gene maps.
She appeared to be speaking to the boy, a certain dreamy sparkle in her eyes.
"It's called the Infinity Formula," she said softly, reverently, as if the phrase alone carried sacred weight.
"Imagine this little Valen: the raw muscular density of a silverback gorilla, folded neatly into the human genes, or-or the cold-blooded adaptation of reptiles, granting humans immunity to extreme temperatures, It's the DNA of apex predators metabolized, repurposed, refined. I'm not thinking of creating a hybrid—no, this would be transcendence."
Saying this, she crouched beside him, her breath fogging lightly against the smooth surface of his shoulder.
"Imagine how strong you'd be. How perfect we'd be, isn't it exciting?" She tapped the clipboard and rotated it towards him.
"There it is, my draft, the first model of the formula. What do you think, little-"
"I've asked you not to call me that," the child interrupted without looking away from the screen, his voice flat as he added. "My designation is Subject 01. Use it."
The woman's lips twitched at Valen's words, her eyes turning to him with eerie motherly fondness—something that did not quite match the sterile horror of the setting.
"Of course… Subject 01," she said dryly.
As though pleased by her words, the child finally turned to look at her, his pupils dilated, slightly off-centered, like a doll's.
"You've introduced foreign primate DNA into the model without accounting for myosin fiber overload," he said coldly. "The human musculoskeletal system would tear itself apart under that strength, unless modified, ligaments would rupture, spinal discs would collapse."
With that, he typed a few commands into the translucent notepad as the screen lit up with a rotating 3D model of a human skeleton overlaid with red rupture points.
"You also failed to suppress the immune rejection pathways. Even if introduced in vitro, the T-cells would attack the foreign protein structures unless you bypassed them using chimeric antigen receptor shielding."
He blinked once, then said cutely, "I corrected it for you."
The computer screen before him refreshed, and just like that the child turned, his long fingers typing again.
The woman stared at him for a long, too long moment; there was no joy in her eyes, no shock.
Only that twisted affection… as if she wanted to cry, but couldn't remember how, as though she had expected nothing less from the child.
"You're such a brilliant little-" She stopped herself. "Subject 01."
The child ignored her words, his mind once again reviewed the formula, but he thought not of it.
«She does not know that the formula's theoretical potential is irrelevant unless she plans to run live trials, but even then, it has one flaw: we simply do not have the technology to accomplish this. Wait... but what if I compensated with my ability? Did she tell me knowing that?»
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The time was 9:59 AM.
The virus would cut off the cameras at exactly 10:00.
"Argh," Mr. Valen grunted as he forced himself awake from his nap, his body's attempt to save him from himself.
And yet he was stronger still than his own body.
He was in a Taxi he had stolen from Lexa, it was not as though she was in any state to use it.
Additionally, he was inside the compound of the GPV and as usual, he was late to work.
The security guard had been surprised to see a taxi drive into the compound, but as Mr. Valen was a known member of the staff, he let him through.
Mr. Valen was unnaturally pale, his breath heavy as he concealed the pistol in his pants.
His arms were of an unnatural black, a result of him continuously contorting his muscles just to be able to use them.
He smelled of blood, but he did not care; instead, he covered most of his arms with the sleeves of his hoodie and stepped out of the car.
And with a breath, he walked into the building.
The GPV was normally devoid of other people apart from maintenance staff, and higher-level maintenance staff who tended to the lower-level vaults.
Some Senior scientists tended to the higher-level vaults.
Apart from those staff, there were a few other security personnel stationed at the security room in charge of watching.
They would inform the authorities if they discovered any strange activities.
Thankfully, the security feed would be disabled for several minutes once the clock struck ten.
Inside the building, the first person he encountered was Sahara—a woman with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes, the same one who had gossiped about him in the lounge.
She was a normal maintenance staff member in possession of a card with level zero access.
As soon as this woman noticed him, she frowned and approached him, her voice loud. "Do you see the time, Valen? First, you skip work with that pathetic excuse about your arm, and now—"
"Shut up," Mr. Valen interrupted dryly as he observed the time, noting that it was indeed ten o'clock on the dot.
Naturally telling a lady to shut up came with absolute certainty that she'd do the opposite, and that Sahara did, her voice loud as she yelled, "WHO—"
"Bang!"
A deafening crack cut her off—unmistakably a gunshot.
But a gunshot this early was never part of the plan, as it had alerted everyone in the building.
«But it was expected.»
Knowing the people he'd done business with, Mr. Valen had fully expected this, Dog Head and his crew had shot the security guard at the checkpoint.
"Vroom!"
A car drove into the compound, and in the next moment, six men, all complete with ski masks and assault rifles, stormed into the building.
They were supposed to be seven, meaning that one of them had been stationed at the checkpoint at least following one part of the plan.
"Ahhhh," Sahara screamed and fell to the floor even without needing to be told anything, her form shaking.
Meanwhile, outside the GPV at the checkpoint, one of the six apostles could currently be seen buttoning his shirt, which appeared to be too tight for him.
It was the sixth apostle, the tall one with a natural cold smirk on his face, if one did not know any better they would say he was thinking of something devious when in reality that was just how his face was aligned.
Groaning slightly, the apostle looked around at the deserted street and thought, ' Why do I always get the boring jobs?'
With that thought he adjusted the tight uniform again with a small groan.
The original owner of this shirt, an older man, could be seen slumped at a far corner of the checkpoint, one that would be out of reach for any passer-by.
Dog Head, still wearing his ski mask, approached Mr. Valen, whose gaze remained detached, clinical—as though he weren't witnessing a robbery, but merely observing an experiment unfold.
"Valen, my man, you look like shit," Dog Head rasped, the grin in his voice audible through the mask. "we let ourselves in."
"I thought you said my little plan sounded like a trap," Mr. Valen chuckled.
"Hmm," Dog Head grunted before adding, "I'm hurt, after we bonded these last few days, but seriously I had to do my research and it turns out even if you're lying to me, some of the samples kept here are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on the black market."
"Still was killing the guard at the front necessary?" Mr. Valen asked, his voice blank, "if this place wasn't so big you nearly defeated the purpose of the virus."
"I didn't like the way he looked at me," Dog Head defended, his form leaning in. "You don't have a problem with the way I operate, do you?"
Mr. Valen didn't respond.
Instead, he looked beyond Dog Head to the five fanning out behind him, each clad in identical charcoal-black tactical uniforms, segmented armor plates worn over dark synthetic underlayers.
Their faces were hidden behind sleek ski masks with polarized visors, which left Mr. Valen surprised.
Additionally they carried at least two duffel bags, one full and one empty.
"Such standard gear for a gang, it would seem I have underestimated the reach of the Brotherhood," Mr. Valen thought.
Meanwhile Sahara, who lay flat on the ground trembled at the way the people above her mentioned death so laxly, her heart pounding in her chest as she whimpered silently.
Turning her head, she noticed that Mr. Valen was conversing with these people, no rather, he seemed to have invited them.
'I knew it, this kid was bad news, I'll fucking report him,' she thought to herself-
"Bang!"
A clear, resounding gunshot to the head stopped all notion of thoughts within Sahara, her body jerking faintly before stopping, blood splattering on the ground beneath her.
Expression unchanging, Mr. Valen asked, no longer feeling the need to mask his uncaring temperament, "what was that for?"
"I didn't like the way she looked at us," Dog Head simply responded, a hint of ecstasy in his voice.