The hospital room was dim, lit only by the pale glow of a bedside lamp that Lexa hated, her voice low as she asked, "Can't you turn that off?"
"I-I have to see what I'm doing, ma'am," the nurse stammered, fumbling slightly.
The air hung thick with the sterile scent of rubbing alcohol and gauze—a mixture that quickly became cloying once the novelty wore off.
Lexa lay on the bed, her torso tightly bound in a compression wrap, the edges of medical tape visible beneath her torn black tank top.
A portable oxygen mask rested unused on the side table; she had refused it, unwilling to appear weak despite her circumstances.
Broken ribs pressed like knives into her chest with every breath, yet she remained conscious, her face pale but unreadable. She watched the nurse gently adjust the IV drip, the woman's hands trembling under Lexa's gaze.
It was at that moment that the door opened, and the sound of firm, heavy footsteps filled the room.
A man stepped in, silent as smoke. But he was not just any man; he was one of the strongest within District Forty Two.
The leader of the Viper Family.
Lexa was accustomed to it, but the nurse experienced it for the first time—not merely a feeling, but a palpable physical reaction.
His presence was like a vacuum sucking both the warmth and air out of the room, so much so that her breaths felt shorter, her instincts screaming at her to run.
His crimson eyes glowed faintly beneath the shadows of his brow, but they were shark-like—void of empathy, even as he stared at his wounded daughter.
Crawling up his neck were ivy tattoos that twisted slightly with the movement of his jaw, adding to his menace.
His eyes turned to her, and then, the nurse froze.
But the man said nothing, he did not need to, for he was Sir Vlad Viper of the Viper Family.
And the nurse got the message. She bolted past him, practically running into the hallway. Lexa didn't flinch—not that she easily could. Instead, she bit her lip as if debating something internally.
Reaching a resolution, she looked up, her voice hoarse but steady. "Who is Valen?" She asked.
Her words seemed to fall on deaf ears. She asked again, a different question this time: "I watched the news. You could have easily caught him if you mobilized your forces. Why didn't you?"
At her words, Vlad stepped closer, his boots heavy on the carpet. "You know all too well," he said, a thick Russian accent curling his syllables, "that Wizards are not allowed to interfere with human affairs. Do not speak foolishly, little girl."
With that, he sat down across from her, folding his hands slowly as though settling into confession.
"I want to tell you a story," he said, his accent thickening as he shifted to fluent Russian. "I want to explain to you what Subject 01 really is."
----------:
To acclimate to the atmosphere of Vostok 7, the base to which I had just been transferred, I picked up a file and began to read.
From what I understand, excluding the scientific jargon of said parchment, it detailed an underground project—one that officially did not exist, one that was never supposed to exist.
It aimed to create super-soldiers capable of not only passing through the Gate but remaining there indefinitely.
It came as a surprise that the requirement for passing through the Gate was a Brain Power (BP) rating of no less than 69, but this was only discovered much later, as at that time the government just settled with throwing in whoever they could find and hoped for the best.
Do note that most average humans have a BP of only 50, and while BP did translate to the power of the brain as a whole it did not always translate to intelligence.
Ironically that was what they called the substance, "Intelligence."
The process for synthesizing "Intelligence" remained classified, but the report stressed it could not be replicated due to the lack of its source material.
The substance was injected into the wombs of 500 specially selected women who were then impregnated via artificial Insemination.
The sperm donors were also specially selected, and the sperm itself underwent treatment, though the science of it I could never understand.
Unfortunately, only sixteen pregnancies resulted, and merely ten proceeded to successful birth. My focus, however, was drawn immediately to the oldest: Subject 01.
Long before he drew his first breath, while still adrift in the black warmth of amniotic silence, the scientists detected anomilies.
He was different.
At five weeks, when normal embryonic hearts begin their first faint rhythm, his brain development was already advanced, forming in unnerving synchrony with his heart.
By the eighth week, his mind moved in patterns no man had written, in such a way that it was only thought possible for developed brains.
The doctors said it was "neural activity"; they did not dare name it consciousness.
In the fourth month, when other fetuses drift in unknowing sleep, he was rumoured to have listened.
He allegedly perceived the cadence of Russian commands spoken to his mother's womb. More disturbingly, reports claimed he responded to specific commands with deliberate kicks, deepening my fascination.
I must say I, too, began to wonder where this story was headed, so I read faster and faster, eager to find out more.
While others require years after birth to ask "Who am I?" and gain self-awareness, HE possessed an innate understanding of WHAT he was—of his own existence—within the womb.
After his birth, the scientists, in their hubris, sought to measure him—to harvest the fruits of their creation, to quantify his intelligence.
Unfortunately, their scales cracked and their numbers failed, as they soon realized in quite a comical manner that an IQ test could not even begin to grasp the complexities of his mind.
Thus, the BP measuring system was created, in no more than a desperate bit to measure what must not be measured, but they pushed on.
The BP system was, essentially, a machine designed to monitor and quantify neural processing speed, memory bandwidth, abstract reasoning capacity, and related cognitive functions.
This same system is now the global standard for Gate or Passageway eligibility testing.
Consider the sheer anomaly required to necessitate an entirely new metric created solely for you and your kind.
And initially, their measuring system worked, giving only a single string of numbers before crashing: 10,000.
After that, any other attempt at a BP test failed to work again, the reason being his brain activity had escalated beyond the system's capacity to monitor.
That first and only reading was a warning disguised as data—a command to stay away. Yet I was intrigued.
The file mentioned these children could enter a state termed "Overdrive."
You see, their brains' complexity overwhelmed their physical vessels. Passively, they operated at around 300 BP.
In Overdrive, their activity spiked to levels between 500 and 1000 BP. It was within this state that their abilities manifested.
"You should put that down," I could remember hearing a voice which startled me, making me drop the file, and when I turned to look, my gaze fell upon a young boy, no more than eight.
His eyes looked dull, not in a way that would suggest that he was unhealthy but in such a way that he seemed bored, observing the new face before him with unfeeling curiosity.
I had seen his pictures from the file, so I knew immediately that it was him.
At the time—I, Valdrov Zmeyan, still in my twenties—I was a decorated soldier. As a reward for unquestionable valor in World War Five, I was issued a critical contract.
As part of this contract, I was to "die" on the battlefield, making me essentially non-existent, but I did not mind. I cared not for the outside world being an orphan with no family of my own; I had not known that you existed at that time: Lexa.
--------
Lexa shook slightly, finding Vlad's fatherly tone off, but nothing shook her more than the fact that her father feared something. 'I have never seen him so...'
Meanwhile, Vald after a pause continued his recollection:
----------
Vostok 7, the base of which I was assigned to, was essentially a humongous bunker situated in the southernmost part of the Earth, or at least that was what I theorised in my idle time there.
But that was about to change—I would soon discover, as I had discarded the warnings of my superiors and refused to stay away.
I still remember the last paragraph of the file which I had been interrupted from reading, it read:
[It is theorised that the subject's supernatural abilities are a mirror to their true personality, for example, subject 05 can read minds because of her great curiosity.
Subject 01's ability, however, reflects a deep-seated compulsion for absolute control – extending even to his own being.]
That should have been my warning to stay away, but I did not listen until I got hurt, not physically, but mentally.
I remember—I began noticing subtle inconsistencies: conversations remembered differently, objects inexplicably misplaced. My trust in my own perception eroded, and others' trust in me dwindled.
He engineered seamless situations where I took the blame. I found myself inexplicably venting my frustrations to a child barely a quarter of my age.
I remember feeling isolated as he played on my jealousy and fear, reinforcing the negative self-perceptions I had about myself.
And then came the breaking point:
"Bam!"
I remember the impact—slammed against the wall by my own subordinates. Blood smeared my palms as I stared at the lifeless body of a staff member.
At that moment I struggled, yelling accusations that sounded absurd even to me: "He was jealous of me!" "He's a bad man!" "He wants me dead!"`
But the more I struggled, the more I 'heard' it—a childish, petulant tone in my own voice. You see while 01 had managed to manipulate me masterfully, he was still a child in the end, his ideas were strong but naive, his control wasn't perfect, yet.
I remember him being there that night, and we both locked eyes.
It was as though he knew that I had figured it out, for a subtle smile graced his lips, a smile that grew while eyes widened in dawning fury as I met his utterly unfeeling gaze.
The look in his eyes told me all I needed to know.
I had been a tool, used for learning.
A canvas for the child to better understand the workings of a human mind meaning he cared not what happened to me, he had only been pulling the strings to see how far he could break me.
"Everybody breaks," he has once told me in one of our many conversations but, I had not comprehended that it was a trap.
And I fell for it.
Do you understand Lexa?
You are not to take all the blame for today's issue, for you see...
That child is evil.
But perhaps he is what we need.