Somewhere far away, in a remote facility carved into the permafrost of a land untouched by the general decay, Prime Architect 5 sat in a study that defied the sterility of his kind. The walls were lined with real, leather-bound books, and a single, low-wattage lamp cast a warm, golden pool of light onto a vast, mahogany desk. The air smelled of old paper and a faint, clean scent of ozone.
In his hands, he held a small, faded photograph. It showed two children, a boy and a girl, sitting on the steps of a sun-drenched porch, their faces split with carefree grins. The boy had a familiar, defiant glint in his eyes. Prime 5's thumb, encased in a fine, grey glove, gently stroked the image of the girl before he let out a soft, almost imperceptible sigh. He carefully slid the photograph into an inner pocket of his impeccably tailored coat, a gesture of profound and private significance.
The door to his study hissed open. A lower-ranking Architect, her silver mask less ornate, entered and bowed her head. "Sir, the field reports you requested."
"Proceed," Prime 5 said, his synthesized voice calm, his gaze fixed on the empty surface of his desk as if he could still see the ghost of the photograph there.
The assistant began to read, her voice a flat, efficient monotone, detailing the chaos unfolding continents away.
She reported on the group's travel to Africa, their alliance with Commander Marcus Cross, and the successful assault on the Warden's dam. She detailed the confrontation in the Kongo Laboratory with Prime 4, the catastrophic emergence of Eva Rostova as an Alpha-level entity, and the critical injection that had locked away Wolfen Welfric's abilities. She described the hybrids' subsequent rallying around this new, contained power—the "Hybrid Queen," as they now called her—and how her followers were now sowing discord among the small, struggling human communities and factions in the region.
"The five primary subjects have now been contained within the high-security tungsten bunker for one hundred and seventy-three days," she continued. "The delay in this report was due to significant hybrid interference in our surveillance networks, as well as disruptive actions initiated by Prime 4. We were, however, able to bypass the interference. Additionally, Commander Marcus Cross lost his right-hand man during an attempt to quell a conflict between human groups—a conflict secretly instigated by the hybrid cult. Cross remains unaware of the cult's influence."
Prime 5 listened, his posture unchanged, a statue of contemplation. When she finished, he was silent for a long moment, processing the data stream of disaster and opportunity.
"As always," he finally said, his tone laced with a hint of dry amusement. "As for Wolfen, his powers being temporarily locked away is an inconvenience, not a catastrophe. I will synthesize an antidote. The hybrids causing unrest among the humans is a manageable variable. Once freed, Wolfen will be more than capable of dealing with it."
He steepled his gloved fingers. "But the Alpha... Eva Rostova. That was unexpected."
The name hung in the quiet room. He had anticipated many outcomes from Prime 4's cruelty—despair, catatonia, a feral breakdown. But the creation of an Alpha, a being of such concentrated, psionically-charged rage that it could command lesser hybrids by presence alone... that was a new, and profoundly dangerous, data point. Prime 4's brutal experiment had not just broken a subject; it had forged a new type of weapon. And that weapon was now in a box, its grief festering into something far colder and more determined.
Prime 5 looked up, his dark lenses seeming to see through the walls of his study, across oceans and ruins, to the tungsten bunker and the silent, muzzled woman within.
"Unexpected," he repeated softly, "and very, very interesting."