Noah Langford - October 2120
Pain runs through me like liquid fire, sharp and unrelenting, and I can't think straight. My breathing is ragged, uneven, each inhale a battle, each exhale an effort to keep control.
I glance down at my hand, and for a moment my mind freezes. Blood drips steadily to the floor, pooling faster than my brain can calculate, and my fingers move on their own, testing, as if the pinky is really gone.
I've catalogued pain before. Controlled it, measured it, dissected it in my mind. But this… this is beyond any scale I know. My thoughts accelerate, spiral.
Logic fights instinct, but instinct is screaming. What if it never stops? What if I'm trapped here forever?
I cannot give Kai up. Not now, not ever. He is fixed in my calculations, an anchor that refuses to break. But even fixed points can bend, and I feel the edges of my tolerance crumbling.
I'm not sure how much longer I can withstand this before my system fails entirely. I'm afraid... afraid of what I might do if another episode takes hold, afraid of the chaos inside me spilling outward.
And then I see him, 002, holding my detached finger in his hand. My body wants to recoil, my mind wants to run calculations, reassess, strategise, but there's too much. The image overwhelms me, too sharp, too raw. I want to maintain control. I want to stay rational. I cannot.
I wish Kai were here. I wish Finn-
Finn. The name surfaces unbidden, cutting through the noise of panic and pain. Where is he? Is he alive? Is he safe? I can't process it properly but I can't stop the thought from branching, multiplying.
What if he is really dead?
What will I do without him?
The room tilts, and I feel my grip on myself slipping. Panic claws through, sharp and unyielding. My mind races faster than I can follow, each thought colliding with the next, each possibility feeding the chaos inside me.
I force myself to breathe, even as my body shakes, forcing my thoughts back into order, attempting to seal the fractures. Focus. Survive. Protect Kai. Find Finn. Do not let your father break you.
But the thought persists. The fear persists. And I know… I am close to losing it entirely.
The door slides open, and he walks in. My father. Behind him, Dr. Williams and a security guard follow, their presence precise, deliberate, like pieces on a chessboard.
Is he here to stop 002? No. He wouldn't. That's not why he's here. He knows... He knows I'm close to breaking, and he wants to be the one to push me over the edge.
I force my breathing into some semblance of control, counting the seconds between inhales, trying to measure the panic in beats per minute. My body wants to recoil, but my mind calculates restraint.
"Sir" 002 says, voice clipped, mechanical as he stands up straight.
"002" my father acknowledges, nodding in greeting, tone flat and controlled.
He steps closer. I struggle to lift my head, to meet his gaze. My neck feels like lead, my body heavier than it has any right to be.
"You look terrible" he says.
I scoff, a hollow sound that barely escapes. My energy is gone. Argument is impossible. The weight pressing down on me isn't just pain, it's exhaustion, despair, the slow erosion of self.
"You have guests, Noah," he continues, unflinching. "You should show respect."
I glance at the two men behind him. They watch me like a specimen under a microscope.
And suddenly I see it... what Kai must have endured. Locked up here, stripped of control, tortured for research, for their sense of authority, for their amusement.
No wonder.
No wonder Kai…
No wonder he wanted to die.
The thought lodges in my chest, cold and sharp. My throat tightens. I swallow and taste the salt of tears I refuse to shed. I want to see him. Just once. To tell him I'm sorry for pushing him, for not understanding, for everything. No wonder he didn't want to talk. No wonder he shut me out.
And for a moment, I feel myself cracking, the logical, precise Noah fading beneath the pressure, replaced by something raw, something human, something broken.
My father's attention shifts to Dr. Williams, and the faint click of the door locking echoes through the room behind them.
"Dr. Williams, would you like to commence your experiment?" His voice is calm, measured, hands clasped behind his back, a picture of composed authority.
My eyes dart between them, searching for a clue, any indication of what's coming next. What are they going to do to me now?
Dr. Williams doesn't answer. He doesn't move. He just watches me, blank, expressionless, before shifting his gaze to the security guard at his side.
My pulse accelerates and my chest tightens.
Finally, my father exhales, slow and deliberate, and leans toward 002, whispering something in his ear. My mind tries to parse the movement, the intention, the timing.
After a pause, my father turns back to Dr. Williams.
"You know…" he begins, voice calm, almost conversational. "You seemed surprisingly calm when you saw Noah."
Dr. Williams shifts slightly. "Well… I'm used to it by now" he says, neutral, detached.
A small smile flickers across my father's face.
"Interesting," he continues, pacing the room with a slow, steady rhythm. "You see, the Dr. Williams I know would have argued with me to let Noah go."
I blink, my mind scrambling to catch up.
"The Dr. Williams I know," my father goes on, "always refused an assistant. He once told me the day he can no longer do his job, is the day he will have to walk away."
The room shifts around me, colder somehow, like the walls themselves have condensed. My brain latches onto fragments, trying to process the meaning, the implications, but it's slow, stuttering. My father's words hang heavy in the air, deliberate and weighted, and I feel a chill crawl down my spine.
"Dr. Langford" Dr. Williams says, his voice low, almost weary. "It's late at night… and I'm getting old."
"People change with age" he continues, almost as if that explains everything.
I catch the subtle movement of the guard next to him. His hand brushes near his gun, a gesture so slight that no one else seems to notice.
My father stands perfectly still, smile in place, hands clasped behind his back, as if he owns not just the room, but every thought in it.
"Did you also know," my father says, voice calm, deliberate, "that each of GeneX's Chauffeur cars is equipped with cameras outside the vehicles for security reasons?"
The two men by the door exchange a glance, eyes wide with sudden alarm. Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong.
"Shit…" Dr. Williams mutters, and before I can process it, he moves. Swift. He reaches behind him, draws a gun, and aims it at my father.
My chest seizes. My pulse hammers against my ribs.
Before he can fire, 002 reacts. The gunshot cracks through the air like a thunderclap. Dr. Williams jerks backward, the weapon tumbling from his grasp, and he collapses onto the floor. Blood blooms across the tile, dark and spreading, and my stomach lurches.
"No!" the security guard shouts, fumbling for his weapon. He aims, desperate, but 002 is faster. A sharp bang, a strike to his arm, and his gun clatters to the ground. He falls to his knees, blood dripping from his wound, trying to press pressure onto Dr. Williams' stomach.
My vision warps and the room tilts. Dr. Williams' body twists in impossible ways. His face… shifts. Familiar, but wrong. My mind can't parse it, can't reconcile it. He gasps for air, blood spilling from his mouth, and something in me screams recognition I can't place.
Pain from my missing finger radiates like wildfire, my mind lurching between comprehension and chaos, trying desperately to stay awake, to make sense of the impossible.
"Please…" the security guard chokes out, pressing futilely against the mans wound. "Issac… you're going to be fine… you have to be…"
My father advances toward them with that same cold precision, reaching for the guard's mask. He fights, briefly, desperately, but he cannot win.
When the mask is torn away, my breath catches in my chest. My stomach drops and my vision locks.
Ethan.
Why-why is he here?
"Test Subject 012," my father says, voice colder than ice. "How nice of you to return on your own accord."
"You bastard!" Ethan shouts, voice raw, furious, as he scrambles to save Issac. "I'll make you pay for this!"
The room collapses into chaos. The blood, the gunshots, the shifting images of Dr. Williams to Issac, they all press in, trying to pull me under. My head throbs, thoughts tangling, but I force myself to focus, to see clearly, to understand what is happening before the world devours me entirely.
"You think you'll ever leave here again?" my father's voice cuts through the room, calm and deliberate, each word measured like a scalpel. "Now, with you and Noah here, Kai will return on his own accord."
"No…" I try to say, but the sound barely escapes, swallowed by the weight pressing down on my chest. Everything I've worked so hard to protect, everything I've calculated, fought for, feels like it's unraveling before my eyes.
I know Kai. I know him too well. He will give himself up willingly if it means others are safe. And that… that thought drives a shard of panic straight through me.
"Ethan" Issac gasps, coughing up more blood, gripping his wrist as if it can anchor someone to safety. "Run… you need to go."
"No!" Ethan clings to him, voice cracking, trembling. "I can't leave you here!"
Issac coughs violently, a spray of dark blood, and his hand slips from Ethan's grasp. His breathing stutters, then stops.
He lies there, eyes wide, staring, but vacant. The life has already drained from them.
Ethan collapses beside him, sobs shaking his body. "I'm so sorry… I'm sorry," he whispers, broken, desperate.
"Ethan…" I try to call, my own voice weak, rasping. "Go…"
Tears streak his face, glistening in the harsh light. "I… I can't. I-"
But before he can finish, my father speaks again.
"002, ensure 012 does not leave this facility."
The air seems to thicken, and suddenly 002 materialises, a new weapon, a bat, clutched in his hand. Every instinct in me screams as he steps toward Ethan.
Ethan lunges for the gun on the floor, but 002 is already on, pressing down on his gunshot wounded arm. Pain explodes across Ethan's face, but still he reaches for the weapon, desperate, unrelenting.
002 lifts the bat. The swing comes down with a sickening thud against the back of Ethan's head. He crumples to the floor, limp, the fight draining out of him in an instant.
My breathing spirals, rapid and shallow, panic surging like a tide I cannot hold back. My vision swims, blurring with the dark red that stains the floor, mingling with the shadows, twisting everything around me.
Exhaustion finally claims me. My body rebels, refusing to carry me any longer. The world tilts, then collapses entirely, and everything goes black.