A voice, smooth and synthetic, echoed in the void. It wasn't loud, but it felt as if the sound originated inside the skull, vibrating the very marrow of the listener.
[Affirmative. The initiation process is starting now.]
The sound of the voice vanished, replaced instantly by the harsh, metallic shriek of overworked sirens and the guttural roar of high-performance engines. Below, under the night sky the city was a smear of neon and rain-slicked asphalt.
Detective Chika Rhys gripped the steering wheel so hard her knuckles were white against the tactical gloves. Her partner, Marcus, was yelling coordinates into the radio, his voice frantic, but Chika barely heard him over the 7.6-magnitude chaos unfolding just ahead. The target vehicle—a heavily modified black sedan—slammed sideways through a series of construction barriers, sending sparks raining down onto the empty street.
"He's heading toward the old dockyard district! He'll cut off onto—"
Marcus's warning was cut short. The sedan veered sharply into an alleyway too narrow for their patrol cruiser. The driver, in a desperate, final gamble, used the massive support pillar of an elevated train line as a makeshift brake.
CRUNCH.
The momentum of the patrol car was too great. Chika had maybe half a second to brace herself before the impact threw her forward against the restraints. The airbag exploded in a blinding flash of smoke and heat, knocking the breath from her lungs.
When the world stopped ringing, Chika coughed, tasting blood. The heavy scent of burning rubber and coolant filled the cab. Marcus was slumped against the passenger door, his head bleeding sluggishly. He was out cold.
A sharp, searing pain tore through Chika's left arm—it must have hit the door frame hard, but adrenaline was already masking the worst of it. She glanced up. The target's sedan was still smoking, smashed against the alley wall only fifty feet away. The driver's side door was kicked open.
'No way he's getting away on foot,' she thought, fighting through the dizziness.
Ignoring the pain, Chika wrenched her door open, the metal groaning in protest. She pulled her standard-issue service pistol, the heavy weight familiar in her hand, and staggered out. She could hear the rhythmic thud-thud-thud of the suspect's heavy boots disappearing around the corner of a dark, crumbling warehouse.
Chika didn't wait. She tucked the injured arm tight to her chest and ran, her flashlight beam cutting a shaky path through the gloom. The chase led her to a rickety, rusted structure leading to the flat roof of what looked like a condemned factory.
She reached the top platform, panting, the cold night air burning in her throat. The suspect, a hulking silhouette against the smog-choked moonlight, was already waiting for her near the edge, framed by the distant city skyline.
He turned, the moonlight catching a flash of silver in his hand. It was a knife, long and cruel.
Chika raised her gun, aiming center mass, the metal warm in her palm. The force of the earlier crash must have done more damage than she realized; the gun's slide was slightly bent, giving it a sickly, misaligned profile.
"Police! Drop the weapon! I repeat, drop the weapon and get on the ground!" Her voice was strained but clear, cutting through the heavy silence of the rooftop.
The suspect didn't even twitch, his face a mask of silent, murderous intent. Then, he exploded into motion—a low, aggressive dash straight at her.
Chika squeezed the trigger once, twice. Nothing. The damaged slide refused to cycle, the firing pin clicking uselessly against the misfed round.
'It jammed!!'
was the last coherent thought she had before the world dissolved into pure, shocking agony. The knife plunged deep and savage into the soft tissue of her neck. The impact knocked the useless gun from her hand and sent a flood of dizzying heat across her vision.
The suspect didn't stop there; he followed through, slamming his heavy shoulder into her chest. Chika flew backward, her feet catching air, the concrete roof disappearing beneath her. The world tilted violently, the knife still embedded, pulling her down, down.
Chika plummeted.
the overwhelming feeling wasn't fear of death—it was a bitter, exhausting sorrow.
'This is it,' she whispered inside her, 'This is how it ends.'
She didn't regret the way she died or charging a psycho with a broken gun. She regretted everything that came before. Every sleepless night spent reviewing old case files just to avoid facing the silence of her tiny apartment. The cold distance she kept from the guy she liked, from her family, from everyone.
She remembered the look on her mother's face the last time they spoke—disappointment wrapped in worry. She remembered missing her sister's wedding because of a pointless stakeout.
'My life was so small. So utterly pointless,'
she thought, tears stinging the corners of her eyes, instantly swept away by the wind of the fall.
'I wasted it. Every single day. If I could take back every moment, every word... I never lived. I just waited. And now it's over.'
'If I could just... live a new life from start...'
The street below was no longer a blur; it was hardening into concrete, rushing to meet her. She closed her eyes.
The impact was not a sound she heard, but a rupture in the fabric of reality—a final, absolute punctuation mark that ended all pain, all thought, all motion.
DEATH.
But suddenly in the absolute zero of biological function—the synthetic, pervasive voice from the void returned, cutting through the silence of death.
[Target biological signature terminated. Human, Designation: Chika Rhys. Status: Deceased.]
[Process is initiated. Data convergence successful. Beginning search for optimal host matrix. Analyzing existing structures for latent adaptation potential.]
[She's ready to bloom.]
Chika felt a sudden, deep warmth, as if she were sinking into a vast, comforting bath. The blinding agony that had consumed her throat and body was gone, replaced by a dull, pleasant thrumming.
'I must have survived.'
the thought surfaced slowly, thick with the residue of trauma.
'Am I in the hospital? Did they stabilize me? The fall... I thought I was dead.'
The silence was the most noticeable change. Then, she felt it—a firm, encompassing pressure. She was cradled, held tight against something soft and powerful.
Panic, the instinctive, desperate panic of a street cop who always slept with a knife under her mattress, immediately flared. She tried to thrash, to find leverage, to reach for a weapon that wasn't there.
'Arms! Who is holding me? Where are my hands? I need to open my eyes!'
She forced her eyelids, impossibly heavy, to separate.
What she saw was utterly unlike the sterile fluorescent lights of a hospital room. Above her, hovering like a celestial vision, was a woman.
She was the most impossibly beautiful thing Chika had ever witnessed. Her skin was flawless, radiating a soft, pale light, and her hair was a shimmering cascade of emerald green that fell like silk over her shoulder. Her eyes, however, were what truly stopped Chika's heart—two perfect, immense pools of vibrant, molten red that looked down at her with an expression of intense, almost worshipful adoration. She was smiling, but it wasn't a human smile, it was too gentle, too pure.
'She... she is so big.'
Chika realized with a terrifying lack of air. The woman's head was massive, her features perfectly defined, her entire scale overwhelming. She looked like an angel, or perhaps a goddess stepped down to earth, impossibly tall and broad.
A new wave of terror hit Chika, forcing her to try and move. She lifted her hand, intending to push the stranger away, but the limb that appeared in her field of vision was impossibly tiny, the fingers little more than wrinkled, pink sausages.
It was the hand of an infant.
Chika stared at the doll-like limb, then back at the giant woman's face, then down at the swaddling clothes wrapped around her tiny, unfamiliar body. The realization slammed into her.
She wasn't in a hospital. She wasn't an adult.
She tried to scream, to bark a command, to demand to know what horrifying nightmare this was. She tried to yell,
'I'm Detective Rhys, where the hell am I?'
But the sound that ripped from her throat was not a command, not a scream, and certainly not the voice of Chika Rhys.
It was a weak, indignant gurgle, followed by a frustrated high-pitched,
Baby cry.