Consciousness returned in jagged, fractured pieces, like shards of glass scattered across a dark room.
First came the sound.
Beep-beep-beep.
Rhythmic. Sterile. Relentless.
It should have sounded like a medical monitor, but to Brice it felt more like a clock counting down to an execution.
Then came the smell.
Industrial bleach. Ethanol. Cold metal. Old fear.
A place like this didn’t smell clean because it cared about healing. It smelled clean because whatever happened here needed to be erased afterward.
Brice groaned.
His tongue felt like sandpaper glued to the roof of his mouth. His skull pulsed with a deep chemical ache, and when he forced his eyes open, fluorescent tubes stabbed white fire into his vision.
For one disoriented second, he thought he was back in the warehouse under the floodlights.
Then he tried to move.
Clank.
Cold steel answered him.
Brice blinked hard and looked down.
Thick steel cuffs locked around his wrists, pinning both arms to a surgical examination table bolted into the floor. Leather straps, worn dark from sweat and age, cinched his chest, waist, and thighs in a bruising grip.
His shoulder throbbed with every heartbeat.
His spine felt like someone had driven a railroad spike through it.
“Well,” Brice muttered, voice rough and thin. “This is a hell of a step down from the dumpster.”
“This is not a hospital,” a woman said.
Her voice was clipped, cold, and empty of anything resembling concern.
Brice strained his neck.
A woman in a lab coat stood at a terminal along the far wall. The coat was too white, too stiff, almost shroud-like under the fluorescent glare. Her fingers moved across a glass interface while green code scrolled over the screen. She didn’t look at him. Didn’t react to him. Didn’t acknowledge him as a person at all.
She typed like he was background noise.
A door hissed open.
The whisper of hydraulics sounded almost predatory.
An older man entered with silver hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and an expression of profound boredom. He carried a clipboard in one hand and swept his gaze over Brice with the kind of clinical detachment someone might use to inspect damaged equipment.
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“Status?” the man asked.
“Subject One-Eight-Three regained consciousness three minutes ago,” the woman replied without turning.
Brice stared at the ceiling, jaw tightening.
“You know,” he rasped, “my name’s Brice. It’s on my driver’s license. I’m sure one of you creepy coat people already went through my pockets.”
The older doctor made a neat checkmark on his clipboard.
“Subject is coherent. Baseline vitals are stable.”
“So we’re just ignoring the guy tied to the table?” Brice asked. “Cool. Nice to meet you too, Doc. How’s your day going? Kidnap anybody interesting before breakfast?”
The doctor stepped into Brice’s line of sight.
His face carried no irritation. No shame. No amusement.
Only curiosity.
“How are you feeling?”
“Oh, my childhood was stellar,” Brice said, eyes narrowing. “But since I’m currently strapped to a high-tech dungeon table, I’ve been better.”
“You absorbed a bio-crystalline structure during the initial event,” the doctor said. “A high-density mana core.”
“So that’s what those blue rocks are called.” Brice swallowed against the dry burn in his throat. “Do they come in different colors, or is it just the get-kidnapped shade?”
“You had no prior exposure?”
Brice let out a dry, painful laugh. “Doc, before the sky broke, my biggest problem was keeping my old Ford Escape alive and figuring out how not to go broke. Then the world ended, and suddenly I’m fighting rats big enough to need their own zip code and dogs that look like they were designed in a slaughterhouse.”
The doctor scribbled another note.
“Interesting.”
“You keep saying that,” Brice growled. “Try a new adjective. How about unsettling? Or about to get your nose broken if these cuffs come loose?”
The doctor did not flinch.
He leaned closer, and his voice dropped into something soft enough to feel worse than shouting.
“Our organization has monitored individuals like you for years.”
The sedative fog inside Brice’s mind thinned by a dangerous degree.
“…Years?”
“Yes.”
“The Blue Wave hit less than a week ago.”
“Correct.”
“Then how in the hell were you looking for people like me before the sky fell?”
The doctor folded his hands behind his back.
“Project Genesis has spent more than a decade mapping dormant genetic potential in the human population. We knew the capacity existed. The Blue Wave was merely the catalyst. It activated what was already there.”
Brice’s breath caught.
A cold, ugly realization crawled through him.
“You were experimenting on people before the world ended.”
“Our work was intended to evolve humanity.”
“Funny,” Brice spat. “Every sociopath I’ve ever heard of starts by saying it’s for the greater good.”
The doctor looked down at him, unmoved.
“You believe morality is simple. You view this as a binary. Hero and villain.”
“No,” Brice said, voice low and shaking with pain and fury. “I think people are simple. You think you’re the protagonist of a story where you get to decide who lives and who gets cut open. But you’re not a hero, Doc. You’re just a parasite in a white coat.”
The woman at the terminal finally paused.
Only for half a second.
Then her fingers resumed typing.
The doctor watched Brice with sharpened interest.
“You possess an unusual degree of psychological resilience, Subject One-Eight-Three. That is an anomaly.”
Brice snorted. “I’ve been called worse. Mostly by my ex-wife.”
Before the doctor could answer, the room erupted.
A shrill klaxon tore through the sterile quiet, sharp enough to vibrate in Brice’s teeth. The white lab lights snapped into frantic red pulses.
WARNING. WARNING. CONTAINMENT BREACH. SECTOR THREE.
The staff froze.
The woman at the console gasped and dragged a security feed onto the main display.
“Subject Two-Four-Seven has breached containment,” she said, voice finally cracking. “He’s in the main hallway.”
“Impossible,” the older doctor snapped.
For the first time, the calm mask on his face fractured.
A muffled thud rolled through the floor.
Something massive hit something solid.
Then came the screech of metal being tortured out of shape.
A technician screamed somewhere beyond the room. The sound cut off with a wet, brutal impact.
The doctor spun toward the guards.
“Secure the research. Move the active specimens. Do not allow One-Eight-Three to leave this facility.”
Brice grinned, even though his mouth tasted like blood.
“I appreciate being included in the evacuation plan.”
Heavy footsteps shook the corridor outside.
Not frantic running.
Not panic.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Each step carried weight. Each step came closer. Each step sounded like something that had stopped asking permission.
The guard near the door raised his rifle, knuckles white around the grip. The doctor backed away, one hand fumbling beneath his coat.
BOOM.
The reinforced door buckled inward. A massive dent punched through its center.
BOOM.
The top hinge sheared loose with a crack like a gunshot. Dust sifted from the ceiling.
BOOM.
The entire frame tore free from the concrete.
The door crashed into the room and slid across the floor, pinning one guard beneath its weight. Sparks drifted through the opening. Smoke curled in after them.
A silhouette filled the doorway.
Broad shoulders.
Towering frame.
Bare feet planted in broken glass and twisted metal.
The man wore nothing but the shredded, blood-soaked remains of a hospital gown. His chest rose and fell hard, covered in bruises, cuts, and half-dried blood. His knuckles were raw. His eyes burned with a fury Brice knew too well.
For one heartbeat, the room forgot how to breathe.
The figure stepped into the light.
His gaze swept over the lab, the guards, the straps, the cuffs, and finally stopped on Brice.
“…Brice?”
Brice’s breath caught.
He knew that voice.
He had known it since kindergarten. Baseball games. Broken bones. Backyard beers. Dumb bets. Bad decisions. Twenty years of surviving life side by side before the apocalypse ever got a vote.
“…Brian?”
Brian stepped farther into the room.
His knuckles dripped onto the white floor.
He looked at the restraints holding Brice down, then at the armed guards, then back at Brice.
A crooked, familiar grin spread across his battered face.
“I leave you alone for one apocalypse,” Brian said, voice low and dangerous, “and you still find a way to get yourself kidnapped.”
Brice laughed.
It hurt like hell, but he couldn’t stop it.
“You have no idea, man. It’s been a rough week.”
Brian cracked his neck.
The sound echoed through the lab like a gunshot.
Then he turned his attention to the terrified guards.
The grin faded.
His calm became something heavier.
Something lethal.
“So,” Brian said, eyes darkening, “does anybody mind if I borrow my friend?”