Chapter 2:
The First Thread
The walls of my apartment were closing in on me.
Three days. Seventy-two hours of watching the sky pulse that unnatural crimson through my blinds. Three sleepless nights jumping at every siren wail, every scream echoing up from the streets below.
My reflection in the bathroom mirror looked like a stranger. Dark circles bruising my under-eyes, lips chapped from nervous biting, hair sticking up in greasy clumps.
I crouched in the nest of papers I'd created on my living room floor, knees popping from staying in one position too long. The smell of old coffee grounds and sour milk clung to everything. Empty takeout containers formed a sad little cityscape around me, their contents barely touched before my stomach rebelled.
My phone buzzed again. Another emergency alert. I didn't need to look to know what it said.
Stay indoors. Remain calm. Trust emergency broadcasts.
The lies had gotten thinner as the days passed. Just like the excuses from HelixMed's PR team about Rina's "sudden resignation."
As if anyone believed she'd quit via text message at 3 AM after working late.
As if security teams normally escorted resigning employees out in biohazard suits.
My laptop screen cast a sickly blue glow across my hands as I flexed my stiff fingers. The Wi-Fi had been cutting in and out for hours, but the ethernet cable I'd rigged, stripped wires twisted together with electrical tape, still pulled a weak signal. For now.
The cursor blinked mockingly in the search bar.
This wasn't just reckless. This was the kind of stupid that got people killed. The sort of curiosity that ended with black bags over heads and unmarked vans. I knew that.
I typed anyway.
Dr. Elias Veyra private drive access
The results page loaded with clinical emptiness. No surprises there. HelixMed's security budget probably exceeded some nations' military spending. But Rina had shown me the cracks last winter, our shoulders pressed together in the lab's server room, her fingers flying across a keyboard as she laughed through the steam rising from her ramen.
"Look," she'd said, chopsticks pointing to lines of code, "every system's got its pressure points. You just need to know where to—"
The memory cut off as my throat clenched. I could still see the exact way the blood had dripped from her lips. Thick and dark, like motor oil. The way her eyes had rolled back as security dragged her away.
My fingers moved before I could second-guess myself, inputting commands with a muscle memory I didn't know I possessed. The screen flickered. A progress bar appeared, crawling across the display at glacial speed. Somewhere in the city's dying infrastructure, digital tumblers turned.
My phone vibrated violently against the floorboards. The alert banner flashed red:
BOBCAT CITY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT:
CURFEW NOW IN EFFECT 7PM-7AM. ALL NONESSENTIAL—
I swiped it away as the firewall shattered.
The screen refreshed to reveal a single folder:
VEYRA_E_PRIVATE
No warning. No fanfare. Just three innocuous-looking subfolders:
Clinical_Trials_Backup
ZERA_Phase1
Subject_Manifest
My cursor hovered over the last one. The air in my apartment turned thick, my lungs struggling like I'd suddenly climbed to high altitude. The hum of my laptop's fan sounded deafening.
I double-clicked.
The spreadsheet opened with agonizing slowness. Columns of names. Dates. Status markers scrolling into infinity. My eyes skipped down the list, catching on familiar surnames—coworkers, lab assistants, the night janitor who always brought me extra creamer.
Then I saw it.
Lin, Catara H.
Blood type: AB Negative
Status: Active. Immunity confirmed. Extraction pending.
The words swam before my eyes. I blinked hard, but the text remained stubbornly unchanged. There was my full name. My employee ID. Even my fucking blood type. Cataloged. Tracked.
A sound tore from my throat. Half-hysterical laugh and half-sob. The room tilted violently. I grabbed the edge of my desk until the cheap particleboard dug grooves into my palms, the pain the only thing anchoring me to reality.
Immunity confirmed.
To what?
I clicked ZERA_Phase1 with fingers that didn't feel like my own.
The document loaded in fits and starts, revealing schematics that made my stomach lurch. The renderings showed DNA helices, but distorted. Twisted into sharp angles and unnatural geometries. Animated simulations played in looped sequences. In one, a healthy blood cell encountered something... other. The foreign agent latched on, began replicating.
Then, disintegrated.
Collapsed in on itself like a dying star.
A footnote blinked beneath:
Subject 447 (Lin) demonstrates complete viral negation. Serum analysis suggests unique epigenetic markers may provide—
The screen died.
Not just the document. The entire laptop. The sudden blackness was absolute. Across the room, my standing lamp flickered out with a pathetic pop. The refrigerator's constant hum cut off mid-cycle.
Silence.
Then, from outside, the rising wail of sirens. Not the usual emergency vehicles. These sounded different. Lower. More rhythmic. A sound designed to vibrate in your bones.
I sat frozen, the afterimage of those schematics burned into my retinas. My hands shook, but not from fear. This was something deeper, more primal, the horrifying realization that none of this was accidental. That the red sky. The disappearances. The way Rina's body had convulsed like it was rejecting its own cells.
They'd known.
They'd fucking known!
And I was in their files.
A coppery tang flooded my mouth. I'd bitten through my cheek without realizing. The pain was sharp, clarifying. Blood dripped onto my keyboard as I scrambled backward, my socked feet slipping on loose papers.
Extraction pending.
The power outage wasn't an accident. Neither was the curfew. They were making the city quiet. Easier to control. Easier to cull.
And I was on a list.
I moved without conscious thought, my body operating on some deep animal instinct. My closet door screeched as I yanked it open. A backpack, my old hiking pack from college, tumbled out.
I stuffed it blindly: protein bars from the pantry, a half-empty first aid kit, the waterproof jacket I'd bought for a camping trip I never took.
My fingers found the loose outlet plate behind my bed without looking. The wad of emergency cash—five hundred in twenties— was still there, slightly sticky from years of dust. I shoved it in my pocket just as my phone buzzed against the floor.
Unknown number.
The message contained only coordinates and two words:
They're coming.
No time to question. No time to think. I grabbed my jacket, shouldered the pack, and wrenched open my apartment door.
Just as the elevator down the hall dinged its arrival.
Black boots hit carpet first. Heavy. Purposeful. Then the tactical gear. Matte black and seamless, like second skin. Then the masks.
Not the standard security visors from the lab. These were... different. Organic in a way that made my scalp prickle. Smooth white surfaces that resembled bone more than polymer, rising into twisted protrusions that my panicked brain immediately recognized.
Antlers.
They wore fucking Antlers.
The lead figure's head swiveled toward me with uncanny precision. No visible eyes behind that smooth surface, but I felt its gaze like a physical weight pressing against my sternum.
"Catara Lin." The voice grated through a vocal modulator, stripping all humanity from the words. "You will come with us."
I slammed the door so hard the frame shuddered. The deadbolt clicked home a half-second before the first impact shook the entire wall. Drywall dust snowed from the ceiling as something heavy hit the other side.
"Fuck." I gasped. "Fuck!"
The fire escape. Had to be the fire escape.
I lunged for the window, fingers scrabbling at the latch. Painted shut, of course. My useless super's half-assed attempt at weatherproofing.
Another impact. The doorframe splintered.
I didn't hesitate. I drove my elbow through the glass. Shards rained onto the metal landing outside, glittering in the eerie red glow of the bleeding sky. Cold air rushed in, carrying the scent of smoke and something acrid I couldn't name.
Behind me, the deadbolt gave way with a sound like a gunshot.
I was already climbing through the broken window, backpack snagging on jagged glass teeth. The fire escape swayed dangerously under my weight, its rusted bolts creaking in protest. Below, the alley gaped like a dark mouth.
No time to plan.
No time to fear.
I ran.
And behind me, the Antlers followed.