Tyrix
TYRIX
T he transformed maintenance worker never saw us coming.
We’d tracked him through three levels of service corridors, following Dasari’s coordinates to Research Bay 23-A. Nalina’s hand signal caught my eye: three more ahead. Security had tripled since yesterday.
I kept my senses alert for any change in air currents or scents that might warn of more patrols while Nalina worked on the access panel.
“Got it,” she whispered. The door slid open with barely a whisper.
Research Bay 23-A sprawled before us, dimly lit and eerily still. The sickly sweet scent of antiseptic burned my nose. Underneath lay something else - the metallic tang of blood and the acrid smell of fear.
“Which way?” Nalina asked.
The first room made my steps falter. Through the half-open door, I saw a child-sized medical gown crumpled in the corner, still holding the shape of its last occupant. Selenthian bioluminescence clung to the fabric, but instead of natural silver, it pulsed that sickly purple. Nearby, a long soft shape with tentacles, ears and a friendly hand sewn grin- had been shoved into a corner, as if its owner had been rushed away.
Nalina’s breath caught. She lifted the toy with trembling fingers. “This is Vami’s daughter’s. She never went anywhere without it.”
The stuffed toy in Nalina’s trembling hands represented everything we were fighting for - innocence violated, families torn apart. My claws ached to tear into those responsible, but we had to be smarter than that. Had to find them all.
There was no escaping every detail I wished I could ignore - fresh scuffs on the floor from struggling feet, the lingering warmth in the monitoring equipment, scattered drawings of home that would never be finished. The rage that filled me was a cold, dangerous thing.
“East corridor,” I said, picking up a fresher scent trail. “Recent activity.”
The memory of her body pressed against mine in Dasari’s hideout burned through my mind, threatening my focus. I forced the thoughts away. Later.
“Hold.” I caught her arm as boots clicked against metal flooring ahead. We pressed into an alcove as a security team passed, their movements unnaturally synchronized.
Nalina’s breath ghosted across my neck. Her heart raced, but her hands remained steady as she checked the tablet displaying station schematics.
“Environmental controls show an anomaly two sections over,” she murmured. “Too much power draw for standard equipment.”
I nodded. The scent trail led that direction as well. “Can you bypass it?”
“Give me five minutes.” She pulled tools from her belt, already focused on the task.
I kept watch, dividing my attention between potential threats and the way her fingers moved. Each time we touched, each shared look, pulled me deeper into dangerous territory. Bounty hunters weren’t meant to form attachments. We were hunters, killers. But watching her work, seeing her fierce determination...
“There.” The hidden door slid open with a soft hiss, revealing what looked like a standard research lab - at first glance. But my vision picked out the truth behind the careful disguise: neural interfaces masked as diagnostic equipment, genetic sequencers hidden beneath innocent-looking panels. Dr. Gondon’s equipment, twisted to new purpose.
Nalina moved to a workstation, her fingers dancing across the controls. “This matches the equipment requisitions Dasari found, but the power readings are all wrong. Why would they need this much-”
A whisper of boots against metal. Multiple teams converging.
Before I could warn her, two maintenance workers appeared in the doorway - their movements precise, purple marks visible at their collars. The same modifications we’d seen on Grot. One touched his comm unit. “Status report: unauthorized access detected in Lab 7.”
“Acknowledged,” came the flat response. “Proceeding with containment.”
They turned toward us. No time for subtlety.
I launched at the larger one as Nalina dropped low, sweeping the legs out from under the second.
The worker’s strength caught me off guard, nearly matching my own. His fist crashed into my ribs as I grappled him away from Nalina. She rolled clear, coming up with a shock prod.
“The children,” the second worker gasped, his programmed precision fracturing for a moment. Sweat beaded on his gray skin as he fought against whatever controlled him. “They’re changing them... like us... but faster...”
The device at his neck sparked purple-white. His eyes glazed over as the control reasserted itself, and he lunged for Nalina with inhuman speed.
We dealt with them quickly - no choice - and found the observation chamber three doors down. The privacy shields were still operational, which would work in our favor. Better still, this looked like a monitoring station for the whole facility.
Nalina’s fingers flew across the controls with practiced efficiency. “If they’re using the old security protocols, I might be able to- wait.” Her hands stilled suddenly. “These readings...”
I leaned over her shoulder, scanning the data scrolling past. Biosignatures, neural patterns, genetic markers - and one signal that made my hunter’s instincts surge to full alert.
“Is that...” She pulled up the data, isolating one particular pattern. “, it’s Jevik.”
The readouts painted a horror story in clinical detail. His cellular structure was degrading faster than his body could adapt. The genetic modifications were rewriting him from the inside out, turning him into something that read as neither fully Poraki nor machine. But underneath the precision of the data, something caught my eye - subtle variations in his neural patterns that matched what I’d observed when he’d stumbled into Nalina’s bar, hands shaking as he fought for control.
“He’s fighting it.” I traced the erratic patterns in his neural readings. “See these spikes? The control isn’t complete. These patterns here - they’re his own neural signatures breaking through, not the imposed rhythms of the modifications.”
“He’s still in there.” Nalina’s voice cracked. She steadied herself on the console, and I could smell the salt of unshed tears. “Gods, what they’re doing to him... his gills are barely functioning. His body temperature is so low...”
The data showed more - deteriorating organ function, massive cellular mutation, pain levels that should have rendered him unconscious. But through it all, irregular patterns showed moments of conscious resistance. Jevik wasn’t just alive. He was still fighting.
“Location data is corrupted,” Nalina muttered, fingers dancing across the access panel, muscle memory from years of maintenance work guiding each movement. “But these readings... they’re recent. Within the last six hours. He’s close.”
I watched her work, this remarkable human who’d crashed through all my defenses. The urge to simply grab her and run, to get her far from this danger, clawed at my chest. But she was right. These were her people. Her station.
And she was mine. My partner. My mate.
“Here.” She highlighted a section of data. “These power fluctuations match the pattern we saw in Blue Section. They’re moving something - or someone - through the old maintenance shafts.”
I studied the readings. “Six hours ago. If Jevik’s condition is deteriorating that quickly...”
“Then we don’t have much time.” She gnawed at her lower lip as she mapped power surges. “There - that junction point. It’s the only place these patterns intersect.”
The coordinates flashed on screen: Section 42-C. Deep in the station’s guts, where even maintenance crews rarely ventured. Where screams wouldn’t carry through the metal walls.
Perfect place to hide something they didn’t want found.
Or someone they were slowly turning into a weapon.