“Three weeks have passed, Academi,” a female voice said. The woman whom Number Ohought of as her mother stepped closer to the sb, running a finger over the girl’s ribs. “She couldn’t even make it to the city. Waste of efforts, as I stated in my earlier report. If you had bothered to read it, we could have saved ourselves the oopsie.”

  “Be that as it may, she caused us too much trouble,” a nervous voiterjected. A whitecoat stepped closer, fidgeting nervously with his tie. “The gover became aware of the mutants and powers. The UPDC task force had raided our isnd facility; we had to cull the awakened subjects, and my daughter is in police custody. If the rumors are true, if those test subjects truly spoke… The bitch fucked us over, Academi! We’re ruihey’ll see us rotting in prison!”

  Could it be true? The revetions stole her breath. The information about the powers seemed important, the way the man had phrased it implied that they were something separate from the products. She had thought that those scummy teens had used some kind of teology, like the way the e fiends fired searing rays from their ons. But why use such a strange word to describe it? The products had acid spits, the ability to shoot barbed spikes, some could survive in a vacuum, and so on. The whitecoats never referred to these abilities by such a word.

  But it wasn’t important. The test subjects spoke? Did anyone escape this hell? Or did this gover rescue them? Number One cried through heart-stopping terror, happy at the news. Live! Live for me, my brothers, my sisters, or whoever you are. Please live and never feel regret in your entire life!

  “Cease your panic, fool.” A man in a brown buttoned business suit approached, fnked by six e fiends. She had never seen him before. His gray hair was slicked back, the fiery crimson irises of his eyes scrutihe vat born with passing i, and he used a long e to help himself around. “Eugenia is a minor. Worst-case sario: she’ll be in a juvenile hall until the age of eighteen. Be silent.” The man raised his e. “She won’t stay there. Let the wyers grease some hands, and the girl will be home by Sunday. I promise you this. We are not without friends. It should be easy te for a cargo ship to fall on the medical ter holding our escaped animals. As for the UPDC’s rea… Who cares? The pany had announced our relocation to the Red P four years ago. We were never here.” He lightly patted the nervous whitecoat on his . “See? Everything’s fine; everything’s solvable if you breathe and think. Our problems are little more than a setback. Such things happen in research. Ohe soldiers are ready, the UPDC will fet the i and trate on rearmament.”

  No. Number O her lip and almost had a stroke. No, don’t you dare, you scum, filth, monster, prey! Her kin escaped; they are free! Academi had to die. There was no other way. She had to kill him, even at the cost of her own life. More than one. More than one of her siblings survived. Medical ter. A pce of healing by the sound of it. She won’t let them be hurt.

  “What about the girl, Academi?” the woman inquired.

  “Her physicals are no good. But her mind is another matter. She may yet serve in another role if she is subservient enough…”

  Academi leaned closer. He left the e pressed against the sb and reached for the girl. His hands grasped her, cheg the location of the healed wound on her side, running up and down her body, groping her. His , sterile breath cked even the fai st of a stuck piece of food. She’d never faced anything like it. Any other whitecoat smelled of something they had eaten; the woman had a pleasant st of grapes ing from her mouth. He had nothing.

  He kissed her, running his tongue over her fangs. It shocked Number One, but it also opened up the possibility of vengeand the salvation of her kin, however small. The vat born heard of the products taken by the whitecoats for amusement purposes. Some even lived for many years until their masters grew bored. They paraded some of them, the shapes who smiled wildly, jumping up at their owners’ slightest gesture, all the while having dull, lifeless eyes befitting a husk. The products didn’t bme them. They pitied those who humiliated themselves to live another day, trading their bodies for the time, only to curse the deal and wele the sweet release of oblivion that would let them fet what had happened. She didn’t care about prolonging her life and used her fear to create an image of a broken person, drawing his too explore deeper. And the.

  The e rammed between her fangs, breaking two of them, and Academi rose, spitting in disgust.

  “Clever animal,” he said, dusting off the colr of his white shirt. “Too obstinate for pleasure, too weak for bat, and predictable to boot. A failure.”

  “Useless,” the woman said.

  “Not useless,” Academi corrected her. “The beast had enough wits to solve aion on how to bypass the basic defense meism. And the increased rea times, followed by a sudden mutation, gave us a clue on how to improve the model. Intelligence-wise, she is up to par.” He smiled at the startled eyes. “Yes. Your colr. It collected informatiohing from a pulse to a brainwave—and stored it inside a chip. Then the tral mainframe transted your brainwaves into words. We know your dreams, hopes, every thought you’ve ever had. I wonder if the voice speaking to you is a figment of your imagination, maed by your power, or a mutated version of a Siamese twin? No matter. We’ll learn soon enough. You never had even a lick of ce of running away, former Number One.” Academi moved to the doors leading out of the Room. “Vivisect her. Preserve the brain; the rest goes into recyg after you remove the glow from the bones. Prepare the prototype for extra. And begin te the sedary facility of the inferiors.”

  “But we had agreed that they were fit for bat, sir,” the woman said.

  “Indeed, it is a shame,” Academi sighed. “The problem is, they reproduce. A bio-soldier is useless on the market if we only sell od our er is satisfied. Make the oerile.”

  “We sterilize this geion,” the woman argued.

  “Potentially,” Academi ceded. “But it is not one hundred pert guarahe mooks demonstrated impressive healing capabilities. If even one is able taiility by ce... No, there is no point in risking the profits. The chassis should not even have this fun.”

  “Hai, Academi,” the nervous whitecoat said, pig up a ste. He pressed something, summoning meical arms from above. “I am going to enjoy this, degee. You took my little baby’s ear. Don’t think I’ll let you get off easy.”

  “Stop! Let my kin live! Please!” The vat born pleaded, lying through her fangs. The arm drew closer. A ser beam fshed between the pincer’s cws, c her red. Metal rings tightened, pinning her limbs even tighter. “Promise not to touch them, and I’ll do everything you want!” Academi left the room, ign her.

  We will not die. Said the voi her head.

  “Hmmm?” mused the female whitecoat. She g a dispy o the examination sb. “Her brain activity has peaked. As if she had received a dopamine iion.”

  We will not let you kill us.

  “Warning,” aric voied in the room. “Unauthorized mutation has beeed. All personnel must evacuate until security teams have taihe threat. Warning…”

  The vat born jerked her arm. Something exploded in her arm, heating it up. She imagined her muscles ing apart, dissolving over the bones. But there was no fear over a moment of weakness. An itch, simir to the one she had experienced during regeion, awoke in every cell of her body. The amber light of her eyes fshed, beating back the crimson of the ser. She jerked her arms again, cutting her wrist against the metal. The restraint creaked.

  “Stop it already, you assholes!” she roared, her voice eg off the walls, growing deeper. The ser touched her belly. She thrashed again, hearing a loud metallic click.

  “What…” the male whitecoat stuttered. “The hell is going on? Her muscle mass is increasing, the glow levels are rising… It’s not possible, the glow ’t self-replicate!”

  “Cut her head off, idiot! End the bitch right now!” the female screamed.

  Never. We will never be weak. I want to kill them. The girl thought. She wasn’t sure what was happening. Words she never knew flowed into her mind, and knowledge he never learned raced through the synapses of her brain. You will. Now and forever, we are one. Hunt! A fiouched her heart as if starting an engine.

  Number One pushed again, shattering the restraints as if they were made of gss. Her neck grew too thick for the colr. Its metal whined, pushed aside by the growing muscles, uo tain the growing bohe itg tinued, now tormenting her ans. She didn’t see them, but she khat some were splitting; the heart increased in size, gaining more chambers, and the lungs were transf into somethiirely new. Perfe was her right.

  A paw, covered by the thick bck fur, grasped the ser piearing it from the ceiling. She swung the metal remnants, burying them in the male’s neck. He gasped for air as a metal spike pierced his neck from the base aered under his jaw. The sight of his bloered the desire to feed. The vat born didn’t fight the urge this time. Her jaws opened, biting off the man’s head along with the ned the metal spike.

  ge! Number One popped his head against the pate, gulping dowhing: brains, eyes, bones. A murder. She just murdered someone. And she didn’t feel even a little bit bad. The vat born stood to the full height; her face ging, her ears growing sharper, and her eyes pig up the smallest particles of dust in the air. ge! There were no gods, no Spirits, nothing. Perfe hid itself in her cell, unleashed by ce. A round slice severed the arg metal limbs ing at her. They fell to the floor in a rain of steel. She spread her arms, heard the wet pops of new joints, moved her fingers—so big, so mighty.

  “Number Ohe female whitecoat retreated. Strangely, the woman seemed to shrink in size as the shadow cast by the monster grew rger, c the womairely. The whitecoat spoke in a high-pitched, pleading voice. “Amazing. You are so beautiful. I always knew you had it in you. Pardotle scare; I had to push you to your limits for your own good. It was all a game. I wouldn’t have let anyone hurt you. e, let’s leave this pce together. The UPDC will gdly accept us. Academi won’t be a problem, and you will have a moth…”

  A cw’s tip pierced through her mouth, emerging from the back of her neck. Brokeh and bone shards drummed against the wall, propelled by the otherworldly thrust as the monster lifted the woman, marveling at the size of her cw. So long, white, and sturdy. A saber rather than a cw!

  “Sorry. Had to wash your mouth of lies.” The monster smiled. “Is this where you imagined your life choices would take you, or is something not up to your standards? Would you prefer to perish another way? Gurgle me some ideas.”

  “Warning! Warning! The vivise has been promised. All personnel must wear respirators and protective gear. tai protocols are now ohe synthesized voinounced.

  tai protocols? What could it be? The heightened perception of time slowed everything down. The mohought at a far faster rate than ever, her mind clear. How do you stop a dangerous subject? Fme, obviously. It stopped regeion by burning through the stored reserves allocated for healing. But the whitecoats were here. This means there was another way.

  Gas. She lifted her head at a hissing sound, spotting openings in the ceiling. The moore her cw free, dropping the woman she wao call mother face down on the floor. A pool of blood began to spread around the feebly struggling body, but she had already fotten her presewo whitecoats who had killed Six-Four-Six tried to reach the doors leading outside, pulling on the cowls of their coats, zipping them up, and putting on gas masks.

  A siep brought her to them. The air torn by the repositioning of her body sent a tremble over the closest sbs, sing aside meat and almost knog down her captors. Her paws closed around the screaming people, the tips of her thumb cws slipping uhe masks. And sliced them off, leaving the bastards unharmed.

  “Breathe,” the monster ordered them, inhaling the air. She experienced a brief dizziness. There was a burniion iomach. It passed right away; the immune system of her new body had adapted to the poison. The begging eyes of the trapped man and woman never left her face, silently pleading with her to save them. She waited as they struggled not to breathe. They closed their eyes, bleeding crimson from uheir eyelids. “Breathe,” she purred. Death to the dealers of death. No mercy for the merciless.

  They colpsed, gasping for air. Blisters grew on their cheeks. She dropped them, letting the people scratch their own necks as their airways infted, crag the skin. Blood vessels burst. ans failed. A paralytic gas poisohe nervous system until it colpsed pletely, while preserving the brain. Their deaths were mercifully swift.