Chapter 5 Confirmation
Eric arrived at Laboratory Three before sunrise.
The corridors were nearly empty, the silence broken only by the distant hum of ventilation systems.
When the automatic doors slid open, he immediately knew something was wrong.
Rebecca Lawson hadn't gone home.
The laboratory was lit only by holographic displays floating above her workstation, bathing the room in an eerie blue glow. Empty coffee cups covered every available surface. Data pads lay scattered across the floor.
Rebecca stood motionless in the center of it all.
She looked exhausted.
She also looked terrified.
She didn't acknowledge him immediately.
Instead, she spoke without turning around.
"Lock the door."
Eric frowned.
"What?"
"Lock it."
There was something in her voice he'd never heard before.
Fear.
He secured the laboratory door.
Rebecca looked toward the security camera mounted in the corner.
"Disable the surveillance."
"My override code is seven-seven-three-nine."
Eric hesitated only a second before entering the code.
One by one, the recording lights changed from green...
...to red.
The room suddenly felt very small.
"What happened?" he asked quietly.
Rebecca finally turned to face him.
Her eyes were bloodshot.
"I ran the comparison."
Eric's heartbeat quickened.
"And?"
She swallowed.
"You were right."
The words landed harder than any bullet.
For several seconds neither of them spoke.
Eric found himself afraid to ask the next question.
"The DNA?"
Rebecca opened a personnel file.
A military photograph appeared above the workstation.
A smiling young Ranger wearing dress uniform.
Daniel Marcus.
Below the image, another file opened.
The mutant from the Red Lion operation.
Same DNA.
99.998% genetic match.
Eric's knees nearly gave out.
"No..."
Rebecca nodded slowly.
"The body you killed..."
"...was Daniel Marcus."
Silence swallowed the room.
Eric stared at Daniel's smiling photograph.
Then at the twisted corpse.
His mind refused to accept they were the same person.
"They told his wife..."
He couldn't finish.
Rebecca did it for him.
"They told Sarah Marcus he died during a classified training exercise."
Eric closed his eyes.
He remembered Sarah thanking him for visiting.
He remembered promising to call if he learned anything.
His stomach turned.
"I kept digging," Rebecca said.
Eric opened his eyes.
"What do you mean?"
"I couldn't stop."
She expanded another file.
Then another.
Then another.
The laboratory filled with floating faces.
Men.
Women.
Different uniforms.
Different branches.
Army.
Navy.
Marines.
Air Force.
Each smiling in official military portraits.
Each marked...
Missing in Action.
One hologram shifted.
Michael Chen.
Marine Corps.
Missing eighteen months.
Another.
Sarah Winters.
Combat Medic.
Missing fourteen months.
Another.
James Rodriguez.
Navy SEAL.
Missing eight months.
Rebecca looked at Eric.
"I tested every specimen recovered from your last three operations."
Eric already knew the answer.
Still...
He asked.
"How many?"
"Seventeen."
She looked away.
"Every single one."
His chest tightened.
"No mutations from civilians."
"No random infections."
"No unknown species."
"Just people."
Rebecca nodded.
"People who volunteered for classified military programs."
She opened another report.
This one wasn't a personnel file.
It was a genetic analysis.
Cells filled the display.
Normal DNA...
Then strands that looked violently rewritten.
Twisted.
Artificial.
"I've never seen anything like it."
Rebecca enlarged the image.
"Their genomes were altered deliberately."
"Retroviral gene editing."
"Extremely advanced."
"Not natural."
She looked at him.
"Someone did this to them."
Eric felt cold.
"An accident?"
"I don't think so."
"Why?"
"Because every sample shows the exact same modifications."
She highlighted identical sequences across multiple files.
"Same procedure."
"Same viral carrier."
"Same engineered mutations."
"This wasn't a failed experiment."
"It was a program."
Eric slowly looked around the laboratory.
Every screen showed another victim.
Another soldier.
Another person someone was still waiting to come home.
"The Vanguard..."
His voice barely existed.
"They know."
Rebecca met his eyes.
"I think they know everything."
Eric shook his head.
"No."
"They're supposed to protect people."
Rebecca gave a hollow laugh.
"Protect them from what?"
He couldn't answer.
She continued.
"Think about every briefing you've ever attended."
"Did anyone ever explain where mutants came from?"
"No."
"Did anyone tell you how outbreaks started?"
"No."
"Did anyone let independent scientists study the bodies?"
"No."
"The corpses always came here," Eric whispered.
"And disappeared."
Rebecca nodded.
"They controlled every piece of information."
Eric's memories came flooding back.
Mission reports.
Restricted files.
Bodies removed before sunrise.
Questions dismissed as unnecessary.
He had accepted all of it.
Because soldiers followed orders.
Rebecca opened one final document.
Unlike the others, almost every line was blacked out.
CLASSIFIED.
PROJECT CHIMERA.
Only fragments remained visible.
Volunteer Enhancement Initiative...
Behavioral Instability...
Stage Four Mutation...
Recovery Protocol...
Eric stared at the screen.
"My enhancement program..."
Rebecca slowly nodded.
"It began four years ago."
She opened another timeline.
Mutant sightings.
Four years.
Enhanced soldier deployments.
Four years.
Budget increases.
Four years.
Everything overlapped.
It wasn't coincidence.
Someone had built an entire war around monsters...
...they had created themselves.
Eric looked down at his hands.
The same hands that had fired the trigger.
The same hands altered by enhancement serum.
A horrible thought forced itself into his mind.
"What if..."
His voice cracked.
Rebecca looked at him.
"What if we're next?"
Neither of them spoke.
The silence was answer enough.
Finally Eric whispered,
"I killed them."
Rebecca closed her eyes.
"You didn't know."
"I should have."
He remembered Daniel.
The wedding ring.
The Morse code.
The family photograph in the warehouse.
The raised hands.
Every clue had been there.
He simply hadn't wanted to see them.
"They weren't trying to kill us."
His breathing became uneven.
"They were trying to be understood."
Rebecca stepped beside him.
For a long moment neither of them moved.
Outside the laboratory, the headquarters slowly came to life.
Soldiers laughed in distant corridors.
Morning announcements echoed through the building.
Another squad prepared for another hunt.
Another group of enhanced soldiers was about to kill more victims...
...while believing they were saving the world.
Eric stared through the laboratory window at the bustling facility.
Everything looked exactly as it had yesterday.
Only now...
He knew he was standing inside the monster's den.
