They fired her on her last shift. Minutes later, two helicopters landed outside — and the crews rushed toward her with a message that changed everything: “We’ve been looking for you!”
And they were looking at her.
«Valkyrie,» one of them said, and she recognized the voice despite its distortion. Garrett Knox.
He was standing at the front of the formation, his body changed in ways that made her chest tighten with grief and fear. The muscle definition was wrong, too pronounced, like something was pushing out from inside. His hands hung at his sides with fingers that seemed longer than they should be. But his face, despite the alien eyes, was still the face she’d loved.
«Knox.» She took a step forward, but Hayes caught her arm.
«Don’t. They’re not… they’re not entirely human anymore.»
«She is,» Knox said, his voice carrying harmonics that shouldn’t exist in a human throat. «She’s the template, the original, the one who survived.»
«What are you talking about?» Waverly pulled free from Hayes, driven by a need to understand that overrode caution.
Knox tilted his head with emotion that looked more like a bird than a man. «Kandahar, the village, you were exposed but didn’t die, didn’t change. Your body adapted, created antibodies, became something new. Something they’ve been trying to replicate ever since.»
The pieces clicked in her mind with horrible clarity. Her discharge hadn’t been about questions or protocol violations. It had been about her blood, her immunity. They’d let her go to see if she could survive in the normal world, if whatever had changed in her was stable, safe. And when they’d needed her again, when someone had weaponized what she’d survived…
«You knew,» she said to Hayes. «You’ve known this whole time.»
«I knew you were special,» he admitted. «I didn’t know why until 12 hours ago when someone released Tsar toxin in my facility and left a note saying only Valkyrie could stop it.»
«Who?»
«That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Someone with the highest level clearance. Someone who knew about you, about Kandahar, about everything we’ve tried to bury.»
Knox moved then, just a single step, but every weapon in the corridor tracked to him instantly. He ignored them, his oil-slick eyes fixed on Waverly.
«The traitor isn’t trying to kill us,» he said. «They’re trying to evolve us, and you’re the key. Your blood, your immunity, your ability to survive what kills everyone else.» He held up his hand, and she could see the veins beneath the skin pulsing with something that wasn’t quite blood anymore. «We’re the beta test. You’re the finished product.»
Here’s the question that’s tearing Waverly apart: Would you inject yourself with a deadly toxin to save 47 strangers? Comment «sacrifice» if yes, or «survive» if you’d protect yourself first.
The revelation hung in the air like another kind of toxin, poisoning every assumption she’d had about why she was here. This wasn’t a rescue mission; it was a harvest. Someone wanted her blood, her antibodies, her immunity, and they’d turn 47 operators into biological weapons to get it.
«How long before the change is permanent?» she asked, forcing herself to think like a medic, not a victim.
«Based on current progression, maybe six hours,» Hayes said. «After that, whatever they become is what they’ll stay.»
Six hours to figure out how to reverse something that had been designed using her own biology as a template. Six hours to save 47 people who were becoming something that wasn’t quite human anymore. Six hours to stop a traitor who knew everything about her, including the secret she’d never known herself: that she wasn’t entirely human either.
Knox’s formation hadn’t moved, but she could feel their attention like heat from a fire. They were waiting—for what, she didn’t know. But the way they watched her suggested they knew something she didn’t. Something about what was coming that made their transformation seem like preparation rather than attack.
«Where’s your medical facility?» she asked Hayes. «The real one, not this field unit set up.»
«Level Seven. Full surgical suite, isolation labs, everything you’d need for biological weapons research.»
«Has anyone been down there since the exposure?»
«No. We sealed it when the containment breach happened.»
«Then that’s where we start.» She looked at Knox one more time, seeing past the changes to the man underneath. The man who had loved her enough to disappear to keep her safe. «I’m going to fix this.»
«No,» Knox said, and the harmonics in his voice created resonances that made her teeth ache. «You’re going to become this. We all are. The traitor isn’t destroying us, Valkyrie. They’re preparing us for what’s coming.»
«What’s coming?»
But Knox and his team turned as one, moving back toward the containment cells with that liquid precision that suggested their minds were linked now, networked in ways human consciousness wasn’t designed for. Before the security doors closed behind them, Knox looked back one more time.
«The war that’s been coming since Kandahar,» he said. «The one where being human isn’t enough anymore.»
The doors sealed with a sound like fate closing its hands around her throat. Hayes was already moving, shouting orders to teams she couldn’t see. But Waverly stood frozen in the corridor, processing implications that made her wish she’d stayed fired, stayed ignorant, stayed human in the simple, uncomplicated way she’d thought she was.
But that option had never really existed. She’d been changed six years ago in a village that didn’t exist, exposed to something that should have killed her but had instead made her into something else. Something that could survive the unsurvivable. Something that 47 operators were now becoming, willing or not.
The question wasn’t whether she could save them. The question was whether saving them meant keeping them human or helping them become what she was. And she had six hours to decide which answer would damn them all.
Hayes led her deeper into Purgatory, past sections she didn’t remember from the blueprints. Areas that had been added in the six years since she’d left. The mountain had been hollowed out further, carved into a maze of laboratories and containment areas that suggested someone had been preparing for something like this for a long time.
«Tell me about the security before the breach,» she said, as they descended a stairwell that seemed to go down forever. «Who had access to the toxin storage?»
«Seven people total, all cleared at the highest levels, all polygraphed monthly, all under constant surveillance.»
«Surveillance that would show who released it?»
Hayes’ silence was answer enough.
«The cameras went down,» she said. It wasn’t a question.
«Ninety seconds of lost footage, just enough time for someone to access the storage vault and trigger the release. Professional job. Someone who knew exactly how our systems worked.»
«Or someone who designed them.»
They’d reached Level Seven. The medical facility stretched out before them like something from a fever dream of sterile efficiency. Operating theaters with equipment she didn’t recognize. Laboratories that hummed with machines processing samples that probably violated every biological warfare treaty ever signed. And in the center, a vault-like door marked with warnings in seven languages.
«What’s in there?» she asked.
«Originally, samples from Kandahar. The original Tsar toxin. The blood and tissue samples we took from the village.» Hayes paused. «And from you.»
«You kept my blood?»
«We kept everything. Every sample from every survivor. Except you were the only survivor who didn’t show symptoms. Your samples were unique.»
She approached the vault door, noting the security measures. Biometric locks that would only open for specific people. And one of those biometric profiles, according to the small screen beside the lock, was hers.
«You programmed my biometrics into a vault I didn’t know existed?»
«We programmed them six years ago, in case we ever needed you back. In case something like this happened.»
Her hand moved toward the scanner before she consciously decided to do it. The machine read her palm print, scanned her retinas, even analyzed her breath for specific chemical markers. Then the locks disengaged with a series of clicks that sounded like bullets being chambered.
Inside was a laboratory that shouldn’t exist. Walls lined with refrigeration units containing thousands of samples. Computer systems running constant analysis on biological material that moved and shifted even while frozen. And in the center, a containment unit marked with her name and a date. The day she’d been exposed in Kandahar.
But the unit was empty. The seals were broken from the inside.
«It’s gone,» Hayes breathed. «Your original sample is gone.»
«No,» a voice said from behind them. «It’s not gone. It’s walking around, talking to you, trying to pretend it’s still human.»
They spun toward the voice. Standing in the doorway was Sterling Maddox, no longer in his hospital director’s suit, but in tactical gear that fit him too well to be borrowed. He held a military-grade sidearm with the easy familiarity of someone who’d used it before.
«Hello, Valkyrie,» he said. «Or should I call you by your real designation? Subject Zero. The first successful human-toxin hybrid. The prototype for everything that came after.»
Waverly’s mind raced, but her body stayed still. Maddox. Here. Armed. Which meant…
«You’re the inside man,» Hayes said, his hand moving toward his weapon.
«I wouldn’t,» Maddox said conversationally. «The moment you draw, the lockdown protocol activates. Every door in this facility seals. Everyone dies. Even her, eventually.»
«You released the toxin,» Waverly said, pieces clicking together in her mind. «You’ve been watching me for six years, waiting for the right moment.»
«Watching you waste your potential playing nurse. Watching you pretend to be human when you’re so much more.» He gestured at the empty containment unit. «Did you know what was in there? Not just blood. Not just tissue. The original sample. The pure strain of what you became that night in Kandahar. The transformation that should have killed you, but instead made you perfect.»
«I’m not perfect. I’m not even—»
«You’re exactly what we’ve been trying to create for twenty years. A human who can survive biological weapons. Who can adapt to them. Who becomes stronger from exposure instead of dying. Do you have any idea how valuable that makes you?»
«Valuable enough to kill 47 operators?»
«They’re not dying. They’re evolving. Becoming what you are. Just slower. Messier. The process isn’t perfect yet. But with your active antibodies, your living blood, we can stabilize them. Make the transformation permanent. Create an entire unit of soldiers who can survive anything.»
Hayes had been moving incrementally, positioning himself for a clear shot. But Maddox tracked him without looking away from Waverly.
«The question is,» Maddox continued, «will you help them willingly, or do I need to take what I need by force?»
«You’re assuming I can be forced.»
«I’m assuming you’re still human enough to care about Knox. About the others. They have maybe four hours now before the transformation becomes irreversible. Without your blood, they’ll become something that isn’t quite human and isn’t quite other. Trapped between forms. Mad from the pain of constant change.»
As if to emphasize his point, a scream echoed from somewhere above them. Not quite human anymore, but close enough to carry the kind of agony that transcended species.
Personnel files showed triple combat benefits. Protection 47 operators had maximized before this 12% survival mission. She could see the documents scattered on a desk nearby—the paperwork these operators had filed before entering Purgatory. Knowing something was wrong. Knowing the survival odds were against them. They’d updated their benefits, their insurance, their final wishes. They’d known this might be their last mission, but they’d come anyway.
«You fired me this morning,» Waverly said to Maddox, buying time while she calculated angles and options. «Made a big show of it. Why?»
«Because I needed you emotionally off-balance, isolated from support systems. Easier to manipulate when someone’s world has just collapsed.» He smiled, and it was the smile of someone who’d been playing a game no one else knew existed. «Plus, I knew the military would come for you. They always do when things go wrong. You’re their dirty little secret, their ace in the hole, the woman who survived Kandahar.»
«I barely survived Kandahar.»
«No, you thrived in Kandahar. Your body took something that kills in minutes and turned it into evolution. You became something new, something necessary for what’s coming.»
«What’s coming?»
Maddox’s expression shifted and became almost sympathetic. «War, Valkyrie. But not the kind we’ve been fighting. The kind where biological weapons are the norm, not the exception. Where soldiers need to be more than human to survive. Where people like you aren’t anomalies, but necessities.»
Another scream from above, this one closer, followed by the sound of something breaking. Something heavy, something that might have been a reinforced door.
«They’re getting stronger,» Maddox observed. «The transformation accelerates under stress. In about 30 minutes, they’ll be strong enough to break containment. Then we’ll see what 47 enhanced operators can do when they’re not held back by human limitations.»
«They’ll kill everyone.»
«No, they’ll follow you. You’re the template, the original. They’re programmed at a genetic level to recognize you as… let’s call it, pack leader.»
«That’s insane.»
«That’s evolution. And you’re going to lead them whether you want to or not. The only question is whether you help them complete the transformation properly or let them suffer through a botched version that leaves them insane.»
Hayes made his move then, drawing his weapon in a motion too fast for normal human reflexes to track. But Maddox was already moving, already firing, the sound of the gunshot impossibly loud in the enclosed space. Hayes went down, blood spreading across his tactical vest, his weapon spinning away across the floor.
«No!» Waverly moved toward Hayes, her medical instincts overriding everything else.
But Maddox’s weapon tracked to her. «He’ll live if you cooperate. The shot was precise. Liver grazer. Painful but not fatal if treated within the hour. Which gives you a choice. Help me complete the project, or watch him bleed out while you maintain your moral high ground.»
Waverly knelt beside Hayes, her hands already assessing the wound. Maddox was right; treatable but time-critical. She could save him, but only if she had access to the medical supplies in this lab, only if Maddox let her.
«What exactly do you want?» she asked.
«Your blood. Two liters. Enough to synthesize the antibodies and create a stable transformation serum. You donate, I save them all. You refuse, they all die badly, including him, including Knox.»
«And after, what happens to me?»
«You become what you were always meant to be. The first of a new kind of soldier, the prototype for humanity’s next evolution. You’ll train them, lead them, show them how to be what you are: a weapon, a survivor. In the war that’s coming, that’s the only thing that matters.»
The lights flickered suddenly, emergency power kicking in as something somewhere in the facility failed. The screaming from above had stopped, replaced by something worse: coordinated movement, multiple footsteps moving in sync, like an entire unit advancing through the facility with shared purpose.
«They’re coming,» Maddox said. «Drawn to you. They can sense you’re here, sense you’re like them, but more complete. They need you, Valkyrie, and you’re going to need them for what’s coming next.»
«What’s coming next?»
But before Maddox could answer, the vault door exploded inward, torn from its hinges by hands that weren’t quite human anymore. Knox stood in the doorway, his transformed features barely recognizable except for his eyes, which still held something of the man she’d known. Behind him, Alpha Team flowed into the room like liquid shadow, moving with perfect coordination despite their transformed states.
They arranged themselves in a protective formation around Waverly, ignoring Maddox entirely, focused on something only they could sense.
