Cold.
Not the kind that chills skin, but the kind that settles deep, a stillness more mechanical than organic. That was the first sensation Ryvek knew. His breath caught mid-inhale, his lungs inflating too fast. The air was thin and almost clinical, but before he could process it, something hissed overhead as light bled into his vision. Everything was blurred—shapes shifting like ink in water.
"You are awake, Subject S-R-001. Vital systems are stabilizing. Neural synchronization at 73%. Please remain still," A voice inside his head spoke. Not a memory, and not a thought. Something external pretending to be internal.
"VIREN systems initiating visual overlay. Beginning orientation."
His fingers twitched and obeyed his movements, but sluggishly. Then his arms. And then his chest. A dense weight pressed against his body alike swimming through oil. The inside of the container was transparent as his vision cleared, revealing the lab room beyond. Greyish walls, chrome edges, humming lights, monitors... And two figures watching.
Dr. Elara didn't blink. Her eyes were the color of steel and twice as sharp. She leaned forward with her arms crossed behind her back, military straight. Beside her, Dr. Alan tapped a screen, his brow furrowed as if he was reading a recipe he didn't trust.
"Neural readings are clean," Alan said. "Vitals nominal. And Muscle response... enhanced."
Elara nodded once. "Bring him out."
"Emergency protocol not detected. Initiating unlock."
With a click and hiss, the container released its seal after the liquid was drained. The glass folded upward and cold air spilled out like dry ice. Ryvek sat up. His body responded before his thoughts could. His very muscle burned, but every nerve obeyed. The skin that shouldn't have healed, had been healed. Wounds he didn't remember acquiring were now scars. His reflection in the mirrored panel across the room stared back with ice-pale eyes, pale skin and flaxen hair.
"Subject S-R-001," Elara stated, stepping forward. "Welcome to your new function."
Ryvek opened his mouth, but no words came. And instead, a silent rasp. Alan brought the tablet in his hand closer, scanning him. "His speech functions need a few more hours to normalize. The muscle memory, though, is optimal."
"Ryvek. That is your designation. Remember it." His name. And the voice again, inside him, whose name was VIREN. It didn't echo in his skull like thought. It was more exact, similar to code spoken in perfect syntax.
"We are synchronized. My function is guidance, data acquisition, security compliance. I am not your conscience." Ryvek blinked slowly. He wasn't sure if that last part was meant to be a warning.
They both walked him through the lab slowly, as if he might fall. However, he didn't, his each step solidified the connection between muscle and memory. It was all there—the strength, the balance. But the recollections and memories were damaged. Blurred faces, muffles screams, fire, straps, injections, light neon liquid beneath his skin.
"He seems to be remembering," Alan muttered.
"Let him," Elara said. "If he breaks, then he wasn't worth the project."
They entered a new chamber, sealed with biometric locks. No one else walked through those halls. No one else could, as they weren't given permission to. Cameras turned to follow and machines shifted subtly in their housing. VIREN spoke again.
"This is Sector 00. You were created here. You will not leave without authorization."
Ryvek stopped. Something inside him twitched at the word... created. Not born nor raised. Made. He turned his head to meet Elara, and the woman met his gaze without flinching.
"What you are," she said calmly as if she could read Ryvek's mind by merely gazing at him, "is the result of six years of desperation. Humanity is dying, Ryvek. Caellius D is our last hope. And you—you are our answer."
She gestured toward a wall that revealed a live holographic display of Caellius D—dust-red terrain, violet skies, mountains like jagged teeth, highly advanced in technology cities. It was beautiful, yet felt hostile. Alien.
"Our first volunteers never came back," Alan spoke with a proud smile, not seeming to be worried about the volunteers at all. "Not even their signals. So we changed the plan. We adapted humanity instead of adapting the planet. That's where you come in."
"You are an S-R class: Specialized-Regenerative. Combat-rated. You were designed for hostile environments and high-risk termination tasks."
"Termination..," Ryvek pondered, the word gravel in his mind.
Alan didn't look up from his tablet. "You will be assigned to Sector 2 as an executive and military agent. Their role is planetary security."
"And policing escaped subjects," Elara added. "Failures."
Failures. Ryvek's stomach twisted. Somewhere behind that word were once people.
"Designated F-class: genetically unstable, psychologically compromised, ethically unviable. You are not the same."
He chose to not say anything.
Later, they gave him a room. This time with no bars, no chains. Just a single bed, matte lighting, and a mirror too clean to trust. VIREN didn't speak unless prompted. But it was there, watching. He sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on knees, staring at his hands. Calloused. Scarred. They didn't look like the hands of a new being that was made. They looked worn.
He closed his eyes.
"Sleep is advised. Recovery incomplete."
Ryvek didn't argue, lay back and the light dimmed. For the first time since waking, he felt something close to stillness. Not peace, just absence. And even that was fragile.
In the next morning, his orientation began. Sector 2's training hall was vast and brutalist in design. Drones patrolled the ceiling, automated turrets folded neatly into wall crevices. Everything hummed with surveillance. He met Commander Byeol-Jin during a live simulation exam.
"So you're the ghost out of Sector 00," Byeol-Jin said, arms crossed, eyes scanning Ryvek with practiced judgment. "You... don't look like much."
Ryvek didn't answer. After a few seconds of silence, Byeol-Jin continued.
"That's good. The ones who talk big usually burn fast." Then, the Commander threw a data chip toward him, to which Ryvek caught mid-air without effort.
"The simulation exam begins in thirty seconds. Targets are coded red. No hesitation and absolutely no mercy. Fail, and I'll send your parts back to Elara in a bucket."
The chamber sealed and the world became a simulated battle ground.
He moved before thinking. The surroundings blurred into motion as targets slithered from the shadows—humanoid in shape, but grotesque in detail. Their jaws unhinged far too wide, rows of jagged teeth twitching with simulated hunger. Limbs bent at unnatural and unsettling angles, bones cracked outward like broken architecture. Some crawled, dragging themselves by one arm. Others lunged, shrieking in warped voices that echoed similar to corrupted data.
The failures, or so called F-class, distorted remnants of human design, now nothing more than corrupted projections built from the DHE's records. Holograms, yes—but engineered with photonic mass emitters. Enough to mimic weight. Enough to break bones.
Despite this, Ryvek didn't freeze.
He stepped sideways, avoiding the first swipe by inches, his body calculating movement faster than his mind. A roundhouse kick shattered the first target's ribs, sending it careening into a wall, disappearing in a burst of red particles. Another sprinted in—Ryvek caught it mid-leap by the throat, pivoted, and slammed it onto the floor hard enough to crack the chamber tiles. Its neck twisted with a sick crunch.
No breath. No hesitation.
He moved like a ghost with intent, unburdened by emotion. His fists tore through flesh that wasn't real but bled convincingly. One target tried to flank him from behind—he turned, drove his elbow into its skull, then followed with a palm strike that shattered its sternum. Artificial gore sprayed across the chamber, coating his arms, slick on his skin.
Another—taller, more erratic—rushed him from the far end. Ryvek ducked low, dashed forward, and delivered a sequence of strikes: knee to gut, elbow to temple, boot to knee. And it crumpled.
Bodies dropped with surgical precision, simulated blood sprayed in arcs across the sterile floor, turning the training chamber into a warzone of flickering crimson light. Ryvek's movements were a dance of death, each step measured, each strike purposeful. He flowed through the chaos like a machine born from violence—pivoting mid-strike, parrying phantom claws, crushing limbs with unflinching exactness.
He ducked under a flailing arm, swept a leg, then brought his heel down with enough force to shatter the simulated spine. Another charged him from the left; he snatched its face mid-lunge and slammed it into the ground, turning its skull into data fragments. His knee rose into another's chest as it screeched, and his fist followed before it could fall, punching clean through its torso. The hologram burst apart, its final expression frozen in digital agony.
Ryvek never once paused to admire the aftermath. His eyes tracked motion, not emotion. He turned, twisted, struck, advanced—a weapon executing its programming. A phantom swung a jagged blade; he caught its wrist, twisted, disarmed, and drove the weapon into its own neck without blinking.
"Combat efficiency: 92%. Target hesitation: none. Cognitive strain: minimal. Emotional response: absent."
Byeol-Jin watched from the upper level. His expression was unreadable, though the slight tilt of his head suggested evaluation. As the last hologram dissipated, a translucent blue notification blinked into existence before Ryvek's eyes, overlaying his vision:
["SIMULATION COMPLETE. STATUS: PASS. Combat Score: 92%. Termination Efficiency: Approved."]
Ryvek stepped out of the chamber, artificial gore still dripping from his arms, chest rising and falling with controlled breath. The notification faded as he met Byeol-Jin's gaze.
"You'll do," the Commander said flatly. Ryvek paused at the base of the stairs, studying him, before speaking for the first time.
"...Is that your way of saying I'm operational?"
Byeol-Jin smirked slightly, the only sign of approval. "It means you didn't disappoint. Don't expect a parade."
"I'm not expecting a 'parade'."
They stared at each other for a beat in silence—one borned from flesh, bones and protocol the other forged in failure, experiments and programming. With a silent sigh, the Commander broke the silence.
"Report to the debriefing bay," Byeol-Jin said, turning. "My other executives will send the data packet for your first operation."
"Understood," Ryvek replied simply, his voice still sharp with post-simulation coldness.
Then, the subject exited the training chamber and made his way through the stark, futuristic and luxurious hallways of the Sector 2 facility, searching for the debriefing bay as ordered. Workers in black-and-silver uniforms moved with purpose, glancing his way with a mix of curiosity and unease due to his appearance still bore the remnants of simulated combat in his S-rank subject uniform.
Ryvek stopped near a console operator and spoke, attemping to act sympathetic. However, instead, it came out as a demand. "Debriefing bay. Location."
The worker—a young man barely in his twenties—blinked, startled. "Uh... two levels down, corridor G. You'll see the blue panel." He pointed without meeting Ryvek's eyes, afraid of upsetting him.
Ryvek stared at the young man with a subtle tilted head, wondering as to why he seemed so afraid. However, he nodded and moved on to the direction the worker pointed to without further interactions. And when he entered the debriefing bay, it was quieter than expected.
A wide room, sterile and dim, with one central terminal. Two officers from Sector 2 sat at desks nearby. One of them looked up as he approached.
"S-R-001," the officer said, tapping a control panel. "Packet incoming now. You'll be briefed en route. Welcome to the hunt."
Ryvek approached in silence, his boots silent against the polished floor. The officer who had spoken glanced up with calm eyes behind thin-rimmed lenses.
"Killian," he added, gesturing slightly toward his ID tag. "I handle field integration and brief routing in behalf of the Commander. The packet is loading into your system now. VIREN will unpack it when you're en route."
The second officer—Augustine—leaned back in his chair, spinning it lazily with a foot against the desk. His uniform was rumpled compared to William's.
"Didn't think the big ghost from Zero would actually look human," Augustine commented, grinning. "We had bets you'd be all wires. You don't talk much, do you?"
Ryvek stared at Augustine, expression unreadable.
"Packet confirmed. Authorization Level: 2. Ready for mission input," VIREN's voice pulsed faintly from Ryvek, low and precise.
"Is that it?" Ryvek asked.
William nodded. "You'll get full mission details on transit. Expect resistance. This one's not clean."
"Is it ever?" Augustine spoke, still grinning. "Watch your neck out there, One. Not everyone fails by accident."
Ryvek, in response to Augustine's comment, tilted his head faintly before giving him a small nod. Then, he turned and left without another word.