Monroe’s smile was thin, sharp. “Only if they die.”
Sybil was shaking now, practically on fire with panic. “If you give this to the other patients, human subjects, you’ll start acascade of system failures you can’t reverse. Patients will die at your hand.”
She turned back to Alex, his breathing labored and shallow. “Bag him!” she shouted at the tech. “Push epinephrine, now!”
The tech obeyed, hands shaking. Maddox appeared at her side, silent, watching. Too silent.
As she worked, Sybil’s mind churned. Maddox hadn’t reacted to giving Alex the spinal injection. Hadn’t flinched when Monroe said Alex was a trial run. He’d just stood there, unreadable.
She looked up at him now. “Hand me the crash drugs.”
He hesitated. Just long enough.
Sybil’s heart sank. Maddox was with Monroe. Maybe not fully, but enough to follow orders. Enough to watch without intervening. She grasped the meds herself and pushed the dose into Alex’s IV line.
He jerked on the table. A strangled gasp shot from his lungs. His pulse flickered on the monitor, weak but there. His body was trembling now, skin clammy and pale.
Sybil didn’t stop working, but her mind was already elsewhere. She had to get him out—because Monroe wasn’t going to stop. This wasn’t science. This was murder. And now, Sybil Vance knew she was on her own.
Med Bay 2 had become a war zone. Not the kind with screaming or smoke, but a colder one, a quieter one. The kind where battles were fought in glances, in commands barked through clenched teeth, in the restrained panic of machines beeping warnings no one was listening to.
Alex shook violently on the table, body arched, restrained, soaked in sweat. His eyes fluttered open in broken pulses of consciousness, but they didn’t see. They twitched. Rolled. Like something inside was trying to find a way out.
Dr. Vance clutched the edge of the tray, eyes locked on the monitor as his vitals surged further into the red. She washalfway to the drawer to administer a second stabilizing dose of amiodarone when Monroe’s voice rang out behind her.
“Step back.”
Sybil turned. “Don’t do this. He won’t survive another injection.”
Monroe was already striding close, flanked by Maddox and two techs. She didn’t look at Sybil. She looked only at Alex like a surgeon eyeing a specimen on a table, not a man.
“He’ll either survive,” Monroe said calmly, “or he’ll teach us what failure looks like.” “Maddox,” she added without turning, “restrain Dr. Vance.”
Before Sybil could move, Maddox was behind her. His arm locked around hers, wrenching them behind her back. He wasn’t rough, but he wasn’t gentle either. It was mechanical. Protocol. Obedient.
“Don’t do this,” Sybil growled, struggling. “Monroe, don’t do this to him!”
But Monroe was already preparing the syringe. The vial shimmered with that same neon yellow fluid—X-23-R.
She gestured, and the techs moved, nervous but compliant. They positioned Alex on his side, forced his spine into alignment, and one of them whispered, “I’m sorry,” under his breath.
Monroe aimed the needle in with a clinical snap, watching as Alex’s back seized beneath her hands. The monitor screamed, heart rate spiking. Oxygen levels crashing. His body convulsed like it was trying to escape its own skin. A ragged sound tore from his throat—raw, wet, almost inhuman.
Sybil shouted over it all, “You’ll kill him!”
Monroe didn’t flinch. She withdrew the needle slowly, shucking off her gloves. “If he dies, don’t destroy the body,” she said, turning toward Maddox. “I want a full postmortem—neural structure, organ degradation, spinal mapping.” Then, to Maddoxagain, she said flatly, “Watch her. Don’t let her help anyone above minimum care.”
She started walking away.
“I swear to you—if he dies in here, if one more neural synapse fails, I will drag this entire program into the light. You think no one’s watching, but you’re wrong,” Sybil screamed.
Monroe ignored her. “Oh, and Elias,” she called over her shoulder. “When he returns, send him straight to me. I want to debrief him myself.” She retired to her private quarters, seemingly satisfied with the day's cruelty.
The silence that followed was dense and uneasy. Sybil sat near Alex on a wall-mounted stool, doing what little she was allowed—oxygen monitoring, fluid drips, nothing proactive. Not enough to save him.
Alex’s breathing was ragged now, shallow, too slow. His overheated body convulsed. Then, the door opened. Elias Ward stepped inside like a shadow slipping through a crack in a wall. Clean clothes. Calm face. An expression Sybil couldn’t read, except in the eyes—they burned.
Maddox stiffened. “Elias.”
