The night train to Vienna carved through the Alps like a blade through glass.
Ava sat in the corner of an empty compartment, her hood pulled low, the hum of the tracks steady beneath her boots. Every flicker of light against the window revealed her reflection tired, bruised, and something else entirely.
Her eyes no longer belonged to the woman she once was.
They glowed faintly, gold threaded with green, a quiet fire beneath the surface.
Each time she blinked, she saw flashes not memories, but impressions. Gunfire. Metal. Adrian's hand reaching toward her through the dark.
And somewhere between the stations and shadows, she began to feel him again faint pulses, like radio waves syncing with her heartbeat.
She whispered under her breath, "If you can hear me hold on."
The air trembled once, subtly. The kind of shift that wasn't physical but instinctive as if something deep inside her blood had answered back.
Arrival
Vienna greeted her with cold rain and restless silence. The city felt too clean, too efficient the kind of place that hid its secrets beneath beauty. Neon lights reflected off wet cobblestones as she moved through narrow streets, her pulse steady but alert.
She wore a dark trench coat and a stolen ID badge clipped to her belt a relic from her father's old research partners.
Underneath, she carried a pistol, a coded flash drive, and a single mission.
Find Lysandra Vale.
Find Adrian.
She reached the old district of Simmering just after midnight, where the air smelled faintly of ozone and oil. A half-abandoned complex loomed ahead a series of interconnected glass towers built over underground labs.
The sign outside read VIRIDIS PHARMACEUTICALS, the public shell for Eden's private experiments.
Ava scanned the entrance. Two guards. Retina scanners. Cameras above the steel door. The kind of place designed to keep ghosts out and monsters in.
She crouched behind a delivery truck, pulling a small device from her pocket one of her father's old signal scramblers. It still smelled faintly of solder and burned wires.
"Let's see if you still work," she muttered.
The device hummed softly. The security lights flickered, and the cameras froze in place.
Ava smiled faintly. "Thank you, Dad."
She slipped through the gate.
The Hall of Glass
Inside, the halls were lined with white glass and humming light panels. Her footsteps echoed softly. The air was cold, sterile, thick with the scent of disinfectant and ozone.
On the walls hung portraits of smiling executives one of them Lysandra Vale, elegant and cold, her eyes glinting with intelligence and something darker.
Ava's fingers curled around her pistol. "Found you."
She reached the end of the corridor and swiped the stolen ID across the panel. The door slid open, revealing a lab humming with machines and biotanks filled with luminous fluid.
In the center stood a stasis pod empty.
Her heart skipped. The tag beneath it read SUBJECT A: KANE, ADRIAN.
She rushed forward, scanning the monitors. Vital signs. Neural readings. Biofeedback traces. The last data line blinked: Status Extraction in Transit.
"No" Her pulse raced. "I'm too late."
Then a sound behind her. Soft. deliberate.
A voice, cool as glass.
"Not too late, Miss Kane. Just in time to see what your father truly created."
Ava spun around.
Dr. Lysandra Vale stood at the doorway, her lab coat pristine, her hair pulled into a sleek braid. She looked younger than Ava remembered from the dossiers ageless in that way power makes people.
"You've grown into him," Lysandra said, stepping closer. "The way you move. The defiance in your eyes. I warned him the serum would do that."
Ava raised her weapon. "Where is he?"
Lysandra smiled. "Alive. Changed. You'll see him soon enough."
Her calmness chilled Ava more than any threat. "You used us. You used him."
"I perfected him," Lysandra replied. "Your father couldn't. He was too sentimental. The Eden serum was never meant for restraint it was meant to evolve humanity, to strip away weakness. What you call love, Ava, is just chemical interference."
Ava's jaw clenched. "You're wrong. It's the only thing that's made us human."
Something in Lysandra's eyes flickered. Admiration, perhaps. Or curiosity.
"Let's test that theory."
Before Ava could react, Lysandra pressed a small trigger on her wristband. The lights dimmed. A shockwave of energy burst through the lab invisible but powerful enough to make Ava stumble.
Pain tore through her skull. The bond ignited like lightning.
Her vision fractured flashes of another place, a chamber bathed in red light. Adrian screaming, his veins glowing gold. Machines surrounding him.
"Ava!"
His voice rang in her mind.
She fell to her knees, gasping. "Adrian!"
Lysandra watched, fascinated. "Ah. The link activates under emotional stress. Your pain accelerates his mutation. Beautiful symmetry."
Ava forced herself up, blood dripping from her nose. "You don't control this."
Lysandra tilted her head. "Don't I?"
Ava's veins pulsed gold again, brighter this time. The air crackled. Sparks flared from the nearby consoles.
Lysandra's eyes widened slightly. "Impressive. The serum responds to her will."
Ava's voice came out raw. "You should run."
The lights exploded.
Energy rippled through the room, shattering glass, tearing wires from the ceiling. Lysandra shielded her face as a shockwave blasted outward computers short-circuited, alarms shrieked.
When the smoke cleared, Ava was gone.
Lysandra straightened slowly, brushing glass from her coat.
A faint smile touched her lips.
"Good," she murmured. "Now she's awake."
The Hideout
Ava didn't remember how she escaped.
When she came to, she was in an underground parking garage rain dripping from the ceiling, her breath fogging in the cold. Her head pounded, and her palms were still faintly luminous, the light fading like embers.
She staggered to the car she'd hidden earlier and collapsed into the driver's seat. Her reflection in the mirror startled her veins glowing faintly beneath her skin, pupils ringed in gold.
She touched her face. "What did you do to me, Dad"
Then, faintly, through the static of her own heartbeat his voice.
"Ava get out of Vienna she's tracking you through the link"
Her chest tightened. "Adrian, where are you?"
"Underground sector twelve south corridor she's trying to"
The connection broke. Pain seared through her skull.
Ava slammed her hand against the steering wheel. "Hold on. I'm coming."
She started the engine and drove.
Sector Twelve
The tunnels beneath Vienna were a labyrinth old World War II shelters converted into private research space.
Her father once called them "the city's buried veins."
She parked near a maintenance shaft and descended the ladder, the air growing colder and wetter with each step. Her flashlight flickered, catching graffiti and broken pipes.
At the end of the tunnel, faint light spilled from a reinforced door marked RESTRICTED ZONE.
She exhaled, steadied her shaking hands, and slipped inside.
The corridor beyond pulsed with red emergency light. Machines hummed on either side and then, at the far end, she saw him.
Adrian.
Suspended in a containment field, wires embedded in his skin, his eyes half-open, glowing faintly like molten gold.
Ava's knees nearly gave out. "Oh, God"
She ran to the console, typing commands into the interface. "Come on, come on"
"Unauthorized access detected," the system warned.
The room locked down.
Metal shutters slammed into place.
A voice echoed through the intercom Lysandra's.
"Touch him, and you'll kill him. The serum's evolution phase isn't complete. You break containment, you burn his neural core and yours."
Ava's breath trembled. "You're lying."
"Am I? You feel him, don't you? His pain. His pulse. He is inside you, Ava. You are both halves of the same evolution."
Ava looked at Adrian's still face his body twitching with small convulsions.
Tears blurred her vision. "I can't leave you."
Then she did the only thing her instincts screamed for she pressed her palm against the containment field.
The shock nearly threw her back. Gold lightning surged up her arm, pain lancing through her body but she didn't let go.
"Wake up," she gasped. "You promised you'd find me. Now find me!"
The lights flickered. The machines groaned. And through the blinding pain, she saw his eyes open fully bright, alive, and burning with the same fire as hers.
He whispered her name, his voice rough but clear.
"Ava"
The containment field shattered.
Energy burst outward, throwing them both to the ground. Alarms screamed.
When Ava crawled toward him, her hands still trembling, he reached for her their palms touching, golden veins sparking in unison.
The link stabilized no longer chaos, but harmony.
Two pulses, one rhythm.
Ava's tears fell freely. "I thought I lost you."
Adrian's voice was hoarse. "You almost did."
Behind them, the speakers crackled.
Lysandra's voice came, cold and delighted.
"Excellent. Synchronization complete."
Epilogue Scene
Outside, as dawn broke over Vienna, the first tremor rippled through the streets unseen, silent.
In the depths of Viridis headquarters, Lysandra watched the data stream across her screens twin heartbeats syncing perfectly in gold and red.
"Now," she whispered, "the real evolution begins."