The world was silent.
For a long time, Ethan thought he was dead. No sound, no pain—just a weightless emptiness swallowing his thoughts. Then, slowly, the light returned. White, sterile, infinite. The faint rhythm of machines pulsed in his ears. His eyes opened.
A ceiling of pure glass loomed above him, beams of cold light pouring down. He tried to move, but metal restraints bound his wrists and chest to a bed. The smell of antiseptic filled his lungs.
> "Vitals stable. Subject E-01 has regained consciousness," a robotic voice reported.
Ethan's heart lurched. Subject E-01.
He turned his head, wincing as the pain hit him—memories of the explosion flooding back. Ronan. His father. The pods. Flames.
Then, a whisper of movement.
Someone stepped into view—tall, white coat, eyes hidden behind tinted glasses. "Welcome back to the world of the living, Mr. Voss," the man said.
Ethan's throat was dry. "Who… are you?"
The man smiled faintly. "Dr. Calder. You're in the Helix Research Division. We retrieved you from the remains of Project Hades three weeks ago."
Ethan froze. Three weeks?
He looked down at himself—bandaged chest, IV lines snaking into his arm. "Where's Ronan? Where's my father?"
Calder adjusted a control pad on his wrist. "Director Ronan is missing. As for your father… I'm afraid his vitals flatlined before we could extract him."
Ethan's pulse quickened. "You're lying."
The doctor raised an eyebrow. "If I were, you wouldn't be alive right now. Your body was on the verge of complete collapse—nerve damage, internal bleeding, radiation exposure from the Hades core. But something fascinating happened."
He tapped a holographic screen beside Ethan's bed. A digital model of his body appeared—veins glowing faint blue. "We found traces of an unknown bio-enhancement pattern in your system. It activated during the blast, repairing tissue at a rate we've never seen before."
Ethan frowned. "What did you do to me?"
Calder's smile sharpened. "Nothing. This wasn't our doing. Whatever's inside you… it was implanted long before the explosion."
The words hit like thunder. Long before?
"Your father worked on loyalty conditioning, yes—but he was also developing something else. Something called Genesis Protocol."
Ethan's breath caught. "Genesis?"
Calder nodded. "A project designed to rebuild the human body at the cellular level using nanite fusion. Self-sustaining regeneration, accelerated reflex adaptation—essentially, the next stage of evolution. You're the first recorded success."
Ethan's voice turned cold. "So I'm your experiment now."
"No," Calder said, leaning closer. "You're our proof."
---
That night, when the lab fell quiet and the guards' patrols faded into the distance, Ethan stared at the faint glow beneath his skin. His veins pulsed faintly blue in the dark, flickering like starlight. He could feel the energy humming inside him—alive, sentient.
He clenched his fist. The metal restraint creaked—and then snapped.
He froze. His strength had multiplied.
"Genesis Protocol," he whispered. "So that's what you left me with, Father."
He tore the other restraints off, ignoring the alarms that flared to life. Red lights blinked as automated turrets dropped from the ceiling, aiming straight for him.
> "Unauthorized subject movement detected. Neutralization in progress."
Ethan dove behind the medical console as the first barrage of bullets shredded the wall. Sparks flew. The hum in his blood intensified. His pupils dilated, vision sharpening until every detail of the room crystallized—the vibration of each bullet, the flicker of every muzzle flash.
His instincts took over.
He darted forward, faster than the machines could track, slamming his palm into one turret's core. It exploded in a burst of blue flame. Two more rotated toward him—he ripped one off its mount and hurled it into the other. Both detonated, shaking the lab.
The door burst open. Armed guards rushed in, shouting orders. Ethan grabbed a metal rod from the wreckage and met them head-on.
One guard swung his baton—Ethan blocked and countered in the same breath, shattering the weapon in half. Another guard lunged with a taser; Ethan caught his wrist, twisting until the bones cracked.
He didn't just move faster—he thought faster. Every motion felt predicted, rehearsed, inevitable.
Within seconds, silence returned.
Ethan stood alone among the wreckage, chest heaving. The faint glow under his skin dimmed again.
> "Ethan Voss, you are out of containment," a voice echoed through the speakers. "Return immediately or your neural implant will be deactivated."
He smirked bitterly. "Try me."
He kicked open the next door and disappeared into the dark corridors of Helix Labs.
---
An hour later.
Rain lashed against the glass roof as alarms wailed across the complex. Ethan crouched behind a row of cryo-chambers, trying to access a terminal. He'd managed to recover a few files before the lockdown—encrypted data labeled Genesis 01 – Primary Host.
The deeper he read, the more his blood chilled.
The Genesis Protocol wasn't designed to heal soldiers. It was meant to replace them.
Each host would act as a seed—spreading nanite colonies that could rewrite the human genome, creating an entirely new class of beings: the "Neo-Humans." The Syndicate's plan wasn't just power. It was rebirth.
Footsteps echoed.
Dr. Calder's voice came from the shadows. "You shouldn't have looked at that."
Ethan turned, weapon raised. "You used me to start this."
Calder stepped closer, unafraid. "Used you? No. You're the beginning of something divine. Genesis wasn't your father's failure—it was his masterpiece."
> "He would never create something to destroy humanity."
> "You misunderstand," Calder said softly. "He didn't want to destroy humanity. He wanted to perfect it. He believed emotion, pain, and memory made us weak. So he designed you to overcome them."
Ethan's pulse spiked. "You think I'll help you continue his work?"
Calder's smile turned almost sad. "You already are."
He pressed a small remote. Ethan froze as pain ripped through his spine. His body convulsed—blue light flaring through his veins. The nanites inside him screamed like electricity.
> "Stop…!"
> "You see? They're responding," Calder said, fascinated. "You're awakening."
The floor around Ethan began to crack. Metal warped beneath his hands as energy burst from his core. The restraints on his mind—whatever programming the Syndicate left—started to fracture.
Then came the explosion.
A shockwave of blue energy tore through the lab, shattering glass and knocking Calder across the room.
When the smoke cleared, Ethan stood at the center, his eyes glowing bright cyan. The pain had stopped—but something else had awakened inside him.
A second voice.
> "Genesis sequence one… complete."
The words echoed in his head—not from the speakers, but from within.
> "Who are you?" Ethan whispered.
> "We are you," the voice said. "And you are us. The evolution begins now."
---
Ethan fell to his knees, gripping his head. Memories flashed—his childhood, his father's lab, the moment Maximus injected him as a boy with something "to protect you, no matter what happens."
So this was it. The protection wasn't love. It was control.
He looked up. Calder was gone. The alarms had silenced. Only the soft rain outside remained.
Ethan stumbled toward the exit, blood and light dripping from his hands.
> "Genesis Protocol," he muttered. "If this is what you wanted, Father… I'll finish it. But I'll decide what kind of world is born from it."
As he disappeared into the storm, the cameras across the facility flickered to life.
Somewhere deep in the city, Ronan watched through a monitor—his face shadowed, one eye bandaged, a faint smirk curling on his lips.
> "Good," he whispered. "The seed has awakened. Phase Two begins."