The first thing he noticed was pressure.
Not pain. Not confusion. Just pressure.
The vinyl of the body bag pressed against his face and chest, airtight and heavy. Beneath him, a steel autopsy table conducted cold through layers of biomass shaped into cotton, denim, leather — clothing that was not clothing, but him.
He did not breathe.
He did not need to.
Instead, he mapped.
Through self supremacy, he traced the contours of his own structure. Muscle fibers braided tighter than natural human limits. Neural pathways expanded and interlinked with viral latticework. Capillaries that were no longer strictly biological, but something adaptive — something responsive.
Beyond the bag, vibrations traveled through metal.
Footsteps. Measured. Careful.
Two heartbeats close by. Elevated, but controlled.
Filtered air cycling through respirators.
Hazmat suits.
Gentek.
He recognized the organization immediately — not from sight, but from memory.
Alex Mercer's memory.
Not fragmented. Not scattered.
Sorted.
Indexed.
He accessed them without effort now.
Dr. Mercer: virologist. Geneticist. Blacklight's architect.
Blacklight was never just a pathogen. It was programmable biomass — a viral framework capable of rewriting cellular identity. It did not infect in the traditional sense. It replaced. It improved. It consumed and reorganized.
And now it was him.
He flexed internally.
Individual myofibrils contracted and released. White blood cells restructured themselves into something more efficient. Viral particles communicated in silent chemical pulses. He could feel each system separately, and as a whole.
He adjusted his optic nerves, even with his eyes closed.
Infrared bleed seeped faintly through the bag.
Silhouettes.
One doctor to the left side of the table.
One near his feet.
Metal instruments lifted from trays.
There was no panic.
Only calculation.
From Mercer's knowledge, he understood human anatomy intimately — every nerve cluster, every vascular route, every biochemical cascade. That knowledge translated seamlessly inward.
If they cut shallow, the biomass could absorb the trauma.
If they cut deep, reflexive defense would trigger.
He could allow neither.
The zipper of the body bag began to slide open.
Sound magnified.
Light pierced through the slit — harsh and clinical.
One doctor spoke, voice muffled behind a respirator.
"Subject shows multiple gunshot entry wounds. Minimal external degradation. Begin standard Y-incision."
Gunshots.
Yes.
Penn Station.
Cornered.
Blackwatch.
Mercer's final decision — release the vial.
The memory was cold. Precise.
No regret.
Gloved hands pressed against his chest.
Pressure increased.
A scalpel descended.
The blade touched fabric.
But fabric was nerve.
The edge pierced through the biomass weave of his jacket and into the upper dermal layer beneath.
And he felt it.
Not as damage.
As intrusion.
Signals cascaded instantly across his neural web. Pain receptors activated, but not in chaos. They transmitted structured data — depth, angle, velocity.
The cut extended downward.
The doctor frowned behind the mask.
"There's unusual resistance—"
That was enough.
Muscle density tripled in a fraction of a second. The biomass beneath the incision liquefied, then hardened around the blade.
He opened his eyes.
Not confused.
Not disoriented.
Aware.
The doctor's heart rate spiked. He heard it clearly now — rapid percussion inside a sealed suit.
His hand shot upward.
Not wildly.
Precisely.
Fingers closed around the doctor's wrist with calibrated force — enough to shatter bone through protective gloves.
The second doctor stumbled backward.
Steel instruments clattered across the floor.
Outside the room, Blackwatch boots shifted instantly.
Weapons unslung.
He sat up slowly.
The body bag tore apart as his shoulders broadened, fabric splitting like paper. The Y-incision across his chest sealed itself seamlessly, biomass knitting closed without scar.
He swung his legs off the table.
Every movement economical.
Every sensation catalogued.
Mercer's knowledge flowed through him — structural reinforcement of bone density, optimization of tendon elasticity, oxygen-independent energy cycling through viral conversion pathways.
This body was not just alive.
It was engineered.
The door burst open.
Blackwatch rifles trained on him.
Laser dots crawled across his chest.
He studied them calmly.
Ballistics.
Caliber.
Impact vectors.
All solvable.
And this time, he would not be cornered.