Chapter 1: Awakening in the Pod
As soon as I got the summons to Coles' office, I figured they had learned about my research into unethical practices in the R&D department. I was caught a bit off guard by Coles' affable greeting and didn't hear Dr. Thorne come up behind me. I felt something circle my neck, then darkness.
The darkness wasn’t empty. It was a thick, viscous thing, pressing down on my thoughts, smothering them. Sounds reached me first, distorted and watery. A low, persistent hum. The rhythmic beep of machinery. The whisper of air through a vent.
I tried to open my eyes. My lids were gummy, resistant. A blur of sterile white and cool blue resolved slowly overhead. A ceiling of smooth panels. The light was painfully bright.
I tried to move my hand to shield my eyes. It wouldn’t obey.
Panic, cold and sharp, cut through the chemical fog in my veins. I tried to turn my head. A stiff restraint dug into my forehead and the base of my skull. I was strapped down. Not with fabric, but with sleek, padded bands of black composite material, holding me fast against a cold, contoured surface.
“Ah. Subject KW-17 is regaining consciousness. Neurological readings are spiking. Adrenaline and cortisol levels are elevating. Perfect.”
The voice was calm, clinical, and utterly familiar. Dr. Silas Thorne. I forced my eyes to the side.
He stood just beyond a curved wall of glass, observing me through it. He was making notes on a transparent data-slate, his expression one of detached interest. Behind him, the wall was lined with shelves of glowing vials, each pulsing with a soft bioluminescent light. A slow, unnatural heartbeat.
“Let’s accelerate the transformation protocol. She’s coherent enough to provide useful feedback on the somatic transition.”
“Dr. Thorne,” I croaked. My throat was raw, my tongue a clumsy slab of meat. “What… what is this?”
He didn’t look up from his slate. “This, Lana, is your contribution to progress. Far more valuable than filing supply manifests or snooping through classified servers.”
He tapped the slate. A deep, resonant vibration thrummed through the pod beneath me. A new sensation blossomed in my spine—a crawling, itching heat that spread like wildfire along my nerves. I gasped.
“You’re integrating beautifully. The feline DNA splice is bonding at a cellular level. Fascinating.”
Feline DNA. The words bounced around my skull, not wanting to land. I looked down, as much as the restraint would allow.
My body was covered by a thin medical gown. But my arms… the skin on my forearms was rippling. A faint, tawny fuzz was pushing its way through the pores, growing denser even as I watched. My fingers, strapped down at my sides, curled involuntarily. A sharp, aching pressure built at the tips.
“No,” I whispered. “Stop it.”
“Observation: Nails are keratinizing rapidly. Note the curvature.”
I felt it. A sickening push as my fingernails thickened, lengthened, and curved into dark, sharp points against the restraint pads. Claws. I had claws.
The itching, burning heat was in my ears now, a strange pulling at the cartilage. My hearing sharpened violently. The hum of the machines split into distinct layers—the coolant pump, the servo in the door, Thorne’s steady breathing. I could hear the rustle of his lab coat.
“Auditory cortex is remodeling. Olfactory enhancement should be next.”
A new smell slammed into me, drowning out the antiseptic. The metallic tang of blood. Old fear-sweat on the restraints. The faint, acrid scent of Thorne’s ambition. It was overwhelming. I jerked against the straps, a raw, animal sound tearing from my throat.
“Restraint integrity holding,” Thorne murmured, pleased. “Aggression response is textbook. The limbic system is fully engaged.”
“You can’t do this!” I screamed, my voice strange to my own ears—higher, layered with a guttural rasp.
“I already have.” He finally looked at me, his eyes pale and flat behind his glasses. “Project Kitty required a human subject with a resilient immune profile and a… flexible psyche. Your unauthorized investigations demonstrated a regrettable lack of respect for boundaries. A certain feral quality. It made you the ideal candidate.”
The heat was pooling in my lower back, a strange, taut sensation. My bones felt like they were melting and reforming. I panted, tears of fury and terror streaking into my hairline.
“My friends… people will come looking—”
“Lana Wright resigned via public portal three days ago, citing personal reasons. You boarded a train to see family. There is a digital trail. You are a ghost.”
The cold finality of it shattered my last hope. He’d thought of everything. The vibration in the pod intensified. A fresh wave of agony rolled through me. My shoulders popped, joints realigning with a series of sickening soft clicks. A desperate, writhing energy filled my muscles. I needed to move, to run, to stretch.
To pounce.
The thought wasn’t my own. It was instinct, placed there, wired into my new flesh.
Thorne saw the change in my eyes. He took a step closer to the glass, his clinical fascination overriding caution. “Look at that pupil dilation. The cognitive shift is beginning. Remarkable. Can you understand me, KW-17? Do you feel the difference?”
I bared my teeth. A new muscle memory guided the expression, pulling my lips back further than humanly possible. A hiss escaped me, long and low.
He smiled. A thin, joyless stretch of lips. “Excellent.”
An alarm blipped on his console. He glanced away. “The sedative is metabolizing too quickly. Her system is burning through it. Administer a supplementary dose, remote line seven.”
I heard a hydraulic hiss from within the pod. A new coldness entered the IV line taped to my inner arm.
No. Not again. Not the dark.
I focused everything I had left—every shred of my anger, every memory of who I was—into my right arm. I felt the strange, powerful tendons in my forearm cord, the new claws digging deep into the padding. With a scream that was half roar, I wrenched upward.
The restraint over my forearm creaked. A warning light flashed on Thorne’s console.
His eyes widened, just for a second. Not with fear, but with sheer, avaricious excitement. “Physical enhancement exceeding projections. Log that. Log all of it.”
The cold sedative reached my heart. The world began to soften at the edges, the terrifying clarity of my new senses blurring back into a muffled haze. The last thing I saw was Thorne’s face, hovering beyond the glass, a pale moon of inhuman curiosity.
The last thing I felt was the twitch at the base of my spine, something long and taut and impatient, stirring beneath my skin.
Then the darkness returned, but this time, it wasn't empty. Something paced in it. Something waiting.