Regeneration

Rachel was still staring at the open chest cavity when the first thin curl of black smoke rose from the tissue.

At first it looked like nothing — a trick of the cold air meeting the warmer lamps. Then more of it came, seeping from the severed limbs, from the neck stump, from the wounds she had made herself. The smoke was thick and cold and carried the same chemical tang they had all begun to recognise.

The body twitched.

Sasha made a small, broken sound and stepped back hard enough to hit the wall. One of the other doctors dropped a tray. Rachel’s gloved hands froze in the air above the table.

The Ravager’s remaining arm jerked. Fingers flexed. The severed limbs on the side table began to twitch in sympathy as fresh black fluid pushed out of the cut ends. The smoke thickened, pouring upward in heavy sheets that made the lamps flicker.

Then the torso heaved, and the thing tried to sit up.

“Out!” Rachel shouted. “Everyone out— now!”

Chaos erupted. Doctors scrambled for the door. Sasha was already moving, pale and shaking. Ana did not run. She drew her sidearm and her sword in the same motion and put two rounds into the regenerating chest, then stepped in to cut.

It was not enough.

The Ravager came off the table with terrifying speed, black smoke still boiling off its body. It slammed into Ana and drove her back into a cabinet hard enough to crack the wood. She got the sword up and took a piece out of its shoulder, but the wound began closing almost immediately, fresh tissue knitting under the smoke. It hit her again, sending the pistol skittering across the floor. Ana went down hard, still trying to fight, but the thing was stronger and no longer fully dead.

The door to the medical hut burst open.

Jennifer came through first with the shotgun already mounted to her shoulder. Dafne was right behind her with a rifle. They did not ask questions.

Jennifer’s first blast took the Ravager in the side and spun it off Ana. Black blood and smoke exploded outward. Dafne fired controlled pairs into the torso and the regenerating limbs, walking forward as she shot. The Ravager staggered, still trying to rise, smoke pouring harder from every wound as it attempted to repair itself again.

Jennifer racked the shotgun, closed the distance, and fired the second blast directly into its head at near point-blank range.

The skull came apart in a wet black spray. The body dropped. The smoke continued to rise for several more seconds, thinner now, before it finally began to thin and dissipate.

Silence crashed back into the room, broken only by harsh breathing and the soft drip of black fluid onto the floor.

Ana pushed herself up on one elbow, blood running from a cut at her hairline, sword still in her hand. Sasha was shaking near the doorway. Rachel stood frozen beside the overturned examination table, staring at what was left of the specimen.

Jennifer kept the shotgun trained on the body for a long moment before she finally lowered it.

“Someone,” she said, voice flat and dangerous, “is going to explain to me why there was a live one on my island.”