Site B

Site B

The industrial ground gave way to a wider, flatter expanse of snow and black ice. At the far end stood the structure that matched the coordinates.

Site B.

It was larger than the waystation had been — a low, reinforced concrete complex half-sunken into the frozen earth, its outer walls cracked but still standing. Most of the windows were sealed with metal shutters. A faded hazard emblem was still visible beside the main entrance, the paint blistered and peeling. The snow around the building was deep and largely undisturbed.

Lashana raised a fist and they stopped at the edge of the open ground.

“No movement,” she said quietly. “No fresh tracks leading in. That’s either good or very bad.”

Sydney scanned the roofline and the dark tree line behind them. “Or they’re already inside.”

Emma checked the map one final time, then folded it away. “We go in. Fast and quiet.”

They crossed the open stretch at a low run and reached the main doors. The locks had long since failed. Lashana pushed one side open with her shoulder, carbine up. The air that came out was colder than the air outside and carried a faint chemical tang beneath the smell of old dust and frozen metal.

The interior was a long central corridor with rooms branching off on both sides. Emergency lighting strips along the floor still gave off a weak, dying glow in places — enough to see by. Frozen paperwork lay scattered across the tiles. A toppled gurney blocked one doorway. Everything was covered in a thin layer of frost.

They moved room by room.

Most were empty laboratories and storage spaces, their equipment long dead. In one larger chamber they found the remains of what had clearly been a containment area — reinforced glass walls, now shattered, and heavy restraint chairs bolted to the floor. Black scoring marked the walls in irregular patterns.

Emma stopped at a partially intact terminal. The screen was dark, but a stack of printed reports in a frost-covered folder was still legible in places. She wiped the ice away with her glove and read in silence for several long seconds.

“What is it?” Sydney asked.

Emma’s voice was quiet. “The virus wasn’t just engineered for aggression. The original notes talk about forced neurological rewriting — removing higher function, amplifying primal drives, especially heat-seeking and reproductive behaviour. They were trying to create something controllable. A weapon that would burn itself out after a set period.”

Lashana looked over her shoulder. “It didn’t burn out.”

“No,” Emma said. “It adapted. The later entries mention accelerated mutation in cold environments. The body seeks heat through contact. The longer it stays active in low temperatures, the more the host changes. Stronger. Harder to put down. And in some cases… more aware.”

Sydney’s jaw tightened. “The ones that watch. The ones that wait.”

Emma nodded once. “They knew it was getting away from them. Site B was supposed to hold the countermeasure — a suppressant compound that could slow or temporarily inhibit the aggression response. The last dated entry says the primary samples were moved to deep cold storage beneath this building when the perimeter started to fail.”

Lashana exhaled slowly. “Then we find the storage level.”

They pushed deeper into the complex. A stairwell at the far end led downward, the steps slick with old ice. The air grew colder still. At the bottom they found a heavy security door standing partially open, the electronic lock long dead.

Beyond it was the storage chamber.

Rows of reinforced cryogenic units lined the walls, most of them dark and ruptured. Frost covered everything. In the centre of the room a single unit still showed a faint status light, though it flickered weakly. Emma moved toward it, heart beating hard.

That was when the first sound came from the corridor behind them — a wet, dragging noise, followed by another.

Lashana spun, carbine rising. “Contact rear.”

Sydney already had an arrow nocked.

They never got the chance to fire.

A sudden, violent rush of thick black smoke erupted from the corridor and the ruptured cryogenic units at the same time, pouring into the chamber in heavy, choking clouds. It filled the space in seconds, blotting out the weak emergency lights and the shapes of the room. Emma tried to call out and tasted something chemical and wrong in the air. She heard Sydney shout once, then Lashana’s voice cutting off mid-warning.

The smoke was everywhere — dense, cold, and absolute.

When it finally began to thin, the storage chamber was empty.

Emma, Sydney, and Lashana were gone.