The digital watch Ether had tossed onto the bedside table read 14:42. Twenty-seven minutes had passed since she had left the room, leaving Arthur in a silence that felt heavier than the frozen atmosphere of the surface. The isolation ward hummed with the sterile, low-frequency vibration of air scrubbers, a sound designed to comfort but one that only served to mask the creeping sense of dread pooling in Arthur's gut.
He picked up the scrap of paper again. *PM 11. Furthest to the right. CASE01. HEL*.
The handwriting was frantic, the pressure of the pen nearly tearing the paper. It was a cry for help, or perhaps a warning. Eleven at night was hours away, but the itch in Arthur's mind was worse than the burning in his lungs. He needed to know the lay of the land. He needed to know what "Case 01" was before he walked blindly into a trap in the dead of night.
Arthur pushed the thin blanket aside. His legs felt heavy and unresponsive, while his goddesium prosthetics hummed with a dormant potential he couldn't fully access without his combat adrenaline. He swung his feet to the floor. He grabbed the IV stand, using it as a crutch, and shuffled toward the door.
He pressed his ear against the cold metal. Silence. He palmed the release panel. To his surprise, it didn't lock him in. The door hissed open, revealing the long, sterile white corridor of the M.M.R. wing.
He stepped out. The air here was colder, smelling of ozone and something copper-like—blood, scrubbed away but never truly gone. He moved slowly, every breath a battle against the fluid rattling in his chest. He coughed, a wet, hacking sound that echoed too loudly in the emptiness. He froze, waiting for security drones or angry researchers, but the hall remained empty.
He followed the instructions on the note. *Furthest to the right.*
It was a slow, shambling march. He passed several doors, all unmarked, their observation windows darkened. The sheer scale of the facility was disorienting; it felt less like a hospital and more like a vault. As he neared the end of the corridor, a sound drifted toward him.
Coughing.
It was a mirror of his own—wet, desperate, and ragged. Arthur frowned, his grip tightening on the IV pole. He wasn't the only one sick. He wasn't the only one brought down from the surface, or perhaps, he wasn't the only one infected.
He reached the final door on the right. A small metal plaque next to the frame read: **CASE 01**.
The coughing inside was louder now, interspersed with the clinking of glass and the low hum of machinery. Arthur leaned against the wall, fighting a wave of dizziness. He edged toward the observation window, careful to keep his profile low. Through the thick, reinforced glass, the room beyond was bathed in a harsh, clinical blue light.
It was a laboratory, cluttered and chaotic, unlike his pristine isolation cell. And there was Ether.
The researcher stood with her back to the window, her lab coat stained with chemical splashes. She was hunched over a workbench, muttering to herself, her movements jerky and frustrated.
"Stabilization failure... rapid necrotic onset..." Her voice was muffled by the glass but audible. "Dosage calibration is still too aggressive."
Arthur shifted his gaze past her. Strapped to an upright medical gurney was a Nikke. She was stripped of her tactical gear, wearing only a thin medical gown that hung loosely off her frame. Her skin was pale, ghostly under the blue lights, and her eyes were squeezed shut in pain. She was the source of the coughing.
Arthur's breath hitched. Nikkes couldn't get sick. Their biology was synthetic; their brains were organic but encased in protective shells. Biological pathogens shouldn't affect them unless... unless the pathogen was eating the organic brain directly. Or unless Ether was forcing it to.
Ether turned, holding a syringe filled with a dark, viscous fluid—the same color as the blood Arthur had coughed up earlier. She approached the bound Nikke.
"Please," the Nikke wheezed, her voice distorted by static. "... help..."
"Quiet, Unit 77," Ether said, her tone devoid of malice but terrifyingly practical. "We need to determine the lethal threshold of the surface pathogen. You're providing invaluable data for the future of the Ark. Stop squirming."
She jammed the needle into the Nikke's neck, right at the base of the neural interface.
The Nikke screamed—a sound that was half-human, half-digital glitch—and convulsed violently against the restraints.
Arthur recoiled, horror flooding his system. This wasn't treatment. This was vivisection. The stress of the sight triggered a spasm in his own chest. He clamped a hand over his mouth, but the cough tore through him, a loud, barking rupture that bounced off the corridor walls.
Inside the room, Ether froze. Her head snapped up, looking toward the door.
Panic surged through Arthur. He pushed off the wall, his goddesium legs skidding on the polished floor as he turned back the way he came. He couldn't run, but fear gave him a burst of speed his body shouldn't have possessed. He stumbled back down the hall, wheezing, his vision swimming with black spots.
He threw himself into his room, the door hissing shut just as he collapsed onto the bed. He pulled the covers up, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He lay there, trembling, listening.
Footsteps. Slow, deliberate clicks of heels on tile.
They paused outside his door.
Arthur forced his breathing to slow, feigning the deep, rhythmic respiration of sleep, though his lungs burned like fire. He cracked one eye open just a sliver. Through the gap in the blinds of his own observation window, he saw a shadow block the light. It lingered for what felt like an eternity.
Then, the shadow moved on. The footsteps receded.
Arthur exhaled, a long, shuddering breath. He looked at the wall opposite his bed, noticing for the first time a small, faded stencil near the air vent he hadn't seen before.
**CASE 0**
He closed his eyes. Case Zero. The Original.
***
Hours bled into one another. Arthur drifted in and out of a feverish doze, the image of the convulsing Nikke playing on a loop in his mind. The sun—or the simulated day cycle of the Ark—began to dip, the lights in the room dimming to an evening amber.
The door opened.
Ether walked in. She looked worse than before. Her hair was a bird's nest of purple tangles, and the dark circles under her eyes had deepened into bruises. She carried a tablet and a fresh IV bag, her movements sluggish.
"You're awake," she stated, her voice flat.
"Hard to sleep with this rattling in my chest," Arthur rasped, sitting up slowly. He watched her carefully. Did she know?
She swapped the IV bag with practiced efficiency. "I heard noises in the corridor earlier. Around 15:00. Sounded like someone dying."
She paused, fixing him with a piercing stare over the rim of her glasses. "You didn't happen to leave your bed, did you, Commander?"
Arthur met her gaze, keeping his face a mask of exhausted confusion. "I can barely walk to the bathroom, Ether. If I left this bed, I'd be on the floor."
She studied him for a long moment, searching for a micro-expression, a tell. Arthur held his breath, willing his heart rate monitor not to spike. Finally, she sighed, her shoulders slumping.
"Good. The security sensors have been glitching on this level. Probably just the ventilation system acting up again. Or rats. Big ones."
She tapped the screen of the IV pump. "Your vitals are stabilizing, surprisingly. The pathogen is aggressive, but your biology is... stubborn. Most subjects would have liquified by now."
"Most subjects?" Arthur asked innocently.
Ether didn't take the bait. "Speaking of subjects," she rubbed her temples. "I've been awake for seventy-two hours. I'm going to take a bath and pass out in the on-call room. If you die in the next eight hours, try to do it quietly."
She turned to leave.
"Ether," Arthur called out.
She stopped, hand on the door panel. "What?"
"Why is my room labeled 'Case 0'?"
She stiffened slightly, then looked back over her shoulder. A tired, almost pitying smile touched her lips. "You noticed that? It's just a designation, Arthur. Don't overthink it."
"It implies there's a sequence. A Case 1. A Case 2."
Ether's eyes narrowed, the clinical mask slipping back into place. "In epidemiology, '0' stands for 'Index Case' or 'Original'. You brought the pathogen here inside you. You are the source. Without you, there is no data. That makes you special."
"Special," Arthur repeated dryly.
"Vital," she corrected. "Rest up, Case Zero. You'll be back on your feet soon. The Monarks are getting impatient in the lobby, and I can't keep them at bay forever."
She stepped out, the door sealing with a finality that felt like a cell locking.
Arthur watched the door for a long time. *Vital*. Not as a person. As a raw material.
He looked at the watch. 22:50.
Ten minutes.
He forced himself to eat the nutrient paste left on his tray, needing every ounce of energy. The image of the tortured Nikke—Unit 77, Ether had called her—burned in his mind. The note had said *HEL*. Help. It wasn't just an informant; it was a plea.
At 22:59, Arthur slid out of bed. He felt marginally stronger than the afternoon, the medication Ether pumped into him doing its job despite her sinister motives. He didn't take the IV pole this time. He needed to be quiet.
The digital digits on the watch flipped to 23:00.
Arthur opened the door. The corridor was dimmer now, the lights reduced to low-power emergency strips running along the floor. The facility felt submerged, heavy with the pressure of the earth above it.
He moved faster this time, his goddesium feet placing silently on the tiles. He passed the empty rooms. He kept his eyes fixed on the far end of the hall.
As he approached the zone near Case 01, he noticed something he had missed in his panic earlier. Opposite Case 01 was another door, tucked into an alcove. **CASE 02**. And further down, barely visible in the shadows, **CASE 03**.
It wasn't just one experiment. It was a production line.
Arthur reached the door to Case 01. The coughing had stopped. The silence was worse.
He checked the scrap of paper one last time. *Furthest to the right.*
He wasn't going to the door. He was going to the service panel *next* to the door, obscured by a large potted synthetic fern. The note meant the maintenance access.
Arthur reached for the panel, his fingers trembling slightly. If he could access the ventilation or the data ports, maybe he could find out who sent the note. Maybe he could open the doors.
"You really are a glutton for punishment, aren't you?"
The voice was soft, right behind his ear.
Arthur froze. The scent of lavender soap and antiseptic filled his nose.
He turned slowly.
Ether stood there, wrapped in a fluffy white towel, her hair wet and dripping onto her bare shoulders. She wasn't wearing her lab coat. She wasn't wearing her glasses. But in her hand, she held a small, silver stun baton, buzzing with a menacing electric charge.
She wasn't looking at him with the detached curiosity of a scientist anymore. Her eyes were wide, dark, and dangerous.
"I gave you a chance to play dumb, Arthur," she whispered, the water from her hair dripping onto the cold floor between them. "Why didn't you just stay in bed?"
Arthur stared at her, backed against the door of Case 01, the horrors inside separated from him by only inches of steel. He looked at the baton, then up at her wet, furious eyes.
"Curiosity," Arthur said, his voice steady despite the gun at his head. "It's a side effect of the infection."
Ether didn't smile.