"O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such monsters in't."— adapted from The Tempest, Shakespeare
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[Location: Observation Wing, Vault 7 | Containment Level 3 | 08:59 GMT]
Dr. Lira Myles stood alone, her gloved hands pressed lightly against the curved glass of Observation Chamber 09 — the only thing separating her from a fossil that should not breathe.
The specimen lay unmoving in its suspended containment vat — a monstrous shape coiled in black-green muscle and impossibly intact sinew. Its tail floated in the preservative gel like the shadow of a leviathan, one twitch away from war.
Yet it had not moved. Not in days. Not since they sealed it.
That was what troubled her most.
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📓 Scientific Journal Entry — Dr. L. Myles
[Encrypted: Internal Log]
Subject: Venenosaurus alpha-one"Still no decay. Still no metabolic waste. No temperature fluctuation. But no death, either. This isn't stasis. It's dormancy. Voluntary."
"The spinal morphology alone could overturn a century of classification. Triple neural sheaths, secondary cranial lobes… and something we can't even name sitting near its basal ganglia. It's not just surviving the ice.
It's choosing to."
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The creature's chest did not rise or fall — but its mass gently expanded, contracted, like a balloon held in memory of a breath.
"It's not asleep," she whispered to the glass. "It's watching."
It had no pupils — just layered golden irises, like a reptile evolved past predators. Still, she felt its attention. Felt it in the heatless air.Not eyes.Awareness.
Behind her, a door whooshed open, and Adeel Chowdhury entered — lab coat wrinkled, tablet under one arm, coffee in both hands.
"Guess what time it is?"
Lira didn't turn. "Judging by your scent: too early, too caffeinated, and mildly deodorized."
He smiled. "Wrong. It's 'time to pretend this thing isn't creeping into everyone's REM cycles.' I dreamed it ate my cousin. I don't even like my cousin."
Lira blinked slowly. "That's helpful, thank you."
He leaned beside her, staring into the vat.
"You know, its teeth have a weird curvature. Not just carnivorous. Trap-jaw, maybe?"
She nodded. "Possibly. Some snakes evolved durophagy — bone-crushing bites. This has both that and a fast-snap mechanism like crocodilians. A predator that can crush and pierce."
(Durophagy: the ability to crush bone — usually found in animals with massive bite forces and short, reinforced skulls. Rare in any modern predator.)
"And it's not dead?" Adeel asked again, quieter this time.
"No. It's metabolically quiet. There's a difference." She tapped her pad. "There's faint electric activity in the spinal column, but no muscular twitch. It's like…"She paused.
"…a waiting room," she finished. "Inside its own body."
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[Location: Sub-Lab 3 | Kenji's Workspace | 09:27 GMT]
Across the vault, Dr. Kenji Takamura stared at overlapping brain scans of the creature. The standard MRI had nearly melted the system when it first ran. No technician wanted to try again.
"Unstable magnetic response," the report said. "Too much iron in the blood, maybe."
Except Kenji knew better.
Iron wasn't the issue.The issue was the third neural sheath — a structure wrapped like a cable around the spinal cord, layered with trace amounts of crystalline protein. Something that absorbed signal. Stored it.
Like a biological black box.
He flipped to another scan.Still no waste excretion. No digestive movement. But somehow… no cellular degradation either. Mitochondrial activity had been reduced to near-zero without triggering apoptosis — programmed cell death.
"This thing should be dead," he muttered. "Instead, it's... perfect."
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[Location: Observation Chamber 09 | 09:44 GMT]
Back in the lab, Lira narrowed her eyes. A faint pulse traveled through the tank. Not from the creature — but the containment gel around it. A ripple.
She checked the readout. No seismic activity. No internal disturbance.
Just a pulse.A reflex.
Like a finger twitching in sleep.
Suddenly, her comms device crackled.
"Containment log anomaly. Secondary cardiac echo detected in Subject Alpha-One."
She froze. Then slowly, she whispered:"There's only one heart…"
"Negative. Heart signal... duplicated. Possibly a mirroring response."
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📓 Security Memo 09-Delta (Vault 7 Internal Alert)
Subject:Echo Cardiograph Conflict – Alpha-One
Two cardiac patterns observed. One original. One… new.The second signal was fainter, delayed by 0.8 seconds.Mirroring or imitative patterning?Reproductive echo? Unknown.
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"Adeel," Lira said, voice low. "Check the thermals. Not just in the tank. In the walls."
Adeel tapped the screen.The image glitched — but for a moment, there was a second heat source.
Small. Curling behind the main body.Gone in a blink.
"…Lira," Adeel whispered. "I think… I think something moved inside it."
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[End of Chapter II — "Glass Between Teeth"]