The scent of recycled air and ozone was the flavor of life in Aeternum Federation's Lower Sector. For Lyra Kain, it was the smell of a life not lived. Her workstation, a chipped obsidian slab in the massive, humming Scale-Up Laboratories, was her entire universe.
Debt was her sovereign. She was twenty-two, but the perpetual shadow of her family's indentured servitude had stripped her skin of its youthful sheen, leaving a strained porcelain pallor. She worked with her hands—calibrating, welding, repairing the vast arrays of gene-splicing machinery. The irony was a cold metal taste in her mouth: she maintained the tools that engineered the ruling class, yet she herself was deemed structurally unsound.
"Kain. Status report on Array 47-Beta's pressure coil."
Lyra didn't need to look up. The voice was Dr. Seraph Morn's, a sterile, emotionless drone that cut through the lab's constant white noise. Morn was the architect of their doom, a geneticist whose ambition was only outmatched by his chilling lack of empathy. His movements were clinical, his eyes perpetually fixed on a data stream projected in his augmented vision.
"Coil is within \pm 0.003 psi of nominal, Doctor," she replied, her voice low. She always kept it low. In Aeternum, drawing attention was like painting a target on your own back.
"Acceptable. You will cease all current tasks. A priority asset has arrived. You will be on the preparation team."
A ripple of low-frequency sound, a vibration that resonated deep in the bone, announced the arrival. Even through the multi-layered concrete and steel of the sub-levels, Lyra felt it. It was cold, heavy, and ancient, like a dying star being dragged into orbit.
Two armored carriers, far too large for any normal research consignment, were being guided onto the main floor. Lyra watched as the air around the cargo shimmered, a residual energy shield struggling to contain what was inside. The Federation didn't just experiment on the universe's relics; they plundered them. This one, retrieved from the desolate wreckage of Ruined World 72-K, felt different. It felt hostile.
The asset was a sarcophagus. Not a coffin of wood or steel, but a block of polished, jet-black stone, sealed with complex geometric locks that seemed both impossibly old and impossibly advanced. It was terrifyingly silent, yet its presence was loud—a whisper of untold power and forgotten royalty.
Lyra felt a prickle of unease. "What is it, Doctor?"
Seraph gave her a fraction of a glance, colder than liquid nitrogen. "A biological singularity, Kain. An entity whose evolutionary path was violently interrupted. We call the project Nosferis." He paused, a hint of unsettling excitement finally cracking his calm façade. "The data suggests the remains belong to a figure of archaic mythology: Dracula Prime."
Lyra swallowed. Dracula. The name felt like a piece of shattered glass in her mind. A relic of fear from the age of irrationality. To hear it spoken in the sterile, rational halls of the Federation felt like a blasphemy.
"The essence is still potent," Morn continued, gesturing to a massive, cryogenic extractor. "We will harvest the residual consciousness and biological markers. We are creating an immortal, pliable super-soldier. One who answers to the Federation's will, not its own."
Lyra spent the next two cycles in a frenzied, high-stakes blur. She was the best at delicate structural re-routing, and the cryogenic extractor, designed to siphon biological material at the quantum level, was the most complex piece of equipment in the lab.
She was installing the final neural dampeners when a small, familiar voice spoke up behind her.
"Rough day, Lyra?"
It was Aria Solenne, her best friend and fellow technician. Aria's eyes, usually sharp and quick, were darting nervously around the cavernous lab. Aria was a tiny thing, barely five feet, and today she looked smaller, wrapped tightly in her white Federation-issue jumpsuit.
"The roughest," Lyra admitted, turning a compression wrench. "My hands are shaking just looking at that thing. It feels like a tomb that wants to be awakened."
Aria offered a thin, forced smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Don't worry. We're just technicians. We're untouchable. Keep your head down, do the work, and eventually, the debt clears."
It was the mantra of their sub-caste, a lie they told each other every morning. But today, the words felt hollow and brittle. There was something in Aria's eyes—a desperate, hunted look that Lyra couldn't place.
"Are you alright, Aria? You look like you haven't slept in a week."
Aria flinched. "Just… the long shifts. And the pressure. Morn is… intense about this project. I'm going to transfer to the data archive. Safer, you know? Less hands-on with the dangerous stuff."
Lyra felt a strange, cold knot form in her stomach. Aria was always the brave one, the one who joked about stealing a starship. Her sudden desire for safety felt like a warning bell.
"Don't be a stranger," Lyra said, trying to keep her tone light.
"Never," Aria replied, a little too quickly. She lingered for a moment, her gaze fixed on the sarcophagus, before she spun on her heel and walked away—a quick, almost furtive retreat that Lyra would replay in her mind countless times in the blood-drenched nights to come.
The extraction chamber was ready.
Morn, surrounded by a coterie of subservient scientists, directed the final phase. The ancient sarcophagus was moved into the isolation unit, and the air immediately grew colder, the pressure in Lyra's ears spiking.
A shimmering, ruby-red liquid—the bio-fluid—was siphoned from the depths of the stone coffin. It wasn't viscous or oily; it was thin, almost metallic, and it pulsed with its own internal light. The Crimson Bio-Fluid looked less like a chemical compound and more like liquid fate.
"Kain, your final assignment," Morn ordered, his voice echoing in the chamber. "The fluid must be prepared for the Transfer Unit. You will personally inject the nanite stabilizers into the vial. Precision is paramount."
He handed her a pressurized, sealed unit and a single, crystal-clear vial of the scarlet essence. Lyra's hand trembled as she held it. The vial felt hot, almost alive.
She walked to the preparation station, her heart hammering an erratic rhythm against her ribs. As she finished the delicate micro-injection of the stabilizers, she heard the heavy metallic thud of the main door lock engaging.
Lyra turned. Morn was standing a few feet away, a chilling, triumphant smirk finally breaking his scientific composure. He was holding a sleek neural disruptor pistol.
"You've been a meticulous technician, Kain. Flawless, in fact. You prepped the environment perfectly. Now, you get to be the perfect catalyst."
A wave of crushing, icy realization washed over her. Aria's sudden fear, the hushed orders, the fact she was alone in a sealed-off, high-security prep room. She wasn't preparing the fluid for the subject. She was the subject.
"No," she whispered, taking a desperate step back, her eyes fixed on the syringe filled with the world's most dangerous, most ancient bio-weapon. "My genes are not compatible. I'm low-caste. I'm not a soldier."
"Precisely," Morn said, his eyes glittering with manic excitement. "Your low-caste genome is uncorrupted by generations of Federation augmentation. You are a clean slate. A true experiment." He raised the pistol. "The alternative to compliance is immediate cellular termination. And your family's debt will never be cleared."
Lyra felt the needle-prick of terror turn into a sharp, blinding shard of primal rage. But it was too late. The door was locked, and the scientist was blocking the only way out. She clutched the vial to her chest, the vibrant crimson liquid pulsing against her jumpsuit, and saw her desperate reflection—the fear-haunted eyes of a woman staring down the barrel of her own evolution.
Morn took one step closer, a cold, predatory smile splitting his face. "Welcome, Lyra Kain, to Project Nosferis."
Her eyes darted around the cold, empty room. There was nowhere to run. There was no one to help. Just her, the scientist, the gun, and the ancient, liquid fate she was now cradling. She squeezed her eyes shut, and in the sudden, frantic darkness of her mind, she swore she heard a new voice—not her own, not Morn's, but one that was silk and midnight and unspeakably old. My queen...
She opened her eyes, and the gun fired a stun bolt that hit her chest. As the world dissolved into black static, the vial dropped from her nerveless fingers, the glass shattering, and the Crimson Bio-Fluid sprayed into the air, a dark, hungry mist settling over her face and into the searing wound of the blast.