Chapter Five: Runway Gene Lock

Leila ripped open the back of the haute couture gown, her blood from the broken fingertips staining the chiffon with a genetic map. On her seventh pass by the GQ editor on the rotating runway, she finally saw the truth behind the gilded embroidery—each stitch was a CRISPR gene-editing code.

"Raise your right knee by 15 degrees!" Spider Shadow's breathy voice mixed with metallic clanks through her earpiece. "Your walk angle is crucial..." Suddenly, the background erupted with shattering glass as a mutating supermodel flung her choker into the audience.

Under the spotlight, Leila examined the bloodstains on her skirt and swiftly inserted her wedding ring into the waist chain lock. Nano-pearls exploded in mid-air, forming a holographic keyboard. As she typed the final digit of the code using the mascara wand, the catwalk tilted to a 45-degree angle.

"Three seconds!" She kicked off her Jimmy Choo heels and leaped onto the control panel via steel beams. The chiffon hem caught on the mutating light fixtures, burning a grid of crimson lines onto her exposed calves—the exact pattern from Aidan's thesis on breaking protective nets.

Spider Shadow's spider leg pierced through the tiles. "You better take a look at this!" He hurled his crocodile-skin clutch towards her; inside, thirteen crystals resonated with the runway lights. Leila suddenly realized that the BGM's frequency spectrum was the virus activation frequency.

As the final chord played, the lead model's face cracked open, releasing a rainbow mist across the catwalk. Leila yanked off her necklace and smashed it against the master control panel. The instant the sapphire shattered, all the mutating models began dancing Swan Lake—the very piece she had chosen when Aidan proposed.

"It's curtain call time," Spider Shadow said, wrapping an arm around her waist, his spider legs carving an escape route into the glass dome. As Leila looked back one last time, she noticed the chief designer's iris pattern matched Grey's scales perfectly. He was speaking into his phone: "The butterfly is beginning to break free."