Chapter 10. “Virus Liftoff: A bastard's blood is hotter than a vaccine.”

The steel walls of the rocket silo began to crack as beads of blood oozed from the birthmark on Marcus' ankle. The thirteen viral basketballs opened their mechanical compound eyes at the same time, the ticking of the countdown resonating with the heartbeat of Rayne's incubation chamber.

"Surprise brother?" Marcus ripped off his festering face, revealing cheekbone lines similar to Lucas', "Your mom was pregnant with more than one bastard when she was my dad's mistress." He kicked Elena over, his gold-plated sneakers digging into the fluorescent coordinates of her ribs, "Double the junk genes, double the fun."

Elena suddenly bites into the radioactive crystal, fluorescent blue blood splattering onto the console. The holographic screen exploded with an image of her mother's dying, "The blood fusion of the RH-brothers is the only key to shut down the program."

Rayne's mechanical voice abruptly changed tone, "No! I only want the perfect one, my son!" The incubation chamber bursts, and in a shower of blood he lunges at Marcus, while his mechanical fingers penetrate the heart of Clone 7 - where the real virus remote is embedded.

"Game over." Clone 7's voice overlapped with her mother's as she shoved the remote into Lucas' punctured palm, "I switched the test tubes back then, the real poison was planted when you were born..."

A blade suddenly popped out of the sole of Marcus' sneaker and stabbed the clone in the throat, "Bitch shut up!" He yanked over Lucas's bloodied hand and pressed the launch button, "Come on brother, let's see which one of us kills all of America first!"

Elena pries open urn 13 with her ribs, the eyes of her mother inside the box suddenly iris scanning. The rocket steering system activates, targeting the ruins of the church where Raine is hiding. As she lunged for Lucas, Marcus's blade had slit her carotid artery.

"The code is...twins...kill each other..." her blood froth before she gagged spelled out 'BrotherKill' in Lucas' palm.

Raine's robotic arm suddenly hoops around her two sons, the serum catheter inserted into their temples, "Let's see what the child of a beast and a beast can evolve into."

With a roar of rockets rising into the air, Lucas saw the logo of his mother's lab emerge from Marcus' right eye. Genetic test reports danced in the flames-the code name of the virus they'd been implanted with, the very name of the other.

Thirteen viral basketballs exploded into blood-colored fireworks in the stratosphere as the countdown hit zero.

Rayne's maniacal laughter came to an abrupt halt - his mechanical heart was growing the fingers of his mother's clone, squeezing the Marcus family crest in a death grip.