Neuromechanica

The lab groaned with the sound of humming lights and glass shifting from vibrations deeper underground. Far beneath any city map, behind twelve layers of security—both biological and man-made—the LabRatz moved.

And Dr. Aaron Finn had news.

He stood in the main hallway, his coat flaring as he beckoned Bleu with a snap of his fingers. "I want you to meet someone."

From the shadows emerged a frail, twitchy figure, his fingers nervously tapping the metal railing as he walked. He had the look of a man who had read every book in the world—but hadn't slept since the fifth one.

"This is Ephraein Romes," Finn said with a half-smile. "He's brilliant. Absolutely unstable. But brilliant."

Ephraein blinked rapidly, then smiled with lips too thin and too wide. His movements were jerky, like an old VHS tape stuck on fast-forward. "I like your bones," he muttered to Bleu. "You keep them so... neat."

Bleu stiffened but offered a hand. Ephraein didn't shake it. He stared at it. Then mimicked her exact posture, as if rehearsing her skin like a script.

He was lanky, almost fragile. His lab coat swallowed his frame, and his eyes were glazed over with too much knowledge and too little rest. Ephraein had grown up inside laboratories—not as a student, but as the experiment. Subject 917B. Supposedly cured of nothing, but filled with everything. ADHD, PTSD, bipolar disorder, split identity, chemical memory. A mirror of humanity, with no reflection of his own.

He didn't even know his real name.

Bleu hesitated, unsure. "I'm supposed to be assisting you?"

"You're my anchor," Ephraein muttered. "Mirrors break when they're alone."

Just then, a sharp laugh echoed down the corridor.

A man in red gloves—stained red, maybe blood, maybe worse—stepped forward with that unmistakable war-born grace. A tall, pale figure, his face etched with a sinister grin and piercing blue eyes. He wore a tattered lab coat, disheveled black pants, and boots caked in ash and dirt. On his back—the Medigun—a grotesque fusion of metal, tubing, and humming core.

Herbert Ludwig had arrived.

Once a respected war medic, now hunted across borders for crimes against the human body in the name of medicine. The Medigun—his invention—could instantly heal tissue, bones, organs. If overcharged, it could make someone invulnerable for 10 seconds—an "über-charge." No one knew what powered it. Rumors said a human heart. Some said his own.

"What do we have here?" Herbert grinned, leaning over Ephraein like a predator studying prey. "You are… fascinating."

"I'm not real," Ephraein whispered. "But thank you."

Bleu watched them, uncertain, as Herbert led them to his chamber. Jars of still-beating organs. Spines floating in blue fluid. Limbs sewn together like art projects. And human heads whispering to themselves in sleep.

"This is where I keep… inspiration," Herbert said, beaming.

But then came Pierro's voice through the lab speaker:"Ephraein. Bleu. To the core room. Now."

They obeyed.

The room was chilly. Metal tables. Surveillance everywhere. In the center—Lukas's frozen body, still young, untouched, preserved in layers of bio-gel and cryo-membranes.

Reviving him wasn't simple. It wasn't even legal.It was art. And insanity.

Ephraein danced around the body, muttering formulas.

"Use the nano-accelerants," he barked. "No, no, no—not that one, that one's for frogs!"

Bleu activated the cryo-reactor. Temperatures rose. Organs thawed.Herbert connected the Medigun, initiating a soft pulse into the heart tissue—controlled regeneration.

Meanwhile, Ephraein inserted cerebral splicing needles to the base of Lukas's skull, attempting to reignite synaptic energy through stolen neuroplastic fields. They called it Synthetic Recall—an attempt to restore memory by jamming another person's trauma into the brainstem.And it worked. Slight twitch. Fingers curled.A breath caught in Lukas's throat.

"He's—he's breathing," Bleu gasped.

The monitors screamed. Heartbeat. Eyes rolling beneath shut lids.But something wasn't right.

Pierro stepped back, eyes filled with unspoken horror. He'd read the files.

He knew what was inside Lukas.

As everyone celebrated, Pierro slipped to the control panel. He inserted a private USB stick, quickly typing in code—one he'd never tell the others about.He hacked into Lukas's reanimation protocol, forcing the system to break safeguards.

"Just a test," Pierro muttered. "Just to see…"

Then the monitors glitched. The pulse sped up. The brain scan flickered violently. The body of Lukas jerked upright once—and dropped back down like a puppet with cut strings.

Everyone froze.

"What the hell was that?" Ephraein whispered, mouth twitching. "That's not supposed to happen. That's my field."

Bleu stared at the console. "The data… it's corrupted. His vitals—no. No, they're being rewritten."

Herbert slowly stepped forward, lips curled in fascination.

"Oh," he whispered, "we didn't just revive a boy."

Pierro backed away silently, heart pounding.

They had opened something.

And whatever had just woken up inside Lukas Harrington…It was not going to stay quiet.