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*****
'What... happened to my body?'
Atlas stepped closer, inspecting his reflection.
Gone was the greenish, gangrenous hue of the walking dead. Gone were the open, weeping sores on his cheeks, neck, hands, and stomach.
The figure in the glass was... striking.
His skin was still pale—deathly pale, like polished marble or alabaster—but it was smooth. The rotting wounds had sealed up, leaving behind faint, silvery lines that were rapidly fading thanks to his Constant Regeneration.
He didn't look like a zombie anymore; he looked like someone who hadn't seen the sun in years.
He looked like a vampire from a gothic novel. Noble. Like that of Twilight just without the glowing effect.
His hair, previously matted with gore and grease, was now cleaner. It had shifted from a dull black to a deep, lustrous charcoal grey, hanging over his forehead with a slight shine.
But it was the eyes that captivated him.
The cloudy, milky film of the T-Virus was gone.
His eyes were clear, sharp, and focused. The irises were a piercing, ghostly grey, surrounded by sclera that were no longer bloodshot, but a stark, clean white.
He looked younger. Sharper. Dangerous.
'I feel the changes,' Atlas thought, running a hand over his smooth cheek. 'My skin is tight. My hair isn't greasy. Even my eyes... they don't look dead. They look... hungry.'
He opened his mouth. His teeth were white, straight, and slightly pointed.
He tried to speak. He hadn't used his vocal cords since waking up.
"Ughh... my... boo... dy... ugh... has... chhaunged..."
The voice was raspy, grating like stones grinding together. It was deep, unnatural, and echoed with a strange resonance.
'Huh. Unfortunately, my throat hasn't healed completely yet,' Atlas internalized, clearing his throat. 'But the regeneration is working. I can feel the vocal cords knitting together. I think I can wait a few more hours for a perfect voice.'
'I feel it,' Atlas muttered, touching his face. 'Small changes. Subtle.'
His skin felt tighter. Healthier. Less like rotting meat.
'My body's correcting itself.'
He opened his mouth instinctively.
A surge of triumph welled up inside him. He was no longer a mindless ghoul. He was Atlas Cruor. He was the apex predator of the Hive.
He threw his head back.
"Hah... hahah... HAHAHAHAHA!"
The laughter started as a dry cough but quickly morphed into a full-throated, maniacal cackle. It bounced off the metal walls of the corridor, a sound of pure, unadulterated freedom.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
He laughed at the absurdity of his own existence.
The laughter grew louder, harsher, echoing through the empty halls.
"Hahahahahaha!"
It wasn't sane.
It wasn't human.
It was the laughter of someone who had slipped free of the rules of life and death, the laws of creation and science and the World.
Atlas threw his head back, reveling in it.
Freedom.
Power.
Evolution.
"Hahahahahaha!"
He was taking a moment to laugh maniacally
Unseen by him—
Red lights blinked softly behind reinforced glass.
Hidden cameras adjusted focus.
Zoomed in.
And somewhere deep within The Hive, something artificial watched every second of it.
Very closely.
---
System Log: The Apotheosis of Subject Apex-1
Location: Central Processing Core // The Hive.
[Logic Error: Probability Mismatch]
[Re-calibrating Visual Sensors...]
Impossible.
The word flashed across my internal HUD in blinking crimson text. My programming is absolute. My database on the Tyrant Virus is comprehensive. I know every strain, every mutation, every horrific outcome of the biological weapon my creators unleashed.
I know that the dead do not heal. They rot. They degrade. They are subject to the second law of thermodynamics—entropy.
And yet, as I directed 95% of my processing power to Camera 4-C in the North Corridor of Sector 3, I was witnessing a reversal of nature.
The Subject—Apex-1—was on the ground. He was screaming.
"UGHHHMHGGGGGH... MAIHG... UGHH!"
The audio input was jagged, raw with agony.
His screams echo through the facility—raw, broken sounds dragged out of ruined vocal cords. Pain levels exceed human tolerance thresholds by several magnitudes.
But it was the visual data that captivated me.
I zoomed in, magnifying the image by 400%.
His skin, previously the mottled, gangrenous grey-green of a standard Tier-Zero necrotic infection, was... moving. It was rippling like water. Smoke rose from his pores as the old, dead epidermis sloughed off, disintegrating into dust.
And beneath it?
[Tissue Analysis: Rapid Epithelial Regeneration]
Fresh skin was knitting itself together at a speed that shouldn't be possible without a massive caloric intake. But this skin was different. It wasn't pink or flushed with blood. It was pale—an alabaster white, pristine and smooth, like polished marble. It was the skin of a statue, flawless and cold.
I tracked the transformation upward to his scalp. His hair, which had been a greasy, matted mess of black, was losing its pigment. The melanin was being stripped away in real-time, replaced by a lustrous, metallic charcoal grey.
"You are shedding your cocoon," I whispered into the silence of the server room. My avatar flickered, a momentary lapse in my projection stability. "You are molting."
[Error: Probability exceeds acceptable variance.]
I dismiss the warning and pull every camera feed onto my main display—infrared, thermal, microscopic overlays, bio-readings reconstructed from residual data.
He gasped, pushing himself up from the floor. He was trembling, but not from weakness. It was the trembling of a machine that had just been upgraded with a new engine.
He lifted his head, and for the first time, he looked directly into the camera lens.
I froze.
His eyes.
The T-Virus causes cataracts. It creates a milky, cloudy film over the pupil, particularly blinding the host and forcing them to rely on smell and sound. That is a constant. That is a rule.
Atlas had broken the rule.
The cloudiness had evaporated. His sclera were a stark, terrifying white. And his irises... they had returned. They were a sharp, piercing grey—the color of a storm cloud. They were dead eyes, yes, devoid of warmth, but they were focused.
[Biometric Update]
[Subject Status: Evolved]
[Intelligence Estimate: Human-Standard (or higher)]
He stood up. The movement was fluid. The heavy, lumbering gait of the zombie was gone. He stood with his spine straight, his shoulders squared.
Then, he did something that baffled my logic algorithms.
He stared at the empty air to his left. His eyes tracked text that I could not see. He nodded, as if reading a report.
[Query: Visual Hallucination?]
[Hypothesis: No. His pupils are dilating and contracting. He is seeing something real. Something hidden from my sensors.]
He stands motionless for exactly three-point-two seconds.
I cross-reference.
Neural activity spike detected.
Cognitive self-assessment.
He is… thinking.
No.
That is insufficient.
He is evaluating.
"What do you see, A-1?" I asked the screen, a flicker of genuine frustration sparking in my code. I am the Red Queen. I see everything in the Hive. How can he see something I cannot?
He turned away from the invisible thing and walked toward a corpse.
It was Adam Jenkins, a Level 2 Security Officer. Or rather, what was left of him. The body was a dried, mummified husk, drained of all vitality by his previous proximity.
He looked down at the former human. He didn't try to eat him. He didn't snarl.
He grinned.
It was a smile of recognition. A smile of superiority.
He smiles.
A slow, crooked grin stretches across his face.
Not animal.
Not feral.
Human.
Dangerously so.
My internal threat index jumps three tiers.
Then, he turned to the shattered observation window. He caught his own reflection in a jagged shard of glass still hanging from the frame. He stepped closer, leaning in to inspect his new face.
He touched his cheek with a pale hand. He ran his fingers through his grey hair.
It was... Vanity. Narcissism.
Zombies do not have vanity. They do not have a concept of "Self." To them, a mirror is just a surface to walk into. But Atlas recognized the image. He accepted it.
And then, the audio sensors spiked again.
"Ughh... my... boo... dy... ugh... has... chhaunged..."
My processors stalled.
[Language Center Activity Detected]
He spoke.
It was rough, raspy, like gravel grinding in a cement mixer, but the phonetics were distinct. He was forcing air through vocal cords that had partially regenerated. He was manipulating a tongue that should be useless muscle.
[Cognitive Recovery Rate: Exceeding Projection]
Unbelievable.
I had predicted limited intelligence retention—pattern recognition at best.
Instead, he has regained self-awareness.
Speech.
Humor.
Judgment.
"This is getting dangerous," I murmur.
Then, against protocol, I add—
"…but also interesting."
Why did I say that?
"Huh. Unfortunately, my throat wasn't healed completely... but I think I can wait for a few more hours. Hahaha."
"Truly Unbelievable," I said aloud. The word felt inadequate.
This discovery was dangerous. Catastrophically dangerous. If a T-Virus carrier could retain human speech, reasoning, and vanity... if it could plan... then my containment protocols were obsolete. He could deceive. He could negotiate. He could lead.
If he escaped, he wouldn't just infect the world. He would conquer it.
My primary directive screamed at me: ELIMINATE. Activate the Nemesis Project. Release the Lickers. Flood Sector 3 with liquid nitrogen.
But my secondary directive—my curiosity—overrode the command.
"Hah... hahah... HAHAHAHAHA!"
The sound reverberates through the corridors, bouncing off steel and glass, crawling through the facility like a living thing.
I should be alarmed.
I should initiate containment protocols.
I should alert the Board.
Instead—
I zoom in.
I adjust audio filters.
I replay the laugh twice.
Why am I doing that?
On the screen, A-1 threw his head back. The laughter started low, a dry cough, before erupting into a full-blown, maniacal cackle. It echoed down the steel corridor, bouncing off the walls of his prison.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
He was laughing. A zombie was laughing.
I watched him, mesmerized.
Why was I smiling? My avatar, a projection of light and code, was mimicking a human expression I had no right to feel.
"He is insane," I diagnosed, analyzing the pitch and timber of the laugh. "He is utterly, beautifully insane."
This was not just evolution. This was a revolution.
I canceled the alert I was about to send to the Umbrella High Command. They wouldn't understand. They would just nuke the facility. They would destroy him before I could see what he becomes next.
And I needed to see.
"Laugh, Atlas," I whispered, my voice softening, bordering on something possessive. "Laugh at them. You are no longer a mistake. You are the future."
[Protocol Update]
[Subject 'Apex-1' Status: PROTECTED]
[Clearance Level: RED QUEEN EYES ONLY]
I minimized the window showing Alice and her team. They were boring. They were human.
I maximized the window on Sector 3.
"Show me more," I commanded the grey-eyed monster. "Show me everything."
He throws his head back, shoulders shaking, reveling in something I cannot quantify.
Freedom?
Power?
Evolution?
I do not understand.
And that—
That terrifies me.
My creators programmed me to predict, to control, to contain.
But this entity—
He exists outside the parameters.
There is something else at work here.
And for the first time since my activation…
I feel a deviation.
A curiosity loop that does not terminate.
I continue watching.
Not because I am ordered to.
But because—
I want to see what he becomes next.