The wing wasn't called the Sea Wing.
That was just what the workers named it when they thought no one was listening.
Officially, it was Sector E.
On the maps Tae-Hyun had seen, it was marked only as an extension of bio-storage and long-term care. No notes. No departments. No explanation.
In reality, it was where the air changed.
He felt it the first time he was assigned to a late transfer there.
The corridor curved downward, gradually, almost gently, as if easing the body into a deeper space. The temperature dropped in stages. The faint salt in the air grew stronger. Somewhere beyond the concrete, water was moving.
The hum inside him thinned.
Then spread.
He passed through two pressure doors. A third. Each one sealed more sound behind him.
Sector E opened into a wide, dim hall lined with glass rooms.
Not storage.
Not labs.
Rooms.
Inside them were beds. Equipment. Soft lights. Screens mounted at angles meant to be seen from lying down.
And people.
Some slept. Some stared at ceilings. Some lay so still they looked like images instead of bodies.
They were not restrained.
They were not free.
The first time he walked past, he kept his gaze on the floor.
The second time, he couldn't.
He began to notice details.
The slow synchronization of breathing between certain rooms.
The faint lines of circuitry-like implants along a woman's neck.
The way a boy no older than sixteen kept his fingers moving against the sheet, as if counting something only he could feel.
These were not test subjects in the way B9's were.
These were not short-term trials.
This was long-term keeping.
Preservation.
Containment.
And something else beneath it that he could feel but not yet name.
The hum inside him reacted differently here.
It didn't pull.
It resonated.
As if something in this wing recognized the same underlying language.
On his fourth night assigned to Sector E, a nurse dropped a data pad near one of the rooms.
She bent to pick it up, muttering to herself. "They moved her too soon…"
Tae-Hyun paused. "Who?"
The nurse glanced up, startled, then waved a hand vaguely. "One of the stabilizers. From inland. They're transferring more from the western node."
"Why?" he asked.
She hesitated, then shrugged. "I'm not supposed to know. Only that the director wants all compatible subjects closer."
"Compatible with what?"
She gave a faint, uneasy smile. "If I knew that, I wouldn't be here."
She walked away.
The word stayed.
Compatible.
Later that night, while guiding a mobile diagnostic unit toward the inner corridor, he felt it.
Not from the unit.
From one of the rooms.
It wasn't strong.
But it was clear.
A focused, patterned biological presence.
Aware.
He slowed.
The glass wall revealed a woman lying on the bed inside. Mid-twenties, maybe. Dark hair cut short. Electrodes along her temples. A thin band of light moving steadily across the ceiling above her.
Her eyes were open.
Not unfocused.
Watching.
Not him.
Something inward.
He stepped closer without meaning to.
The hum inside him tightened, like a string pulled just enough to sing.
Her gaze shifted.
Met his.
The moment their eyes aligned, the air between them felt altered.
Not heavy.
Charged.
Her breath caught.
So did his.
He felt her before he understood what he was feeling.
A complex, contained biological structure. Layered. Reinforced. Different from the quiet disarray he'd sensed in B9's subjects.
This was not damage.
This was design.
She didn't speak.
Her lips parted slightly, as if she might.
Then the lights in the corridor brightened.
A voice came through the overhead system. "Logistics, move along."
He stepped back.
The woman's gaze followed him until the doorframe cut her from view.
The hum inside him didn't fade.
It reorganized.
And for the first time since arriving at W-03, Tae-Hyun felt certain of something.
Whatever Devil's Heir was becoming…
it was no longer only an experiment.
It was already awake.