Nucleus cecidit-LXXVII

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DATE:11th of August, the 70th year after the Coronation

LOCATION: Concord Metropolis

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The next day me and Alice go to where her father's body was sent, a private morgue.

The Maltum Hatero morgue was an unassuming building, but it radiated the heavy, polished sterility of deep-state operations. I didn't ask questions. I wasn't here to pry into their secrets. My only task was to stand by Alice, who clutched a folder of burial contracts her father had prepared long before his death.

She wore a black dress, simple and understated, as she scribbled her signature on the final paperwork. She hadn't told her mother about Lucas's death. I didn't press her for an explanation, but I could guess. Maybe Alice was afraid. Afraid her mother wouldn't care. Or worse—afraid she wouldn't react at all.

"Would you like to see the body before it's taken for preparation?" the clerk asked, her tone brisk but polite.

"No," Alice replied quickly. Too quickly.

The articles started flooding since yesterday. "Renowned Researcher Lucas Mallory Dies in Tragic Incident." "Visionary Scientist Behind Life-Saving Medicines Leaves a Lasting Legacy." I didn't know whether to laugh or grimace. Sure, his medicine helped people, but if they'd seen his lab—the vats, the experiments—they might rethink their platitudes.

Alice didn't comment on the coverage. Instead, we left the city and drove to Professor Mundi's lab, tucked away in the countryside. Emily informed me that he had something to show us. He greeted us in the sterile white of the bio-lab, his hazmat suit crinkling as he moved. Massive vats lined the walls, glowing faintly with the same eerie light I'd seen in Mallory's lab.

"I heard about Project Lotus," Mundi began without ceremony. "Or, more specifically, how it was stolen."

Alice stiffened beside me, but Mundi was already gesturing to the vats. "A week before his death, your father came to me with the data. He knew he didn't have much time left."

He sounded almost impressed, though his tone was laced with sarcasm. "It's genius, really—evolution packaged into a weapon. Not the genocide part, obviously." He rolled his eyes behind the protective visor. "But its potential for adaptation? Remarkable."

"Adaptation?" I echoed, not sure I liked where this was going.

"I'm repurposing it," Mundi explained. "Not for mass destruction, but as a contingency. Something to stop UltraMan. You're aware he's invulnerable to everything except astatine? I am not sure how the Donn managed to stabilize it enough to create something out of it, let alone a working bullet... I certainly can't. And since he died, so did any chance of recreating those bullets."

"So what's your plan?" I asked warily.

He gestured to the vats. "I'm evolving the bioweapon. If we fail to stop Secundo Manus, this is Plan B. It will guarantee UltraMan's death." I suppose it was that he got hold of it. I am more concerned on what Secundo Manus would do with it.

" Wait so last time I saw you, what were you even working on?"

Mundi shrugged at my question. "That was around the time I got hold of Lotus."

I frowned. That didn't add up. The timeline didn't make sense, but I let it go for now. There were more pressing matters.

"In any case, I found Biz," Mundi said, leaning back casually as if he were announcing the weather. "Or rather, Biz found me. He's done fighting. Something snapped in him. He contacted me—called it a final fight to settle the score. We're both old men."

He pulled off his gloves, revealing another set of gloves and tossed them onto a counter. "But I told him there's no score to settle. It's meaningless. If you want, he's yours to deal with. Arrest him, kill him—it doesn't matter. If you take him in, he'll just break out again."

Alice stiffened, and I reached out, grabbing her hand. There was a 'No' etched on her lips. Desperation. Her fingers were cold, trembling.

Mundi noticed and waved us off. "Go. I've got work to do."

We drove in silence for a while, the hum of the car filling the space between us. Finally, Alice sighed and rested her head against the steering wheel.

"I don't get it," she muttered. "Why is everything so… chaotic?"

I didn't have an answer. Instead, I said, "You don't have to come with me to face Biz."

Her knuckles tightened against the leather. "I do," she replied quietly. "He was there. In the lab. When they…" Her voice faltered, and she inhaled sharply. "I need to see this through."

We didn't speak after that, but her words echoed in my mind. Chaotic didn't even begin to describe it. Something strange was at play-Secundo Manus's cloning process, Necromancy? And now Biz.

Most important was who brought Damos the comedian back to life. I was certain that he was told to take that hospital hostage to warn me, but of what? to not intervene?

When we reached the warehouse in Concord, it was just as rough as I'd expected—rusted walls, shattered windows, the stench of decay. We should probably stay here as little as possible. Inside, a single table sat under a flickering light, a chessboard arranged neatly on top of it.

Biz was there, wheelchair-bound, his pale face breaking into a disappointed smile when he saw us.

He had a different aura than before. Compliant? It was as of he had nothing else to prove. He had none of the childish energy as before. The "game" now was a real game. No play of words. No cliche.

"So, Mundi betrayed my trust," he said with a sigh, gesturing toward the chessboard. "I was hoping for one last game."

I raised my SmartGun, leveling it at his head.

"Where's Secundo Manus?"

Biz chuckled, a dry, rattling sound. "You're too late. The cloning process has already started."

That's when Alice stiffened, gesturing me to not approach. "Wait, He smells of... Rotting?"

She looked at the man and had the same expression as when she sees corpses.

The realization hit me like a freight train. I fired a slug, the shot shattering half his skull. But even as the bone and brain matter scattered, Biz kept laughing.

"Already dead," he said through the blood and broken teeth. "Just like you."

I froze.

"I understand now," he continued, his voice unnervingly calm. "Life doesn't matter. You can achieve so much, but in the end, it's nothing."

"You're wrong," I snapped. "I'm nothing like you."

Biz ignored me, his eyes distant. "When they brought me back, I realized... there's nothing after this. Nothing at all. Every invention, every award—it's all meaningless."

"You made it meaningless," Alice said, her voice trembling. "You hoarded your technology for praise, not to help others. The world doesn't even know your name."

Biz smiled faintly. "Semantics. I wanted one last fight because... I'm ready to die again."

Biz slumped forward in his wheelchair for a moment, silent. Then, with a sudden burst of effort, he placed his arms on the armrests and began to push himself up. He rose from his wheelchair with a jerky, unnatural grace, as if a puppet on fraying strings. His hollow laughter echoed, filling the warehouse like a dirge.

Alice gasped as he stumbled but managed to stand. His movements were jerky, as if his muscles were unused to the task, but he raised his hands high, as though expecting applause.

"Look at me!" he exclaimed, a mix of triumph and bitterness in his voice. "Twenty years. Twenty years I've been trapped in that chair. No technology, no cure—not even Secundo Manus—could fix me. But now? Now I move, I stand!" He gestured to his feet as if they were a holy miracle.

The sight unsettled me. "Who brought you back, Biz?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.

He tilted his head, a wicked grin splitting his face. "You should know. The same power—no, the same *origin*—as yours."

My heart skipped a beat. "What are you talking about?"

He tapped his temple, another piece of his broken brain falling to the floor. "Ah—I'm sorry, memory loss. Side effect of the process, you see." He chuckled darkly. "Oh, yes. The woman who raised me said it was the same source that resurrected you. But..." He wagged a finger. "It *wasn't* her who brought you back. No, no. She envied you. Called you a perfect specimen, beyond anything she could achieve."

Alice turned to me, her voice trembling. "What is he talking about?"

Biz cut her off, grinning like a madman. "Fifteen years ago. You died. And yet, here you stand. Not a wrinkle, not a scar—still looking 25, still with that same ridiculous haircut." He laughed. "Tell me, do you have memory gaps? Things that don't make sense?"

I froze.

His smile widened. "Ah. It's happening, then. Side effects. Those gaps will grow. The memories, your *humanity*—it will all disappear. 'We' will be reduced to simple, mindless ghouls. Me? I've only been back for a short time, and look at what I've become. That's why I want to die. But you?" He pointed at me. "You've lasted this long. Whoever brought you back wasn't human. The work was too perfect."

Alice's face turned pale, her hands trembling at her sides. Biz noticed and sneered. "Oh, don't look so shocked, my dear. You're just as much a plaything as I am. Your father's 'Lotus' project? Based on your cells. You're an experiment. Nothing more." What the fuck was this? I thought we would have a final fight where I would just kill him but Biz decided to drop every reveal he could. I can understand. From the perspective of a dead man, what was the point of holding things in?

Alice's eyes narrowed, and suddenly Biz gasped as his knees buckled, forced to the ground by an invisible force. "Oh," he rasped, coughing out laughter. "You're angry? Good. Go ahead, kill me. Crush me. Show me what an experiment can do."

"Stop," I said, grabbing her shoulder. "This is what he wants."

But he wasn't done. "Even at 28, you're nothing but a toy for others to play with," he spat. "Go on. Prove me right."

Alice's scream shattered the silence. The ground cracked beneath Biz as the pressure increased, his body crumpling under the weight of her power. I grabbed her, shaking her shoulders, yelling for her to stop, but she didn't hear me. Not until Biz was gone, a bloody puddle on the concrete.

And then she collapsed, shaking violently as she sobbed into my chest.

I held her tightly, whispering, "It's over. It's over," even as I realized it wasn't—not for her, not for me.

I held Alice tightly, whispering soft reassurances as she cried in my arms. We stayed there for what felt like an eternity, the air thick with the stench of rot. The laughter—faint and distorted—still echoed in my ears. Biz's malice lingered, as if the warehouse itself had absorbed his spite.

Finally, I urged Alice to stand. "We need to go," I said gently, but firmly. She nodded weakly, letting me guide her out of the suffocating ruin.

The car was silent except for her sniffles and whimpers. She curled into a ball in the passenger seat as I took the wheel. I fished my earpiece from my pocket and had Emily patch me through to Mundi.

He answered with a groan. "Do you ever stop calling? We spoke hours ago."

My patience was already wearing thin. "You keep too many secrets, Professor. Why didn't you tell us that Project Lotus was based on Alice's cells?"

Silence. The kind that made my knuckles tighten on the steering wheel.

"I… suspected as much," Mundi finally admitted. "Her blood tests showed similarities, but I wasn't certain. I didn't want to worry her unnecessarily."

"Not worry me!" Screamed Alice loud enough to be heard through the earpiece.

"How could you do this Mundi? Didn't you say you were different? That you wouldn't like to me... Like they did?!" My ears kind of hurt, but I wasn't really in a position to tell her to shut up.

"I am sorry for that Alice, but as I said, there was no confirmation. Your father didn't come to me saying he " based it on you". It was just what I managed to see from the comparison. Even then, what did you want to hear?

That a bioweapon worse than any plague imaginable was made with your genetic make-up? It sounded cruel..." Wow, appealing to emotions...

" You aren't my relative professor. You are in no position to 'protect' me like that!" She was really angry, but this time I did try to calm her by grabbing her hand and gesturing to stop. She might as well get us into a car accident with her powers.

"To protect her... like how you didn't want to tell me I was undead?" I snapped, my voice sharp enough to make Alice flinch.

Another pause. Then, a dry, almost amused, "Ohhh, that."

Mundi continued, his tone more clinical. "I'll admit, I found your biology strange. But it's nothing like Damos or the walking corpses I've studied. Their cells are sluggish, prone to disease, and incapable of regeneration. Yours, on the other hand, are… unique. They're essentially cancerous, sure, but they regenerate flawlessly—almost like resetting themselves. They even appear back into place if they are removed. That's why your injuries disappear. If I had to guess, you could regenerate your entire body over time, limb by limb." Wait a second, walking corpses? This implies he saw more of them? What the hell? Why does he never talk about anything?

My grip tightened. "Biz said I'm a more refined version of him. What does that mean?"

Mundi hesitated, just long enough to frustrate me. "It means your origin is different. Whoever—or whatever—brought you back knew what they were doing. It's beyond anything I've ever seen."

I thought of what Biz had said. "He alluded to a necromancer."

"Magic isn't my expertise," Mundi replied dismissively. "Now, let me work. We're running out of time." He hung up before I could press him further.

Alice hadn't spoken the entire time, but I knew she'd heard every word. Her sobs had quieted, replaced by a vacant stare out the window. She looked so small, so fragile, as though the weight of everything—her father's betrayal, her own existence as an experiment—was crushing her.

I wanted to say something, anything to bring her back from the abyss, but words failed me.

We reached her apartment, and I parked outside. She didn't move, still staring at the dashboard. I leaned back in the seat, gripping the wheel so tightly my hands ached.

How was I supposed to feel? Proud of my so-called superiority? That was foolish. This "perfection" brought me nothing but suffering—nightmares that never plagued me until my aging stopped. And the gaps in my memory…

If there truly was a necromancer, what did they want with me? Why strip me of my past?

I glanced at Alice, her tears silently streaking her face, and something twisted in my chest. We were both trapped in this chaos, both experiments in someone else's twisted game.

And neither of us had any idea how it would end.

But hey, for once I could actually relate to her. That was... Something.

Emily's voice came through the earpiece, firm but tinged with worry. "Leave her alone for now. She needs time."

I stared at Alice, curled under the sheets, her body trembling with quiet sobs. Could I trust Emily's words? Part of me wanted to, but her recent behavior still clung to my mind like a bad dream. I still vividly remember her manic episode from one of my past nightmares where she said she loved me —it had felt too real. The fact she came in a wedding dress wedding dress at the end of this last nightmare only confirmed it. Thinking about it, the change in her attitude when I reunited with Alice... She was dissapointed.

We barely ate anything that night as we both stood silent in bed. It took me quite a while to fall asleep.-*-*-*-*-*