Three nurses at my hospital became pregnant after caring for the same man—a patient who had supposedly been in a coma for nearly ten years. At first, I told myself it had to be coincidence. Then one night, I stood beside his bed, whispered, “Marcus, can you hear me?” and watched the face of an unconscious man almost smile.

The kitchen of the *Golden Waffle* was a chaotic blur of sizzling grease, shouting line cooks, and clattering dishware.

“Hey! You can't be back here!” a cook yelled, waving a spatula as I shoved the emergency exit bar open.

The door flew wide, venting steam into the freezing alleyway. I pushed Emily and the stroller out into the sleet. The brick walls of the narrow alley amplified the sound of the Chicago wind, howling between the tenements like an animal in pain.

Behind us, the front doors of the diner slammed open. Heavy tactical boots crunched against broken glass in the dining area.

“Run to the train station!” I shouted at Emily, pointing toward the elevated platform two blocks north. “Blend into the crowd! Don't look back!”

“What about you?” she screamed over the wind, clutching the stroller handles with white knuckles.

“I’m going back for Lila!”

I didn't wait for her to argue. I sprinted in the opposite direction, down the narrow alleyway toward the southern thoroughfare.

Behind me, two men in dark tactical parkas burst through the kitchen door.

“Stop! Chicago Police!” one shouted—a lie, but an effective one to keep bystanders from interfering.

I turned the corner, my boots slipping on the slush-covered asphalt. I had spent fifteen years running code blues through the maze-like corridors of St. David’s; I knew how to pace my breathing, how to push through the burning lactic acid in my legs. I darted into a narrow residential walkway between two brownstones, vaulting a rusted chain-link fence into a church parking lot.

Behind me, the pursuers shouted into their radios.

I didn't stop until I reached the entrance to the Cermak-Chinatown subway station. I slipped into the swarm of late-night commuters, pulled my wool cap down low over my brow, and caught the northbound train toward the loop.

On the train, huddled in the corner of a rusted car that reeked of damp wool and metallic brakes, I pulled out my phone and plugged Emily’s USB drive into the adapter I carried for my tablet.

The drive was password protected, but Emily had written a six-digit code on the side with a permanent marker: *0 5 1 2 2 4.* Maya’s birthdate.

The folder decrypted.

Documents flooded the screen. Hundreds of them.

*Project Prometheus: Generation One.*

My eyes scanned the medical reports with mounting horror. Julian Mercer hadn't just used his own DNA. He had spliced it.

Using CRISPR-Cas9 technology developed in his off-shore labs before his disappearance, Mercer had modified his own genetic material prior to fertilization. The children weren't merely his offspring; they were genetically enhanced prototypes.

Gene edits to enhance oxygen utilization in the myocardium. Deletion of the PCSK9 gene to ensure absolute immunity to arterial plaque. Neurological modifications designed to hyper-accelerate synaptic plasticity.

He was breeding a master class. A biological aristocracy designed to outlive, outthink, and out-compete normal humanity.

And then I saw the ledger.

Director Paul Vance had received a base payment of five hundred thousand dollars per quarter. But the real money came from the *Harvest Bonuses*.

Ten million dollars for each successful gestation.

Paid into a Panamanian account under the corporate name *Aegis Holdings*.

The final page contained the roster.

*Subject 1 (Valerie Cook) - Male. Delivered.*

*Subject 2 (Valerie Cook) - Male. Delivered.*

*Subject 3 (Elena Gomez, deceased) - Female. Complications during extraction.*

My breath caught. *Elena Gomez.* A nurse who had reportedly died in a hit-and-run four years ago. It hadn't been an accident. It had been an extraction gone wrong.

*Subject 4 (Sarah Jenkins) - Male. Delivered.*

*Subject 5 (Emily Rhodes) - Female. Delivered.*

*Subject 6 (Emily Rhodes) - Female. Delivered.*

*Subject 7 (Lila Thompson) - Male. In Progress. Scheduled Termination of Surrogate: 03:00 AM.*

*Scheduled Termination of Surrogate.*

The words burned into my retinas like acid.

They weren't just inducing Lila’s labor. They were going to kill her on the operating table, stage it as an amniotic fluid embolism—an unpredictable, unpreventable obstetric catastrophe—and incinerate the evidence along with Marcus Langford’s supposed corpse.

I checked the time on my phone.

1:45 AM.

I had seventy-five minutes.

I stepped off the train at the Jackson station, took the stairs three at a time into the freezing night, and hailed a yellow cab.