The train was already fading into the night, a distant hum swallowed by the fog rolling off the Puget Sound.

Bishop adjusted his coat, rolling his shoulder to shake off the stiffness. The damp air smelled like rust and old oil, the stink of a place abandoned in layers. Everett Yards stretched ahead. It was a graveyard of forgotten industry, half-finished infrastructure, and warehouses that should’ve been torn down years ago.

He heard Kim exhale sharply behind him. Not from the cold. From the pain.

She was favoring her leg now, despite her usual effort to hide it. The wound from the shootout was slowing her down. She crouched against a stack of forgotten freight pallets, reaching into her coat.

Bishop frowned. "If that’s a stim, you’re just gonna make it worse."

Kim ignored him, tearing open a coag-injector instead. Not a painkiller. Something practical. A fast-clot mix that burned like hell but would keep her from bleeding out if the wound got worse.

She pressed it against her thigh. The hiss of the injector was barely audible, but the way her jaw clenched told him all he needed to know.

"That bad?" he asked.

Kim exhaled through her nose. "No, Bishop. I just love stabbing myself with industrial-grade clotting agents for fun."

She pushed off the crate, testing her balance. Still a limp. But she could move.

"Let’s go," she muttered.

They cut through the railyard, weaving between derelict mag-tracks and decommissioned hauler units. No lights. No motion. The air was dead. Like something had drained the place of its last breath.

Then, they saw the facility. A ghost-white slab of concrete and steel, wedged into the sprawl like an afterthought. It was too pristine. No weathering, no rust. It didn’t belong. The Horizon Biotek logo had been ripped from the outer gates, but its shadow remained. A discolored stain where the letters used to be.

Kim tapped her wrist display. "No active power. No security. No detectable heat signatures."

Bishop tested the gate. Unlocked.

"That’s a bad sign, right?" he muttered.

"Yeah," Kim said.

But it was the loading bay doors that set his teeth on edge. They were already open.

Not just ajar. Wide open. Like someone had left in a hurry.

The concrete loading zone was stained. Not just with rain runoff or industrial grease, but with something darker. Bishop crouched, running his fingers along the edge of a half-dried smear.

Blood. And not just one spill.

Kim exhaled sharply. "Look at this."

Bootprints. Leading out of the facility.

Some deep, some smeared, like whoever made them wasn’t walking steady. Some were scattered, breaking in different directions. Others trailed off into nothing.

Bishop’s cybernetic eye flickered, scanning the stains. Different layers. Different times. Some of this was old. Weeks old. But some? Fresh. Hours at most.

Kim knelt, overlaying a scanner readout. "Multiple sets. Can’t tell how many, but… they were running."

"From what?"

She didn’t answer.

Bishop checked the loading dock control panel. It was fried. Completely overloaded. Someone had forced the doors open.

A breach. Not just physical, but systemic. Someone had overridden the failsafes.

Kim exhaled sharply. She didn’t like this. Didn’t like that it already felt familiar. She could feel the weight of it now. A memory on the edge of recall, the way an old scar itched when a storm was coming. She swallowed it down.

Bishop waved his hand, grabbing Kim’s attention. He directed her to take a closer look at one of the blood trails.

She adjusted her scanner, cycling through spectro-analysis. The overlay flickered, pulling up a familiar signature. Biopolymer.

Her stomach twisted. The same material that led them here.

Bishop caught her expression. "That’s our ghost, isn’t it?"

Kim exhaled slowly. "If it is… it’s bleeding."

Bishop’s jaw tightened. Whatever they were chasing. Whatever had been made here. It wasn’t invincible. But it also wasn’t human.

They stepped further inside. The hallway should’ve been dark, but low emergency lighting still pulsed in faint, rhythmic flashes. A soft, mechanical hum echoed through the walls.

Kim kept her weapon low, scanning their surroundings.

"You feel that?" she asked quietly.

Bishop did. That itch at the base of his skull.

Kim adjusted her grip on her weapon. "This place should be dead," she murmured.

Bishop’s cybernetic eye pulsed as it ran a passive sweep. "Yeah," he muttered. "But it’s not."

Then the noise. A faint, wet shuffle. A body shifting.

Both detectives froze. Kim turned, gun raised. Bishop took point, stepping toward the sound.

Another breath. Ragged, rasping.

Bishop rounded the corner, gun leveled. The thing that moved wasn’t a thing at all.

It was a man. A lab tech. Or what was left of him.

He was slumped against the far wall, back propped against a bank of terminal consoles, the dim flicker of corrupted data feeds stuttering against his bloodstained face. His pupils were blown wide, irises rimmed with the telltale silver sheen of neural augments failing in real-time.

His coat - corporate standard, now shredded - was soaked through, fabric stuck to his skin where the blood had dried in tacky patches. His ID badge, still clipped to his belt, was cracked down the middle, the Horizon Biotek insignia barely visible beneath the grime.

A deep gash split his abdomen. Not a clean cut. Jagged, torn, like something had clawed or wrenched its way through him. Blood pooled at his waist, dark and syrup-thick, seeping between the floor grating. His breathing was wet, labored.

His right arm was missing. Not severed. Ripped. The wound was uneven, a brutal tear at the shoulder, strands of muscle left frayed where the joint had been wrenched apart. The stump had been cauterized, but not cleanly. A rough, flash-burned wound, like someone had used a heat torch in a panic. The charred edge still smoked faintly in the cold air.

His remaining fingers clawed weakly at the floor, slipping in his own blood. He tried to speak. A warning. A plea. Something.

But all that came out was a wet, drowning gurgle.

Kim holstered her gun, moving fast. "Shit. He’s bad."

Bishop crouched, pressing two fingers to the tech’s carotid. Weak pulse. Barely there. "We’re losing him."

The man's eyes flickered between them, desperate. His mouth moved, but no words came. Blood bubbled at his lips.

Kim yanked a clot-stick from her belt, pressing it to his wound. "You gotta stay with us, alright? Tell us what happened."

The man convulsed, head jerking violently. He was trying to shake his head. No. No.

His remaining hand grasped blindly. Not at them, but past them.

Bishop turned. The man was pointing at a terminal.

Kim followed his gaze, scanning the console. It was still on. A low-powered interface running in dark mode. The text flickered, half-corrupted but still functional.

Bishop tapped the console. It didn’t require clearance. Whoever this man was, he’d already unlocked it. He’d been trying to access something.

The man coughed again. Violent, liquid choking. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. His hand went limp. Kim pressed two fingers to his throat. Nothing.

Bishop exhaled through his nose. "He was already gone, partner."

Another dead body.

Bishop turned back to the terminal. If this was what that poor guy died for, they needed to see what was inside. He tapped the interface. The screen flashed once, then loaded a set of old logs.

[Accessing O.N.E.S. Experiment Data - Secure Channel 41-A]

[Terminal Authentication Override Detected]

[Decrypting Logs…]

The text rolled across the display. Old research logs. Status reports. Internal memos.

Organism-Neutral Emulation System (O.N.E.S.) - Primary Research Timeline

ONES-00: Biopolymer Integration Successful.
ONES-01: First Neural Calibration Attempt. Incomplete Data.
ONES-02: Subject Displayed Anomalous Retention. Reset Required.
ONES-03: Persistent Loop Error. Unable to Purge Data.
ONES-04: [DATA EXPUNGED]

Bishop’s stomach twisted. Persistent Loop Error.

The phrase gnawed at him.

He pushed the feeling away and continued scrolling through the logs. More reports. More data waste. Snippets of clinical detachment describing something not human, not entirely.

Then he saw the last entry. A video file.

[ONES-04: [REDACTED] - Final Containment Log]

[Timestamp: 19.10.2166 - 03:17]

Peering over her partner’s shoulder at the terminal, Kim saw the timestamp. She felt her breath hitch.

She reached past Bishop and tapped the file. It loaded slowly, a choppy security feed.

A lab. White walls. Bright lights. A sterile, clinical environment. Until the screams started.

The two detectives leaned in. On the feed, the room was in chaos. Scientists in lab coats scrambled toward the exit, shoving one another, pushing past fallen bodies. A warning klaxon blared. Doors sealed. A kill protocol.

Then the video skipped. And something looked back at them.

A tank. Reinforced glass. Fluid sloshing inside. A figure pressed against the glass from the other side.

Bishop’s stomach dropped. Kim’s hands went ice cold.

That face was familiar. The same face they found in the alley.