Chapter 10 - PROJECT LAZARUS 💥Viral Hook Title: THE TRUTH ABOUT VICTORIA WAS REVEALED... SHE WAS NEVER A HUMAN BEING TO BEGIN WITH!"Don't move," a voice echoed down the elevator shaft from above.
Elena slowly raised her hands, keeping herself positioned between the red laser dot and the paralyzed girl on the gurney. Tim was whimpering in the corner, covering his head with his arms.
"Elena, take the side hatch!" Tim whispered frantically from the dark corner. "I'll draw their fire!"
Before Elena could stop him, Tim grabbed an heavy fire extinguisher mounted on the elevator wall and slammed it against the emergency hatch release on the ceiling. The hatch popped open with a loud bang, and Tim sprayed a thick, blinding cloud of white chemical foam straight up into the shaft.
"ARGH! MY EYES!" a mercenary roared from above, dropping his weapon down the shaft. The rifle slammed onto the elevator roof with a loud metallic crash.
"GO, ELENA! RUN!" Tim screamed, shoving Elena out of the elevator doors, which he had forced open using a crowbar from his belt.
Elena didn't hesitate. She grabbed the handles of the gurney, digging her heels into the concrete floor, and shoved the heavy rolling bed out into the damp, dark sub-level tunnel.
The sub-level was an ancient, abandoned medical ward built in the 1950s—a labyrinth of crumbling brick arches, rusting pipes, and rotting wooden doors. It was completely pitch black, illuminated only by the faint red glow of emergency exit signs.
Behind her, heavy gunshots echoed inside the elevator shaft. Tim let out a sharp cry of pain, followed by the heavy thud of a body falling.
"TIM!" Elena yelled, tears stinging her eyes.
"Keep... moving..." the girl on the gurney rasped, her hand clutching Elena’s wrist with surprising strength. "They... they don't want me dead... they want... the serum back..."
Elena wiped her tears, turned her back on the elevator, and sprinted down the damp tunnel, pushing the gurney as fast as her legs could take her. The sound of heavy tactical boots echoing behind her proved the mercenaries were already down the shaft.
She ducked into an old surgical theatre hidden at the end of the corridor, slamming the thick lead-lined door shut and dropping a massive steel security bar into place.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The mercenaries hit the outside of the door seconds later.
"Dr. Elena!" Harrison Vance’s smooth, icy voice called out through the heavy lead door. "You are fighting a battle you lost before you were even born. Open the door, and I promise you will leave this facility alive."
"Who is she?!" Elena shouted back, grabbing a heavy syringe of adrenaline from her medical kit and injecting it straight into the girl's IV line to keep her conscious. "Why does she look exactly like Victoria?!"
A low, sinister laugh echoed through the steel door.
"Because Victoria Vance isn't a person, Elena," Harrison Vance revealed calmly. "She is Subject 01. And the girl lying on your table right now is Subject 02."
Elena’s blood ran completely cold. "What are you talking about?"
"Thirty years ago, our medical syndicate funded a private genetic laboratory in the Pacific," Harrison explained, his tone sounding like a professor giving a lecture. "We didn't just search for a Universal Phenotype in the wild—we created one. We synthesized human DNA to build an artificial biological factory. A living human being whose organs would never age, never fail, and never reject a host."
Elena looked down at the girl on the table in sheer, unadulterated horror.
"Victoria... was grown in a lab?" Elena whispered, her voice breaking.
"Victoria was the first successful prototype," Harrison continued through the door. "Her memory, her emotions, her belief that she was an orphan—all implanted, carefully constructed narratives to keep her docile until her organs matured. But six months ago, you ruined our primary harvest when you exposed Julian’s bunker."
BOOM!
A breaching charge exploded against the hinges of the lead door, showering the room with concrete dust and iron fragments. The steel bar groaned, bending inward.
"Subject 02 was our backup," Harrison shouted over the ringing smoke. "She escaped our offshore facility three days ago inside that shipping container! She carries the complete synthesized genetic sequence in her bone marrow! If her blood leaves this building, every government on Earth will know what we created!"
Elena looked at Subject 02. The girl’s eyes were wide with tears, her lips forming silent words: Help me... sister...
"She isn't a prototype..." Elena said, her eyes burning with fierce, unstoppable rage as she pulled out her phone. "She is a human being! And you are going to burn for this!"
Elena didn't dial the police. She didn't call the media.
Instead, she opened her encrypted contact list and hit a single speed-dial button.
The phone rang once.
"Elena?" Victoria’s voice answered on the second ring, clear and vibrant. "Is everything okay? You left the office so fast."
"Victoria," Elena said, her voice deadly serious as the lead door began to buckle under a second explosive charge. "I need you to listen to me very carefully. You are not an orphan."
Silence filled the line for a second. "What?"
"They created another one," Elena gasped, clutching the phone close to her ear. "She’s here with me. She has your face. She has your eyes. And Harrison Vance is about to blow through this door to take her back."
On the other end of the line, Victoria’s breathing stopped completely.
When Victoria spoke again, her voice was no longer that of a gentle, recovering victim. It was cold, dark, and filled with a terrifying, primal power.
"Where are you?" Victoria asked softly.
"Sub-Level 2. Old surgical ward," Elena replied.
"Tell Harrison Vance to look behind him," Victoria said calmly.
BOOM!
The lead door blew off its hinges, crashing into the surgical theatre in a cloud of fire and smoke. Three armed mercenaries swept into the room, their rifles pointed directly at Elena and Subject 02.
Behind them stepped Harrison Vance—a tall, distinguished man in his sixties with silver hair, wearing an expensive wool coat over a tailored suit. He stepped over the burning debris, holding a silver walking cane.
"End of the line, Dr. Elena," Harrison said, smiling coldly as he raised a gold-plated revolver. "Hand over Subject 02."
Before Harrison could pull the trigger, the wall behind his mercenaries shattered into a roar of flying brick and iron.
A massive, heavy-duty industrial ambulance smashed straight through the brick wall of the sub-level tunnel, its sirens screaming and bright halogen high-beams blinding the mercenaries.
The rear doors of the ambulance burst open.
Stepping out from the smoke was Victoria Vance. She was wearing her black leather jacket, holding a heavy tactical shotgun in her hands. Behind her stood Mark and Dr. Mercer, armed with high-powered rifles.
Harrison Vance’s jaw dropped in absolute disbelief. "Victoria...?"
Victoria racked the slide of her shotgun with a deadly, metallic CLACK.
May you like
"My name," Victoria said, her eyes flashing with pure, vengeful fire as she pointed the barrel straight at Harrison's chest, "is not Subject 01. And my family is officially taking revenge."
🚨 TO BE CONTINUED... 🚨
