**8**
“No price, Seraphina. You are my daughter, my masterpiece, Come back to me, and
together we’ll rule this purified new world”
“Any power you desire, I can give you. Any immortality you seek, I can grant”
“Even, if you wish to resurrect your mother, I have a way,”
Mom.
“How is that possible?”
“Genetic reconstruction technology” Dr. Thorne said proudly. “I’ve preserved her complete genetic sequence, As long as you’re willing to cooperate with the final experiment, I can make her stand before you again.”
A flicker of hope ignited in my heart.
Mom, I can see Mom again.
But the next second, I remembered those desperate eyes from the video.
“She’d hate me, my voice trembled. “She’d hate becoming a monster like you and me.”
“She would understand,” Dr. Thorne said. “When she sees you become a god, she will be
proud of you”
08:01 Thu, 26 Jun M
<
I looked at the face on the screen, and then, I laughed.
“You know what? I almost believed you.”
Dr. Thorne paused.
“But then I remembered. What Mom told me.”
“She said, never trust anyone’s promises.”
“She said, only the dead cannot betray.”
Dr. Thorne’s face changed.
I turned and walked towards the cell.
Dorian Blackwood was still frantically slamming his head against the wall, his face
smeared with blood.
“Dorian Blackwood.”
He turned to look at me, his eyes filled with despair beyond the madness.
“Do you want revenge? For yourself, and for your Eleanor Vance.”
Dorian Blackwood froze.
“We’re all his pawns, but pawns can kill the player.”
“What do you want to do?”
I took a syringe from Captain Ryder’s hand, filled with the blood I had just drawn.
“My cells are unique, and your genes have also been modified by him. If we fuse them,
they will produce a toxin specifically targeting his genetic sequence.”
“But it needs a carrier.”
“A carrier that can break through his army of super infected and reach him personally.”
<
Dorian Blackwood understood.
“You want me to die.”
“I want you to kill him.”
Dorian Blackwood suddenly laughed, even more wildly than before.
“Fine,” he said. “I have nothing left to lose anyway.”
“But I have one condition.”
“What?”
“At the very end, you have to kill me yourself.” Dorian Blackwood’s eyes suddenly cleared. “Don’t let me turn into one of those monsters permanently.”
I nodded.
The syringe pierced his vein.
Dorian Blackwood’s body began to tremble violently, something writhing beneath his
skin.
“Does it hurt?”
“No,” he gritted out. “Compared to the pain of betraying you, this is nothing.”
“Commander.” Captain Ryder stood beside me, hesitating. “Doing this is too risky.”
“What if it fails?”
I looked at the painfully mutating Dorian Blackwood, and said coldly: “Then we die
together.”
“Anyway, I’ve lived enough.”
On the screen, Dr. Thorne’s face reappeared.
08:01 Thu, 26 Jun
<
55%
“Seraphina, what are you doing?”
“I’m making a gift,” I said. “For my dear father.”
“You’re insane!” Dr. Thorne showed panic for the first time. “That experiment isn’t stable!
He’ll die!”
“He won’t be the one dying,” my smile was as pathological as his earlier one. “You will.”
Dorian Blackwood’s mutation continued.
His eyes became bloodshot, his nails sharpened, but his sanity was still intact.
He struggled to speak, “If we both die, do you have any regrets?”
I thought for a moment.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I regret not hating you sooner.”
Dorian Blackwood paused, then smiled.
“Me too,” he said. “I regret loving you.”
“But now, I can die for you.”
o
“Does that count as, in some sense, redemption?”
I didn’t answer.
Because I didn’t know the answer.
“Captain Ryder.” I turned to my silent second–in–command. “Prepare to open the gate.”
“Commander, are you sure?”
08:01 Thu, 26 Jun M
<
“Absolutely.”
