Project Lazarus

Stab Unit™ Case File: 2730-211

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Delta-19

The granite walls of Research Facility Delta-19 rose straight out of the Nevada desert, a seamless slab of black against a bruised-purple sky. On paper, the place belonged to the Department of Energy; in truth, it was stitched into a hidden budget line so deep that only three members of Congress even knew it existed.

Inside, fluorescent lights buzzed over Lab 3C. Dr. Helen Mallory tightened the strap of her face shield and stared at the thing floating in the pale-blue nutrient bath.

It was a severed head— bulbous, gun-metal skin, two glass-marble eyes, no lips, and a ridge of bone where a nose should have been.

Cables slithered from the base of the neck into pumps that kept the cerebral tissue just warm enough to survive. A screen beside the vat scrolled vitals that made no biological sense: delta-wave spikes, localized EM surges, bio-luminescent pulses.

“Specimen-Nine remains unresponsive to verbal stimulus,” she dictated into her recorder. “However, we registered a two-percent jump in hypothalamic activity after the last glucose infusion. Increasing dose.”

A junior tech, Patel, hesitated. “Dr. Mallory, isn’t that over protocol limits?”

She shot him a look. “Project Lazarus overrides protocol. Go on, spike it.”

Patel thumbed the syringe. The infusion line glowed brighter. Seconds stretched. The monitors clicked up again.

Then the eyes opened.

Mallory froze. The alien pupils narrowed to slits, fixed on her, and the speakers that monitored fluid vibrations hissed with a wet, guttural growl.

A half sonar ping, half ancient curse. A pressure wave rattled the glass. Monitors flat-lined, then flared red.

“Get security,” Mallory whispered. “Now.”