CHAPTER 60: HUMAN TRIAL

  Randall crouched in the shadows, eyes locked on the service entrance. His fingers tightened around the syringe in his pocket. Not a weapon. Just something to incapacitate the guard for an hour or two. But one wrong move, one cry for help reaching the wrong ears, and his night ended in cuffs or a body bag.

  The door groaned open.

  Randall froze, muscles taut. Moonlight brushed the syringe as he uncapped it, a flash of silver, salvation and damnation forged together. The guard stepped out, keys jingling softly.

  The door began to close.

  Now.

  Randall lunged. Drove the needle deep into the man’s thigh, depressing the plunger before the guard could shout.

  The man sagged, gasping. Shock more than pain. His knees buckled. Randall caught him under the arms, easing him down. Still breathing. Pulse steady.

  He stripped the badge from the guard's belt and pressed it to the reader. The lock disengaged with a whisper-soft click. Beyond the threshold, fluorescent lights buzzed in erratic rhythm, their stutter matching the tremor in Randall's hands as he slipped inside. His boots whispered against the tile.

  Each step echoed with flashbacks of his past: Lily curled on the couch in his office, her battered octopus plush clutched to her chest while he charted web patterns under the microscope. White coats nodding approval when the first splice took.

  Then the end.

  Subject 4-A. The beagle, Buttons. Each breath was a ragged, wet gasp. Her eyes glazed, sinking deep into their sockets. Protocol demanded they wait for the end, to measure the degradation.

  Randall hadn't waited. His voice was the softest it had ever been. “I’m sorry. I won’t let them hurt you anymore.”

  Then the shame of being escorted out by security. The hearing. The professional blacklist spreading like cancer through his career.

  They only see data. No compassion. No empathy.

  The refrigeration vault loomed at the end of the corridor like a tomb. He swiped the badge. The lock disengaged with a faint hiss, and a blast of cold air rolled out, stinging his face.

  Inside, the vial waited like a captured star.

  It sat in its cradle like something holy, glowing with soft emerald light that seemed to breathe. Within the liquid, currents moved in deliberate spirals, not random Brownian motion, but something approaching intention. Galaxies caught in glass, waiting.

  Randall’s breath misted in the cold air. He reached for it, the glass biting cold through his gloves, and tucked it deep into his coat. He grabbed a foam container of spider eggs and stashed it beside the vial.

  The alarm screamed.

  A shrill howl bathed the halls in crimson, drowning every thought in urgency.

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  Randall bolted. Boots hammered tile. Shouts echoed behind him, closer than he’d expected. He cut left, dodging an equipment cart, muscle memory navigating corridors he'd walked for three years. He slammed through a side exit into the night. Night air cooled his burning lungs.

  A fence loomed, chain-link and rusted. He climbed. Metal rattled like bones; every clink louder than his heartbeat. He hit the far side hard, rolled, pushed up. Listened.

  Shouts, fainter now. They hadn’t seen him.

  The warehouse crouched at the edge of the industrial strip, a black shape against the skyline. Windows broken and rimmed with grime. A hollow shell, like him.

  He slipped inside.

  Dust swirled in the weak moonlight, settling on broken pallets and rusted beams. The space was silent, save for his own breath.

  In the center of the concrete floor, Randall knelt. Drew the vial from his coat. Set it before him.

  The liquid shifted and coiled, not like water, but like something aware. The glow wasn’t bright, but it breathed. It waited.

  It didn’t look like much. Just soft, green light. But Randall had seen it distort fields, bend light, pull energy from fractures in the fabric of reality. The lattice inside wasn’t an evolutionary accident. It was architecture. A design.

  Not a glow. A reach.

  Dimentricity.

  No one believed him. Not the company. Not the journals. Without the source, he was just another disgraced researcher ranting about impossible discoveries.

  But if this worked…

  He could prove it. Rebuild his name. Or at least make enough to keep Lily safe, warm, fed.

  She’d always loved the light. Green like spring leaves, like magic.

  “Is it science magic?” she’d whispered once, pressing her fingers to the glass.

  “Yes,” he’d said. Because he needed it to be.

  After they reviewed the logs, they’d taken everything: his research, his badge, his reputation. Called it all proprietary intellectual property, even the late-night experiments he'd conducted on personal time.

  This vial was his last chance.

  He stood and stripped off his pants. The cold gnawed at his skin. From his coat pocket, he removed the tattoo gun, checked the charge. Battery at ninety percent.

  They’d find the vial if he hid it anywhere. They couldn’t take it if it was him.

  He poured the contents of the vial into the tattoo gun's reservoir. The liquid hissed as it touched the metal, sending up faint curls of steam. Not a mixture meant for skin. Maybe not survivable.

  Maybe Lily wouldn’t even recognize him when it was done.

  It didn’t matter. His life was already shrinking to overdue notices and Lily’s quiet disappointment. If this worked, maybe she’d have something better than memories of a father who failed.

  He gritted his teeth and began.

  The first puncture was lightning, searing, electric, vibrating through bone. His vision fractured: spider legs tapping glass, webs twisting into vortices, emerald light bleeding through the air like fog.

  The tattoo gun whirred, etching his skin with threads that squirmed. Sweat stung his eyes. The room warped, walls dissolving into a cavern strung with glowing webs, their centers pulsing like alien hearts. Something was watching.

  Randall blinked. The tattoo was done. Blood and luminous ooze wept from the fresh lines, shimmering like oil on water. A green nucleus pulsed beneath his skin, veiled in mist, a nebula trapped in flesh.

  Done. Not what he’d dreamed of, back in the lab, glowing spider webs in museum exhibits, accolades, clean rooms and grants. Just pain, regret, and a cheap ink kit in an abandoned warehouse.

  But it worked.

  No one would find the liquid now. Not in a vial, not in his pocket, not in a bag. It was under his skin, part of him. He could walk through scanners, checkpoints, customs, and no one would know.

  Sirens wailed in the distance, their chorus growing louder as multiple units converged on his location. Strobes painted the warehouse walls in red and blue. Randall pulled his pants back on, every motion a fresh lance of pain. The tattoo throbbed, steady and bright.

  Alive.

  The glow didn’t fade. If anything, it deepened.

  A rhythm pulsed beneath his skin. Not his own. Not human.

  A bridge had opened.

  Something stirred on the other side.

  Curious. Ancient. Aware.

  Calling to him with patient hunger.

  He limped toward the rear exit, the web pulsing on his leg like it had caught something.

  Somewhere else...

  A monk seated before an ancient glyph dropped his ink brush. The Veil trembled.

  He turned toward the wind. “A signal,” he whispered.

  “It’s started.”