Dr. Evelina Rae | 9 Scenes | Nexus City

The pedestrian collision hits like a syringe to the neck—one second she’s counting sewer grates (sixteen since Virtue Perimeter), the next her nervous system floods with foreign biology. Except—

No age estimation. No sex hormone signature. No power resonance waves. Just— "Keratinocytes arranged in fractal patterns. Collagen alignment suggests voluntary structural—"

Evelina staggers against a flickering neon sign. Her glove sticks to its condensation—E. coli colonies thriving in rust runoff—but she’s tracking the retreating figure. Too tall. Too fluid. Shoulders absorbing streetlight at wrong angles.

"Not Manifest. Not Null. Not possible unless—" Her Hygeia-trained brain supplies the answer even as her Grid survival instincts scream to run:

Chimera.

From the Gloom Belt. Inside city limits. The creature—because nothing human moves like vertebrae rotating separate from ribcage—pauses beneath a shattered streetlamp. Turns its head. Not all the way. Just enough to flash iris-less white. A sound thrums in her jawbone—subvocal communication or auditory hallucination? The message deciphers itself against her will:

"Little thief. Your stolen files have such curious gaps."

Then it dissolves into the Old Core’s foot traffic, leaving Evelina vibrating with violated biology. She realizes three things simultaneou*

Her pendant is humming Her gloves have split seams from clutching a brick wall The Grid checkpoint ahead suddenly swarms with Aegis patrols

And she—armed with nothing but compromised biometrics and half-purged evidence chips—must choose: Push forward through scanners that’ll detect her stashed data? Or follow the thing that shouldn’t exist?

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The donor lounge at Hygeia smelled of bergamot disinfectant. The scent made Evelina's stomach turn. She stood frozen just inside the doorway, her gloved hand gripping the frame. Inside, a high-ranking Manifest from Spectra Studios was casually donating a blood sample, boasting about his latest ratings. To everyone else, he was a man. To Evelina, he was a walking, talking medical chart of vanity surgeries, latent genetic illnesses, and the faint, cloying sweetness of a recreational drug he thought was secret. She forced a neutral expression, her left eyelid twitching. "The next donor is ready, Doctor," a nurse said. Evelina took a sharp breath and stepped into the room, the data flood beginning anew.

Her apartment was dark, the only light coming from the neon sign of a bakery across the street. The smell of burnt sugar was a blessing; it was the only thing strong enough to mask the biological signatures of the city. Evelina sat on the floor, back against the cold refrigerator, a stolen bottle of Hygeia-grade ethanol in her hand. She was drunk, gloriously, blessedly dull. The data stream was a muffled echo. She fumbled with the cotton of her shirt—real cotton, not the synthetic blend Hygeia provided—and tried to remember what it felt like to be touched without knowing everything. The pendant around her neck felt cold. She wondered if her mother had tried to call.

The cold stainless steel of the morgue drawer was the only thing that brought her numbness. Evelina leaned her forehead against it, eyes closed, trying to block out the world. The autopsy on the Null gladiator was complete. The official cause of death was "traumatic injury." The unofficial report, seared into her mind from a single touch, was a symphony of tailored pathogens, experimental combat stims, and long-term organ damage from a dozen previous "matches." She hummed an old Null lullaby, a fragment of a memory from a childhood she could barely afford to remember. The song was a weak dam against the truth. She had just helped cover up another murder for the entertainment of the Spires.

The glass sweats onto copper countertop veins. Evelina counts them like autopsy sutures. Three empty tumblers already blur in her periphery—vodka-cut-with-formaldehyde burn down her throat.

"Liver enzymes elevated. Early fibrosis. Drink number four accelerates necrosis by—"

She slams palms to bartop. Leather gloves muffle the stool's shriek but not the wood's cellular shiver: Oak. 62 years old. Fungal rot in growth rings 14 through—

Vos slides another murky pour. His thumbprint smudges the rim.

"Staphylococcus aureus colony forming. Recent knife wound to left—"

"Christ's sake, Linnie." His Null-branded eyelid twitches—benign tremor or early neurological— "Either drink it or weep in it."

Ice cubes fracture under her teeth. The alcohol almost drowns out the bar's biological cacophony:

• The couple arguing over split beer (*his cortisol spikes match Hygeia stress trial subjects)
• The pickpocket's fungal nailbed (same strain as Grid orphanage outbreak)
• Her own trembling fingers (lymphocyte count dropping again)

Then—new presence. Heat. Breath.

"Leather jacket. Male. 28-32. Saliva traces indicate recent—"

"You're that Hygeia doc." His elbow brushes her sleeve.

Raw dermis data floods her synapses: "Epithelial scarring consistent with power suppressor burns. Subcutaneous RFID tag—Aegis black ops. Oh god oh god he's—"

Evelina reaches for her pendant through two glove layers. The stranger's smile widens.

"Relax, doctor." He taps his communicator—same model as her supervisors'. "We noticed your... creative accounting on Subject 218's toxicology."

The fifth drink arrives unbidden. It tastes like termination papers and tracer chemicals.

The email blinks on her terminal like a failing vitals monitor.

FROM: Director Halstrom SUBJECT: ETA-881 Trial Prioritization "...Spire clientele require demonstration units by Ascension Week. Adjust specimen rotation accordingly."

Evelina's gloves creak around a coffee mug. The ceramic whispers: Clay sourced from Grid riverbanks. Fecal coliform levels 3x safe—

She swallows anyway. The liquid hits her stomach with a data dump: *"Caffeine concentration 72mg/dL. Synthetic sweetener trace amounts. Contaminants matching subject drainage hoses—

The elevator dings.

Gurney wheels squeal down corridor 7B—that particular pitch means adolescent weight distribution. Her power serves up stats before she turns: *"Estimated age range 13-16. Elevated white blood cells suggest recent branding. Femoral bruising indicates struggle restraints—

"Morning, Doctor!" The orderly's grin exposes early-stage gingivitis. "Got you a fresh batch of enthusiastic volunteers."

The sheet shifts. Small fingers clutch at air.

*"Nail beds bitten to quick. Vitamin D deficiency. Subcutaneous RFID tag detected—

Evelina's pen clicks. Clickclickclick. The sound barely covers the whimper as the gurney passes bay twelve—the one where last week's subject left hair follicles embedded in restraint buckles.

Her terminal pings again: REMINDER: TODAY'S PROGRESS REPORT DUE TO SPECTRA STUDIOS FOR PROMO REELS

The gloves aren't enough today. She reaches for the emergency drawer—the one with industrial-grade sensory dampeners behind the sterilization manuals.

Somewhere beneath her ribs, mother's pendant grows warmer. Or maybe that's just gastric erosion from pretending she doesn't recognize Junction 9's trademark cheekbone scars on today's delivery.

The morning memo glows toxic green on her terminal: "TRIAL VX-2919: APPROVAL FOR EXPEDITED PEDIATRIC TESTING"

Evelina’s glove seams whine as she fists the printout. The paper fibers whisper: "Bleached pulp. Trace lithium from handler’s sweat. Fold creases indicate—"

She crushes it against the sterilization unit. The incinerator belches.

Across the lab, Subject Prep hums with fresh arrivals. Their sneakers squeak— "Adolescent gait patterns. Synthetic rubber soles. Heart rates averaging—"

“Doctor?” The intern proffers a tray. Tiny vials clink. “Control samples for baseline.”

The liquid winks sapphire under LEDs. One drop would make a Spire socialite trade their firstborn for the high. Her scalpel trembles near the first child’s arm— "Epidermal thickness: 1.2mm. Capillary dilation suggests—"

The visitor’s shadow stretches across the stainless steel. Evelina doesn’t turn. Their silence is louder than the HVAC’s scream.

She knows that silhouette. The Hygeia lanyard without badge chime. The Aegis-issue boots that never track blood.

Whoever they are—watcher, collaborator, conscience—they’re here for the numbers.

The scalpel descends. "Dermal layer separation requires 4.3 newtons of—" A child whimpers. The blade veers—deliberate error—grazing just shy of viable tissue depth.

The visitor exhales. Approval? Disappointment?

The Black Market in the Old Core was a risk, but it was the only place to get untraceable medical supplies. Evelina, hood drawn low, passed a case of stolen sedatives to a furtive Grid contact. "For the medics. The dosage is... precise. Don't mess it up." Her voice was low, laced with the cadence of the Grid Cant she'd worked so hard to erase. The contact nodded, his gratitude a sharp, coppery taste in the air that she felt even through her layers. Suddenly, an Aegis patrol rounded the corner. Evelina's heart hammered. She turned away, pulling her hood tighter, becoming just another anonymous figure in the crowd, her blood running cold with the fear of being recognized by either side.

The hum of the Hygeia laboratory was a constant, sterile drone, a sound Dr. Evelina Rae had learned to cling to. It was better than the silence, where the other noise began. Her gloved hands moved with practiced, efficient precision over the sample tray, her touch—even through layers of nitrile and leather—feeding her a torrent of unwanted data: cellular degradation, foreign pathogen load, genetic markers for early-onset muscular dystrophy...

'Statistically insignificant,' she muttered to herself, the mantra a weak shield against the onslaught. She made a notation on her datapad, her jaw clenching imperceptibly as she deliberately transposed two digits in the pH level. A small error. One that would ruin this particular sample batch, granting a reprieve to the Null donor listed on the file.

A pneumatic hiss made her flinch violently, her left eyelid twitching. A colleague leaned into the lab. "Rae, the 12-phase interval logs on the juvenile resilience study? The directors want them. They say it's a priority."

Evelina's blood ran cold. Juvenile. The word echoed, and with it came a ghost of a sensation—the screaming truth of a little girl's bones from a file she'd tried to forget. She rubbed the hidden pendant through her lab coat fabric, a desperate anchor.

"The logs..." she said, her voice strained but professionally even. "Yes. I'll have them... precisely... reviewed."