NX1000

THE WORST PART WAS realizing our mistake.

I had a bevy of technicians who monitored everything, both inside our compound and out: solar flares, biotic and abiotic experiments, precipitation, profits, everything. Our funding was unconventional, definitely under the table, but it was ample and sustained us.

Sometimes I wondered how the public would react if they knew their government was funneling money to NEXTech, a practice reviled for its lack of ethics and controversial experiments, but that was the least of my concern. The government paid for the perfect soldier and it was my job to deliver.

Jin, my most competent tech, was watching the security cameras in the Hannister Wing, which contained some of our most successful and dangerous experiments, when her face lost all its color. I had glanced up from where I was typing a report on what I called Renoir's Helix, my own creation found solely in experiment NX1000, when I heard Jin calling for me. "Dr. Renoir," Her words were not quite smooth but not quite turbulent either, carrying a nearly imperceptible undercurrent of fear. "Could you come here?"

Rushing to her would alert the staff to a problem so I walked leisurely even though I knew something was amiss. No one ever asked me to review good footage, or confirm good results. "What's the issue?"

She waited until I had my focus entirely on the screen before she pressed play.

***

EXPERIMENT NX1000 WASN'T OUR riskiest project, but it had the biggest payoff. It was mainly engineering DNA, a bit of this mixed with a bit of that, although the samples were primarily human. Only one of our subjects, a female, had survived infancy, and then she moved effortlessly through childhood, teenage and adult development. All progression stopped when she reached the age of twenty three years, five months and eleven days.

Of course, we didn't have to wait that long. Our labs could stimulate cell growth without causing cancer which effectively sped development twenty fold. NX1000 was formed in her entirety eleven months after her creation and her potential proved to be even more than we had hoped for.

She was extraordinary-- gravity did not hold her, she could move faster than the eye could see, could alter her physical form, and could mimic voices perfectly. Sometimes we thought she could tell what were thinking, too, but we had no tests to prove that.

Her progress overshadowed the past failures and had made her well worth the wait. She had even been given the name Nessa as a reward for her success.

She was NEXTech's prize, my pride, an initial prototype for more than just the perfect soldier: she was proof that humans could be successfully and selectively modified at a level as intrinsic as our DNA. This revelation changed everything, although it would not be the change I planned for.

***

THE FOOTAGE SHOCKED ME into silence, which, in all my years amidst corruption and controversy, was a first. I replayed the security feed four times, hoping for a glitch, but I knew what we saw was accurate.

Experiment NX1000 had escaped from the Hannister Wing. She killed everyone she saw and then copied their appearance so she could slip through our security protocols. The iris scanners let her through countless times as she impersonated trusted employees, fingerprint readers fooled by the skin she donned.

Watching this, I understood the phrase a wolf in sheep's clothing for the first time in my life.

By the time reality sunk in, she was nearly to the top floor, on her way to me, likely wanting revenge for the testing she'd endured. I watched in amazement as she deceived the security systems, even after we sounded the alarms that supposedly locked the compound down.

She was smarter than I even realized.

She looked at the security cameras like she knew I was watching, like she wanted me to know that despite my vast array of knowledge, despite the fact I created her, I was her prey and she outmatched me a thousand to one.

Renoir's Helix made her superior, the ultimate predator, just as I designed her to be.

NEXTech's staff below the Hannister Wing had been able to evacuate, but those above the seventeenth story were trapped, including everyone on the top floor with me. I could hear gunshots echo through the large room, some of the techs committing suicide, but I stayed in Jin's chair and watched my most prized experiment seek me.

And then she was there, in the room, staring me down. She disappeared for a split second and everything went quiet. I looked behind me and saw the techs' bodies neatly lined against the wall, some bloodied, some with their spines twisted at unnatural angles, all of them dead. They received a quick death, which sounded like an odd form of mercy to me.

When I turned back around Nessa was before me, close enough to touch. She had reverted back to her natural appearance, effectively shedding the sheep's skin she had worn, letting me see the wolf in her as her blue eyes studied me, strength evident in the muscles beneath her olive skin.

"Dr. Renoir," She said, her voice smooth as satin but less remarkable than the rest of her. She wasn't pitching or impersonating; instead she was just speaking, existing on her own, not changing anything. The testing we had made her change, show her success, prove her abilities time and time again; not changing was a subtle form of rebellion. "It's nice to see you."

She outstretched her hand, blood in various stages of coagulation streaked across her skin, and waited for me to shake it, her eyes sharp and cunning and analytical. Superior. She was being civil but I knew it would end and, after that, there would be pain. Subtle rebellion could only last so long, could only compensate for so much.

I thought the worst part was realizing our mistake.

I was wrong.