Dr. Carlos Marsh stood in Conference Room B at Fort Harrison, watching Colonel Arthur Brennan flip through the progress report for the third time. Outside the window, the Louisiana sun beat down on the parade ground where a platoon ran formation drills. Marsh could hear the cadence call through the glass, faint and rhythmic.

  Brennan set the folder down. He was fifty-two, gray at the temples, with the kind of face that had seen too many classified briefings to be surprised by much. But his jaw was tight.

  “Three years,” Brennan said. “One hundred fifty million dollars. And you’re telling me you have zero viable subjects.”

  “We have data,” Marsh said. “Extensive data on how the serum interacts with human tissue. What we don’t have is a way to prevent rejection.”

  “That’s what I’m hearing. Zero viable subjects.” Brennan leaned back in his chair. “The oversight committee is asking questions, Dr. Marsh. Hard questions. They want to know why Project Death Claw is burning through taxpayer money with nothing to show for it.”

  Marsh’s fingers tapped against his thigh. “The werewolf DNA is unstable. We’ve known that since the beginning.”

  “Then find a way to stabilize it.”

  “We’re trying. Dr. Carroll and I have been running simulations for six months. We need more time.”

  “You don’t have more time.” Brennan pulled another folder from his briefcase and slid it across the table. “This is from Defense Advanced Research Projects. They’re developing synthetic combat enhancements that don’t require genetic modification. If Death Claw doesn’t produce results by next quarter, funding gets reallocated.”

  Marsh opened the folder. Pages of technical specifications, performance metrics, cost projections. He closed it without reading past the first page.

  “Synthetic enhancements won’t give you what you want,” Marsh said. “You want soldiers who can heal from gunshot wounds in hours. Who can track enemies by scent. Who have reflexes fast enough to dodge incoming fire. That requires genetic integration. Pills and injections won’t cut it.”

  Brennan stood. “You have until September. After that, I can’t protect this project anymore.”

  Marsh gathered his files and walked out. The hallway was empty, fluorescent lights humming overhead. He took the elevator down to the parking garage and sat in his car for five minutes, staring at the steering wheel.

  Three years of his life. Three years of watching test subjects convulse on gurneys, vomiting blood, screaming as their bones broke and reformed wrong. Three years of failure dressed up as progress in quarterly reports.

  He started the car and drove.

  By seven-thirty that evening, Marsh was three beers deep at Remy’s, a dive bar on the edge of Bayou Mounds that catered to locals who didn’t care about ambiance. The jukebox played Zydeco too loud. The air conditioner rattled. The bartender, a woman in her sixties named Louise, wiped down glasses and ignored everyone unless they waved money.

  Tom Guidry slid onto the barstool beside Marsh. He was forty-one, a civil engineer for the city, with a perpetually sunburned face and hands that smelled like machine oil no matter how much he scrubbed them.

  “You look like hell,” Tom said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Rough day?”

  “You could say that.” Marsh finished his beer and signaled Louise for another. “Brennan’s threatening to pull funding.”

  Tom ordered a whiskey. “The werewolf project?”

  “Don’t call it that.”

  “That’s what it is though, right? You’re trying to turn soldiers into werewolves.”

  Marsh rubbed his temples. “It’s genetic enhancement. Controlled and reversible. Nothing like the folklore.”

  “Except when it kills people.”

  “Yeah. Soldiers do that too.” Marsh accepted the fresh beer from Louise and took a long drink. “Carroll’s losing it. He barely talks anymore. Just stares at the samples like they’re going to suddenly start working if he looks hard enough.”

  “Maybe you should shut it down,” Tom said. “Find a different project. Something that doesn’t involve playing God.”

  “It’s too late for that.” Marsh set the bottle down. “Even if I wanted to walk away, they’d just replace me with someone else. Someone who might care even less about the ethical implications.”

  Tom sipped his whiskey. “You ever think about what happens if it works? If you actually create super soldiers? What they’ll do with them?”

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Every day.”

  “And?”

  “And I hope I never find out.”

  They sat in silence for a minute. The jukebox switched songs. Someone at the pool table cursed loudly.

  “You working tomorrow?” Tom asked.

  “Yeah. Carroll wants to run another round of stability tests. Why?”

  “Just wondering if you’d have time to look at the drainage project specs I emailed you. City’s being cheap about materials again.”

  “I’ll look at them this weekend.”

  Tom finished his whiskey and stood. “Take care of yourself, Carlos. You’re no good to anyone if you burn out.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Tom left. Marsh stayed for another hour, nursing his beer, watching ESPN on the TV above the bar without really seeing it. By the time he paid his tab and drove home, it was past ten. He fell asleep on the couch with his shoes still on.

  Monica Scales stood in the parking lot of the Bayou Mounds Regional Planning Office, reviewing the zoning application on her tablet while her assistant Trina fielded phone calls in the car. The afternoon sun was brutal, turning the asphalt into a griddle. Monica’s blazer was too hot for the weather, but image mattered. Always image.

  “The network’s pushing for a decision on Season Four by Friday,” Trina called through the open window.

  “Tell them I’ll have an answer Monday,” Monica said without looking up.

  “They’re not going to like that.”

  “They’ll deal with it.”

  The zoning application was a mess. Too many restrictions on commercial development in the corridor she’d been eyeing for months. She’d need to petition the board, grease a few palms, make the right people understand that progress meant money. And money meant votes.

  Her phone buzzed. A text from Calus.

  Gym tonight? 7?

  She typed back. Can’t. Have a showing at 6. Tomorrow?

  Works.

  Monica pocketed her phone and walked back to the car. Trina was still on a call, nodding along to whatever the person on the other end was saying. Monica slid into the passenger seat and pulled up her schedule. Two showings tonight, one in the morning. A lunch meeting with investors. An interview for a local magazine about women in real estate. Her calendar was a Tetris game where every block was color-coded and nothing had room to shift.

  “We’re good,” Trina said, ending her call. “The Victorian on Magnolia is confirmed for next week’s shoot. Permits are filed. Crew’s booked.”

  “Good.” Monica checked her watch. “Drop me at the Riverside property. I’ll drive myself to the evening showings.”

  Trina pulled out of the parking lot. They drove through downtown Bayou Mounds, past the new tech offices going up on Third Street, past the renovated waterfront where tourists wandered between boutiques. The city was growing fast.

  And Monica intended to profit from every square foot of it.

  The next morning, Dr. Marsh arrived at the lab at six-fifteen. The facility sat behind ten feet of chain-link and razor wire, guard station manned by two armed contractors who checked his ID badge before waving him through. The building itself was squat and utilitarian, gray concrete with narrow windows and ventilation systems that hummed loud enough to hear from the parking lot.

  Inside, the air was cold and sterile. Marsh walked past the security checkpoint, through two locked doors that required both badge access and retinal scan, and into the main lab.

  Dr. Bill Carroll was already there. He stood at the containment station, staring at the row of glass vials that glowed faint blue under the UV lights. He didn’t turn when Marsh entered.

  “Morning,” Marsh said.

  Carroll didn’t respond. His hands were flat on the counter. His shoulders were hunched forward.

  “Bill?”

  “I can’t do this anymore,” Carroll said quietly.

  Marsh set his briefcase down. “What are you talking about?”

  “This. All of this.” Carroll gestured at the vials. “We’re creating monsters, Carlos. We tell ourselves it’s for defense, for protection, but that’s a lie. We’re making weapons!”

  “We knew what this was when we signed on.”

  “I didn’t.” Carroll finally turned. His eyes were red-rimmed, shadowed with sleeplessness. “I thought we were going to cure diseases. Regenerate damaged tissue. Save lives. Sara died because medicine couldn’t fix her. I joined this program thinking maybe, just maybe, we could prevent that from happening to other people.” His voice cracked. “But this isn’t medicine. It’s damnation.”

  Marsh stepped closer. “Bill, you need to take a break. Go home. Get some sleep. We’ll talk about this when you’re clearheaded.”

  “I am clearheaded.” Carroll pulled a red fuel canister from under the counter. “For the first time in three years, I’m seeing this clearly.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Ending it.”

  Carroll unscrewed the cap. The sharp smell of gasoline filled the lab instantly. He started pouring, liquid splashing across the tile floor, pooling beneath the equipment stations.

  “Bill, stop!” Marsh moved toward him. Carroll stepped back, still pouring, fuel soaking into the gaps between tiles.

  “This should never have existed,” Carroll said. “The sample should’ve stayed buried. We should’ve left it alone.”

  “Put the canister down. We can talk about this.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.” Carroll set the empty canister aside and pulled a matchbook from his pocket. “Goodbye, Carlos. I’m sorry.”

  “Bill, don’t—”

  Carroll struck the match. The flame danced in his hand for half a second before he dropped it.

  The gasoline ignited instantly. Fire raced across the floor in ribbons of orange and blue, spreading faster than Marsh could process. He stumbled backward as heat slammed into him like a physical wall.

  The flames reached the containment station. The glass vials shattered in rapid succession, each one popping like a gunshot. Blue liquid spilled into the fire. The reaction was immediate and violent. A deep, bass-heavy boom shook the building. The containment chamber ruptured as metal twisted and concrete cracked.

  Marsh ran. He made it to the first door before the explosion hit. The blast wave picked him up and threw him forward. He crashed into the hallway wall, skull bouncing off cinderblock. His vision went white, then black, then red. When he looked back, the lab was gone.

  Smoke poured through the doorway. Flames climbed the walls. And through the smoke, he saw something else. Tiny blue motes, glowing faintly, carried upward by the heat. Microscopic particles of the serum, aerosolized, rising into the ventilation system and out through the shattered roof into the humid Louisiana afternoon.

  “Oh my God,” Marsh whispered. “Bill, what did you do?”

  Sirens wailed in the distance. Marsh stumbled to his feet and ran.

  By the time emergency services arrived, the building was fully engulfed. Fire trucks lined the access road, their hoses spraying water that turned to steam before it hit the flames. News helicopters circled overhead. A perimeter was established three blocks out, yellow tape and barricades keeping civilians back while firefighters worked.