When the thrumming mass of pulp and flesh had finally been excavated from the corpse it plopped from the machine’s grasp onto the ground. Like molten slag in a furnace, it made waves in the air it touched.

  Instead of being disturbed, Odette eagerly took a step forward to examine the curious object.

  ‘Thankfully, this doesn’t appear to be one of the spore vesiculas, otherwise even I would have had to raise the contamination alert despite my secrecy here.’

  They had scans, but still not a complete picture of the mutant’s insides, complex as they were. If Odette had lanced one of the disease-carrying sacs within the beast they knew were there and brought it out into the containment tarp, she’d be forced to sound an alarm.

  Just because she no longer trusted her colleges’ intentions didn’t mean she wanted them harmed.

  Odette looked from the fibrous globule to the threads it was still attached to, feeding from the other side of the saccule she had cut past.

  The scene reminded her of a past lecture he had been in at the academy years ago. One on complex organisms and their capabilities of propagation, that she had thought at the time to be particularly discomforting.

  ‘Just because I’m a woman everyone had expected me to take that class, what a shit time that had been… but the examples from back then kind of remind me of this. Could this be the beast’s progeny? If so this could be a major breakthrough.’

  Odette prodded the mass, the clawed machine sinking a bit into it, before hitting something more solid. It was multilayered?

  If that was the case, she could throw that theory out the window. Even if Odette wanted nothing more than for her prototype to be the reason for a grand discovery, she needed to be prepared for anything she found to be dissected and scrutinized by her superiors.

  Hell, maybe even the subordinate researchers would criticise it too! Nothing during these past few days had made sense anyway.

  Looking at the mysterious organ now, even she didn’t believe it was the mutant’s offspring, so how could she defend that unlikely finding herself?

  To date, the scientific community in the Republic and its allied nations had documented exactly zero cases of mutant beast reproduction in the wild, with the same number regarding those in captivity.

  Perhaps the Ambers had some luck in that field, but the chance that information would be shared with the Republic was infinitely close to zero.

  Regardless, the general consensus was that if such an eventuality was discovered, it would follow suit with the unmutated examples of lifeforms in nature and bear proportionally-sized offspring.

  With the specimen being the size of a small house, its offspring being smaller than Odette’s fist didn’t make much sense.

  Like how an elephant would always have elephant-sized babies, not puppy or mouse size.

  ‘But it still could be something important. A technical organ of some kind that we missed in the first samples.’

  Odette looked around the space within the containment tarp. She really wanted to dissect it as soon as possible, but there was really no good surface within reach for that. She would have to take it outside first, and in order to do that she needed to disconnect it from the rest of the specimen.

  The mysterious organ was still attached to the rest of the creature by discolored strings resembling umbilical cords, so Odette grabbed her prototype and cut them down like she was traversing a jungle with a weed wacker.

  She met some resistance, even with the short titanium blades she had taken from the supply tent to use for the claw, but eventually she was down to the last string.

  Unlike the rest before it, at the slightest bit of pressure the string of flesh began to snap seemingly on its own. Nearly as if it were waiting for the opportunity. Once that happened, something within the surroundings changed immediately.

  An unsettling wave washed through the surrounding air in that moment before dissipating, going unnoticed by the researcher beneath her protective suit.

  WWWHHHRRRRRRRRRRRR

  The background hum of generators Odette hadn’t noticed until now suddenly died down.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  The standing lights blinked out.

  The stabilizing equipment around the specimen sputtered and shut off.

  “What the hell?”

  Odette spun around. Even past the outside of the tarp, the changing scene was evident.

  Every single light, the poles that cameras sat atop, the radios within tents.

  Each shut off at precisely the same moment: a fraction of a second after Odette had cut the last bit of flesh between the strange organ and the rest of the mutant’s body.

  Her eyes strained in the sudden darkness as she looked around the space. Her mind swam as she fought against panic, attempting to figure out quickly what had happened.

  ‘The containment tarp and all of its equipment have just gone offline. No, it's the whole camp? Are we under attack?’

  The Ambers? Had they arrived to seize the specimen?

  She was experienced in the sciences, yes, but not much else. The realm of politics had poignantly eluded Odette her whole career, but even more distant were matters of military.

  Odette, who had never wanted to use her expertise for making weapons, couldn’t even picture what suffering an attack at the encampment would look like, so all sorts of imaginations came to mind at once.

  She knew the Principality had better satellite imaging than they did, but surely the Ambers didn’t have the incentive to risk open conflict for a specimen with still uncertain value. Did they?

  Odette shook her head. Looking at the unresponsive machine in her hands, she tried inputting commands into her prototype with rapid movements, but to no avail. It had gone dark, like everything else.

  “Shit! Okay, no! Don’t panic…”

  ‘Think! What’s priority number one? Avoiding contamination.’

  Odette heaved the prototype against some boxes, putting it in the corner of the tent. She checked her protective suit first, making sure all of her body was covered by its lining.

  It was without electronics, but completion of a task would bring her down from panic. She needed to stay busy. Think about the next problem, and solve it. Once that was done, she scanned the beast’s corpse in front of her.

  ‘No visible emissions, I guess that will have to do. Even without the stabilizers, the tarp’s integrity should keep any contaminants at bay for a bit, but if there’s nothing in here running to sterilize the atmosphere things could turn bad fast. What the hell happened to the electricity?’

  Odette wanted to turn to that matter, but there was still the possibility of an attack to deal with.

  If the camp had been sabotaged, then she could only leave once she confirmed the risk of the specimen’s contamination was zero.

  Hopefully that would take only another few min…Odette stopped mid-movement.

  “--no, I’m asking you! What the hell happened to the lights? And where’s the chief engineer?”

  Odette’s eyes widened as she heard a rough voice cut through the camp.

  The voice was quiet, but only due to how far away it was coming from. Odette was able to recognize the source of the shouting almost immediately, a realization that carried with it conflicting emotions.

  The commander over the encampment’s military presence, Major Smirnov. While his leaving of the airship park situated on the hills by the encampment meant that they were likely not under attack, he was also the last person Odette wanted to be discovered by right now.

  Even if they weren’t under attack, Odette still couldn’t let anyone see her working in here without permission. The now-mystery of the sudden black out would have to wait.

  A faint light passed over her.

  They had flashlights that Odette could see through the tarp. Dim, but approaching her location. From where they were, they’d have to pass through the center of camp to get to the generators on the other side, no doubt their destination, yet they’d likely stop to check on the specimen’s containment.

  “--No it doesn’t matter that he’s asleep, I want you to get him out here right now…yes right now! Don’t make me tell you again son!”

  His voice was getting louder. She had to move, now!

  Odette looked around quickly for what she could take. Her prototype? She bit her lip in frustration. She couldn’t, it was too heavy. Odette quickly laid some boxes over its position in the corner of the tarp.

  She would have to come back for it in the morning, when all of this mess was sorted out. She vowed as she picked up the disconnected organ before leaving.

  Running out of the containment tarp, Odette held onto the firm sphere of flesh in one hand as she ducked around the oncoming flashlights.

  Odette swiftly hid behind a tent as the Major and his orderlies passed.

  “God damn! The hell is that smell? Ferguson, is that you?”

  The Major and his attendants stopped before the central tarp. The Major had become revolted at once by some kind of smell? Odette guessed as she watched the group from her cover. From the stains on the desert floor below them however, it was clear what they were all gagging at.

  ‘Oh no! The blood!’

  Of course. The tarp’s systems were down, so she hadn’t been disinfected in the corridor. She was still covered in the grime and filth from the specimen, and had left a trail of it through camp. She cursed her stupidity.

  ‘Shit. I need to get this suit off.’

  Odette’s eyes wandered to an open tent not twenty feet from her. The IDS tent.

  Problem was the path in between her and the tent was nearly twenty feet of open space, desert stones illuminated by moonlight.

  Running there could put her right in their sights if she wasn’t careful.