S5 Episode Four: "Stained Lab Notes"

The readings were off the charts. 

Dr. Julius Mythos stared at the scrolling data cascading across the bank of monitors before him, each screen painting his gaunt face in shifting hues of blue and amber. The lines of genetic markers and cellular activity graphs reflected in the thick lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses as he continued to examine the information, his weathered fingers unconsciously drumming against the metal desk. The underground secret laboratory hummed with the constant thrum of machinery – centrifuges spinning, computers processing, and somewhere in the distance, the steady drip of condensation from the pipes that snaked along the concrete ceiling.

A few words came to mind as he absorbed the implications:

Unprecedented… The cellular regeneration rates were unlike anything in documented science.

Tremendous… The subject's strength had increased exponentially, far beyond their initial projections.

Powerful… The adaptive mutations were occurring in real-time, each transformation more pronounced than the last.

Abominable… 

That last word lingered in his thoughts like a bitter aftertaste. He shook himself out of his trance and reached for the glass beside him, a tumbler that had sat forgotten among the scattered papers and empty coffee cups littering his workspace. The liquid inside had long since gone flat and warm. He shrugged and downed the remaining dregs of whatever it was he had left there hours ago. The taste of stale water made him grimace, and he realized with a start just how long he had been hunched over these screens, lost in the hypnotic dance of data.

The lights overhead flickered intermittently, remnants of the random power surge that occurred when a particularly gutsy thief had broken into the facility and stolen a piece of technology he wished he had taken more time to study when it was in his possession. The erratic shadows cast across the walls made him look around the room as if expecting to see the thief returned, his gaze ultimately landing on the empty workstation on the opposite side of the laboratory. Herpetology charts were still open and visibly displayed on the projections, now abandoned by the one who had resided there. The irony wasn’t lost on him… she was the one who had isolated the reptilian compounds that made the current state of their experiments possible, and now… her name almost seemed prophetic in hindsight. 

The most recent experiment had been both successful and yet yielded disappointing results at the same time. It was a paradox born of desperation and betrayal.

He had dared to finally take the next step, a step that was considered taboo by those too cowardly to embrace what science demanded, yet a crucial milestone by those more committed than she had proven to be. She had been brilliant, perhaps more brilliant than him in her specialized field. But brilliance meant nothing without the courage to see it through to its logical conclusion.

Human trials.

The words still echoed in his memory, not as his own clinical assessment, but through Dr. Alexandra Basil’s horrified accusation from that night two weeks ago. 

“Human trials, Julius?! Do you even hear yourself? We are scientists, not monsters!” 

Her voice had cracked with disbelief as she’d backed away from him, clutching the drive that contained years of their research data.

It wasn't entirely on purpose, but it wasn't an accident either. The opportunity simply presented itself when she’d threatened to expose everything: their funding sources, their off-the-books experiments, the potential applications they’d been developing. She was going to destroy a decade of groundbreaking work because she had lost her nerve.

He merely seized the moment for progress, as any dedicated scientist would. 

The syringe had been intended for the primate trials scheduled for the following week. The concentrated serum, derived from her own reptilian protein synthesis work, represented the pinnacle of their research to date. When she'd turned to leave, still clutching that damnable flash drive, his hand had moved almost of its own accord. 

Dr. Mythos pushed his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose, remembering the look of shock and betrayal in her eyes as the needle found its mark. She had been stronger than he had anticipated; perhaps from adrenaline, or simply the desperation of someone fighting for their life. Alex had broken free, smashing through a glass door in her panic to escape, leaving a trail of blood from the cuts along her arms. 

He had calculated it would result in either a massive success or a blazing failure: a binary outcome that would definitively prove the viability of their work or eliminate the threat to it entirely. Instead, he had to settle for something far more complicated: a median between the two extremes that left him with more questions than answers, and a city above that was continuing to learn to fear the shadows. 

The subject – Alexandra Basil, he corrected himself with clinical detachment, though his notes simply read “Patient Zero” – had survived the initial integration of the serum into her biology. More than survived, actually. The microscopic tracking device he had managed to embed in the injection was still providing readings that defied comprehension: enhanced strength, accelerated healing, thermal regulation capabilities that allowed her to mask a heat signature… and an insatiable appetite… 

The part that was most baffling to him was the psychological integration… She appeared to retain just enough human intelligence from the original host to be methodical in her attacks, though possessed enough reptilian instinct to be utterly unpredictable at the same time. She was hunting, but with a sporadic purpose that he couldn’t decipher from the data alone. 

The reports in the news had started appearing days after her escape, scattered incidents of destroyed property and attacks… some fatal, others not so much… he had to thank those damnable vigilantes at least in part for the latter, as she seemed to be avoiding them for now. Once enough incidents had occurred that the police couldn’t hide it any longer, the media had called the creature “Basilisk”, a name that made him wince every time he heard it. They had no idea how tragically appropriate that moniker was, or that the monster they feared had once been one of the city's most respected herpetologists.

But there was a pattern emerging in the chaos, one that made his blood run cold with a mixture of professional fascination and personal dread. She was working her way back toward the facility.

Dr. Alexandra Basil had been his most trusted colleague, the one person who understood the intricacies of their work as well as he did. Now she was something else entirely: a fusion of human intellect and reptilian predator instinct that he had inadvertently created. The Basilisk, as the media had dubbed her, was no mindless beast. She was a brilliant scientist trapped in a body that answered to primal instincts, and that made her infinitely more dangerous than any mere monster.

He had made a monster from someone who had once called him a friend. The question now was whether he had the courage... or perhaps the madness... to face what his betrayal had wrought when she inevitably found her way home.