The fluorescent lights buzzed softly above, casting a sterile glow over the cold, silver surfaces of Lab 7C. Aria adjusted her lab coat with a practiced tug and exhaled, watching condensation briefly fog her safety goggles.
Today wasn't ordinary.
Not because of the task assigned. Not because she was surrounded by colleagues who, strangely, already felt like puzzle pieces to her own chaos. But because for the first time in years, her heartbeat was louder than her footsteps. Something was happening—something secret.
The project had a name now.
RX-317.
It sounded clinical, detached. But the way Meilin's voice dropped every time she said it told Aria otherwise. There was weight to the name—like classified files or forbidden corridors.
Yusuf had already made a crude nickname: Roxy.
Aria had laughed at that, but now her smile faded as she stared at the sealed biohazard cabinet. The vial sat nested inside, pale-blue fluid swirling faintly under the light.
"What's in it?" she asked, not expecting an answer.
Ezra rolled his chair backwards without looking up from his datapad. "Could be the cure for everything. Could also be cyanide in a pretty dress."
"Comforting," Aria muttered.
Yusuf leaned over her shoulder, peering through the glass. "All we know is it's viral in nature. And ReGenesis wants us blindfolded until we're smart enough to peek."
"They wouldn't assign us to it if they didn't think we could handle it," Meilin added from the corner, arms crossed. Her braid hung over one shoulder like a black ribbon of intent. "We're not interns anymore."
Aria let the silence fall again.
But something in her gut twisted—not from fear, but curiosity wrapped in dread.
She didn't know RX-317 would become the very axis that spun her world out of orbit. That every file she decrypted, every protein she mapped, would eventually lead her not just to a virus…
…but to him.