The smell of ozone was the last thing he knew.
"Don't touch that lead, Marcus!" he'd yelled, but his partner—distracted by a vibrating phone—had already crossed the wires. A blinding white arc of electricity surged through the medical lab table, turning the sterile room into a furnace of blue light. Then, absolute silence.
He woke to the smell of damp pine and the sound of a rushing river.
Gasping, he sat up, his fingers clawing into soft, mossy earth. He wasn't in the university medical lab anymore. He was in a forest so ancient and dense the canopy swallowed the sun. Staggering to his feet, he felt... different. His back didn't ache, his vision was razor-sharp, and his clothes had been replaced by a high-collared, futuristic black uniform.
He stumbled to the edge of the river and looked down. The reflection staring back wasn't the tired, sleep-deprived medical student he had been. It was a man in his early twenties with a sharp, aristocratic jawline, piercing eyes, and a face of such cold, symmetrical perfection it was almost unsettling.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZED: BIOMETRIC SCAN COMPLETE.]
A translucent blue HUD flickered into his vision.
[USER IDENTIFIED: HEINRICH WAGNER (JUNIOR PHASE).]
[LOCATION: PLANET EARTH-LIKE / SECTOR: THE NORTHERN REALMS.]
[STATUS: REANIMATED / TRANSMIGRATED.]
"Heinrich Wagner?" he whispered. The name hit him like a physical blow. As a student of medicine and history, he knew that name from the classic sci-fi horror files—the man who would eventually butcher thousands on the ESS Meridian to find the key to immortality. "No... I'm not him. I'm just a student."
[THE SYSTEM DISAGREES,] the interface pulsed. [YOU ARE THE ARCHITECT. YOU ARE BOUND BY THE DEAD EFFECT PROTOCOL. POINTS ARE AWARDED FOR: CREATION, INVENTION, MODIFICATION. POINTS MAY BE EXCHANGED FOR FUTURISTIC EXPERTISE AND QUANTUM ENGINEERING.]
He stared at his hands. He was a medical student; he knew the dark path the original Wagner took. If he was in this body, in this world of mud and monsters, he wouldn't be a butcher. He would be a beacon of logic.
"I'll do it better," he resolved, his voice steadying. "I'll use the science, but I won't lose the soul. I will make the Dead Effect a project of life, not death."
[RESOLVE NOTED. STARTER PACK AVAILABLE: THE "MERIDIAN" FOUNDATION.]
[INCLUDES: MOBILE LABORATORY UNIT (SCALE: 1:1 TO ESS MERIDIAN), BASIC BIOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE BASE, AND RESOURCE STARTER KIT.]
[ACCEPT?]
"Accept," he commanded.
The world didn't just shake; it roared. In the middle of the clearing, space itself folded. Huge, interlocking plates of brushed titanium and carbon fiber materialized out of thin air, anchoring themselves deep into the soil of the unknown forest. The massive facility rose hundreds of feet into the air, a cathedral of cold science in a land that felt ancient and wild. Hydraulic doors hissed open, venting white steam into the trees.
Heinrich Wagner stepped toward the sterile white light of his new sanctuary, leaving his old life behind to begin a project that would change this unknown world forever.
The interior of the facility was a masterpiece of cold efficiency. As Heinrich stepped through the airlock, the heavy titanium doors hissed shut, sealing out the damp forest air. Inside, the ESS Meridian-class medical lab hummed with the low vibration of a fusion reactor. Overhead, a calm, synthesized female voice resonated through the speakers.
"Welcome back, Dr. Wagner. Central AI 'Minerva' is now online. Awaiting your command."
Heinrich stood at the primary glass console, his fingers dancing over holographic displays. He wasn't talking to a mystical system now; he was operating a peak-human achievement. "Minerva, status of the gene bank and nanocrystal reserves?"
"Gene bank at 100% capacity, Doctor," the AI responded. "Nanocrystal growth chambers are active. However, the facility requires a maintenance crew for long-term stability."
Heinrich knew he couldn't run a ship-sized lab alone. He needed a workforce, but he refused to create the mindless, rotting husks of the original Wagner's nightmares. "Initiate Project Dead Effect, Minerva. But we're modifying the parameters. Access the stored human genome. I want a full-scale repopulation of the Meridian's sectors. I want scientists, engineers, specialized workers, and a security detail. Cellular regeneration at 300%, keep all neural pathways intact. No brain death. No aggression."
"Warning, Doctor," Minerva's voice remained neutral. "Accelerated cellular forced-growth without atmospheric acclimation will cause severe epidermal discoloration and tissue scarring. Subjects will appear physiologically similar to necrotic corpses—effectively 'zombie' phenotypes."
"A temporary aesthetic failure," Heinrich countered, his medical student mind calculating the chemistry. "We'll use the nanocrystals to stabilize the cellular matrix and bridge the synaptic gaps. It will keep them sane and loyal. I'll fix their appearance in the surgical suites once the initial batches are stable. Begin cloning."
Behind the reinforced glass of rows upon rows of incubation vats, fluid infused with shimmering, microscopic crystals began to swirl. Within hours—accelerated by the lab's futuristic growth accelerators—a massive workforce began to take shape.
The hundreds of men and women who stepped out of the vats were jarring. Their skin was a pale, sickly grey, and their movements were stiff, their muscles still knitting together. To any outsider, they looked like a literal army of the dead. But as Heinrich walked among them, he didn't see the milky film of corpses. He saw intellect.
"Identification?" Heinrich asked, stopping before a woman with the grey, scarred face of a ghoul but the focused eyes of a physicist.
"Unit 42... Chief Engineer, reporting for duty, Doctor," she rasped.
[CREATION SUCCESSFUL: 5,000 POINTS AWARDED.]
[INVENTION: MASS-SCALE NEURAL SYNC: 2,500 POINTS AWARDED.]
Heinrich nodded, his handsome face reflecting in the polished floor. "Minerva, assign all units to their respective stations. Guards to the perimeter, engineers to the reactor cores, and scientists to the bio-labs. We start the dermal reconstruction in shifts. I want this workforce looking human by the end of the week."
As the "zombie" workforce moved with mechanical precision to revive the massive facility, Heinrich turned to the primary viewing port. Outside, the primitive forest remained silent. No one was coming—not yet. He had time to build.
"Minerva," Heinrich ordered. "Deploy the external sensor drones. Start a deep-crust scan and biological mapping of this entire continent. If I'm going to change this world, I need to know every atom of it."
"Scanning initiated, Doctor," the AI replied. "The Meridian is now fully operational."