Facing Mary's eyes, which seemed able to see through lies.
Rovi neither admitted it nor denied it.
As a competent Scribe, he knew that when information was unevenly distributed, silence often carried more weight than an explanation.
Keeping his tone even, he said, "You can keep the Diary, Ms. Mary. It really is the only thing he left behind."
"As for the compensation, a Logistics Department specialist will deliver it tomorrow. It'll be paid at the maximum rate for a Level Three workplace injury—enough to buy two hundred pounds of synthetic starch and move somewhere safer."
On the way over, Rovi had torn from the Diary in the evidence bag the pages containing key passages about the "Star Child," the "Whispers," and other deranged ramblings.
What remained was just a record of insignificant daily matters.
It was an account of an alien husband's love for his wife, clumsily written during his moments of clarity.
It was a carefully edited version of the truth.
A specially prepared sedative, meant to soothe the living.
"Please tell me the truth, sir."
Mary gave him a miserable smile.
"If it was just an ordinary workplace injury, the Logistics Department would've sent a clerk, not someone important like you."
"Important people never come all the way to the Slums for a dead expendable."
Rovi's brow twitched.
He had underestimated the instincts honed by those living on the edge of life and death.
The next second, Mary suddenly raised her right hand.
In it was a pair of discarded scissors used for trimming loose threads.
Their blades had been sharpened to a gleaming edge.
She didn't point the weapon at the intruders. Instead, she turned it around and pressed it against her own carotid artery.
A thin line of bright red blood welled up.
"Important people always think we're stupid. They think they can fob us off with a biscuit and some made-up story."
Mary enunciated every word.
"My husband isn't dead. At least, he wasn't dead before you came. You took him, didn't you?"
Buck, standing behind Rovi, almost moved on instinct.
His rough hand went to the holster at his waist, where his Boltgun rested.
As a veteran, neutralizing an unstable threat this close was already written into his muscle memory.
Rovi raised a hand and gently pressed down on Buck's forearm, stopping him.
In Rovi's mind,
a quick cost-benefit analysis took shape.
If he let Buck act, he could certainly subdue Mary.
But if she struggled too violently, she might miscarry and bleed to death.
According to the original plan, paying compensation and inventing a dignified death was the most efficient—and most merciful—way to "dispose of a nonperforming asset."
But now, a new variable had appeared.
If she died here, it would draw the neighbors and start rumors.
It would also crack the image of "fairness" Rovi had built to reassure the people.
It wasn't worth the cost.
"Ms. Mary, acting rashly won't solve anything. You have no proof for your suspicions."
Rovi lowered his hand, his composure still unnervingly calm. "If you cut yourself now, two lives will be lost. The child in your belly is the only bloodline your husband left behind.
"Can you bear to let him become a meaningless pool of blood before he's even seen the world?"
"Then take me to him, sir. Even if it's only his corpse—even if I can see him just once!" Mary screamed. Her emotions, on the verge of collapse, finally burst out.
The blade sank a little deeper.
Blood flowed faster, staining her collar.
"Otherwise, I'll die right here! Without him, I can't go on living. I might as well take the child and go find him!"
It was her last bargaining chip.
She placed her own life and the life of her unborn child on one side of the scales.
She was betting that this "Supervisor," whose reputation among the lower classes had recently been fairly good, would care about the weight of those two lives.
She had recently heard some news about the new Supervisor and what he'd done:
Increasing the supply of new Green Soup;
Taking in refugees from other Granaries;
Personally leading a team on a dangerous trip to the fallen Granary Four and bringing back high-energy Promethium Fuel;
Looking after the widows of three soldiers—
Any one of those deeds made him far better than the previous Supervisor, a man named Kais.
Rovi fell silent.
Just as he was weighing the risks and benefits of forcibly restraining her,
he received an urgent communication.
It came from the laboratory on Sublevel Two, from Priest Alpha.
Without showing any reaction, he stepped outside and answered.
"Advisor, the variables have exceeded the projected model."
Priest Alpha sounded agitated.
In the background, alarms from life-support equipment rang out.
"Sample 004, that Fourth Generation, is about to cease functioning due to organ failure."
Rovi frowned slightly and replied in a low voice, "According to our previous assessment, the physiological tolerance of a Fourth Generation Hybrid should've lasted at least another twelve hours."
"That's the paradox, Advisor."
Priest Alpha hurriedly explained.
"His genetic sequence is the closest to a human's of all the samples. That means he lacks the chitinous armor and extraordinary resilience that Tyranids pride themselves on."
"Faced with a high concentration of Plague Virus, he's like a fragile mortal tossed into a pool of acid."
"His immune system didn't fight back. It collapsed in an instant."
"Dispose of him," Rovi replied coldly. "A sample with no research value is scrap. If we don't cut our losses in time, we'll only waste more life-support resources."
"Understood—preparing to shut down life support."
The sound of mechanical arms at work came from the other end of the communication.
Then the Priest's voice suddenly rose.
"Wait, Advisor! We're detecting abnormal readings!"
"His bodily functions are dropping to zero, but activity in his cerebral cortex is increasing exponentially—he's resisting death!
"Some kind of obsession in his subconscious seems to be frantically stimulating his dying glands, causing them to secrete an unknown biological enzyme."
"This is a once-in-a-millennium opportunity, Advisor."
"If we give him a strong enough psychological stimulus before he dies, we might trigger a reaction between adrenaline and Tyranid hormones."
"The 'rejection' energy produced in that instant may let me capture the High-Activity Antibody Enzyme, which can neutralize the Plague Virus—"
Rovi didn't wait for the Priest to finish his lengthy technical explanation.
He immediately grasped the core of the matter:
Alpha needed a "stimulus" to complete the experiment.
And the woman standing in front of him with a blade at her throat happened to be just such a "stimulus."
"Hold off on disposal."
In an instant, Mary was no longer a troublesome family member.
Nor was she a pitiful pregnant woman.
She had become an indispensable "biological catalyst."
A critical investment that could extract the last of the value from an asset about to be scrapped.
Rovi quickly returned to the room and said to Mary, "Put the scissors down. I'll take you to see him."
Mary froze. "Really?"
"I never joke about things like this. But the way he looks now will give you nightmares. If you're prepared, follow me."
"If you throw up or faint, I'll have you thrown out immediately."
The scissors fell from Mary's hand with a clatter.
She didn't bother wiping the blood from her neck.
Grabbing a coat, she staggered after Rovi.
Granary Seven, Sublevel Two.
Countless complex pipes sprawled across the ceiling, emitting a low, unsettling hum.
Through the thick, one-way blast-proof glass, Mary finally saw the husband she had yearned for day and night.
He was strapped spread-eagled to a cold metal operating table.
His limbs were secured with alloy shackles, and all kinds of transparent tubes had been inserted into his body.
Green Plague Virus solution was slowly being pumped into him.
It reacted violently with his own dark purple blood.
The skin on half his body had begun to rot and turn black.
Beneath it, writhing granulation tissue was exposed.
With his vocal cords removed, all he could produce from his gaping mouth was a series of airy wheezes.
"Is that... my husband?"
—
Mary pressed both hands against the glass.
She didn't scream or break down.
Tears welled silently in her eyes, instantly soaking her cheeks.
Rovi glanced at the readings on the monitor beside him.
"Test results confirmed," Priest Alpha reported to Rovi.
"Mary shows no signs of Genestealer infection. Her physiological indicators all fall within the range of a pure-blooded human."
"This means Sample 004 suppressed the Tyranid urge to reproduce through sheer force of will during their long life together. He never gave Mary the Divine Kiss."
The Priest paused.
He seemed to be processing this logical paradox. "From a biological standpoint, this is... an illogical miracle. The instincts of Tyranid organisms are absolute. Yet he defied the will of his species for the sake of one individual."
Rovi didn't respond.
In this cold universe, "love" was usually considered a synonym for weakness.
Yet at certain moments, it could unleash a power even mechanical logic couldn't explain.
For Rovi, however, this merely confirmed the sample's "uniqueness."
"Begin," Rovi ordered. "Open the Light Shield."
The laboratory lights suddenly blazed to life.
The Fourth Generation Hybrid, his consciousness blurred by pain and his pupils already beginning to glaze over, instinctively tried to shut his eyes as the light changed.
But from the corner of his eye, he saw a familiar figure beyond the glass wall.
Wearing a coat patched countless times, her face streaked with tears, she gazed at him with a tender, almost helpless smile.
His wife—Mary.
"Beep, beep, beep!!!"
The heart monitor immediately blared an alarm.
The once-steady waveform became a line shooting straight upward.
The dying monster on the operating table began to struggle violently.
The alloy shackles creaked.
Beneath the already-rotting skin of the Fourth Generation Hybrid, thick purple veins bulged and spread across his body like roots.
He wanted to touch Mary.
He wanted to speak.
He wanted to tell her to run, to escape this hell.
Every emotion.
Every obsession.
At that moment, all of it became the most intense chemical reaction in his body.
Adrenaline, dopamine;
The Tyranid hormones he had suppressed for so long.
They collided in his bloodstream like a nuclear fusion reaction.
"Energy readings have passed the critical threshold!"
"Active enzymes are being produced in large quantities!"
Priest Alpha's three Mechanical Tentacles thrashed over the control panel, his eyes flashing red.
"Extract!"
Under the control of the mechanical arms, more than a dozen needles
precisely pierced the Fourth Generation Hybrid's heart, spine, and glands.
"Hiss!!!"
The Fourth Generation Hybrid threw his head back.
He let out the last silent roar of his life.
His body convulsed violently, pushed to its limit.
Purple light poured from his eyes, nose, and mouth.
"Bang!"
A dull explosion.
As Mary screamed in anguish,
the man who had once brought her a fake flower on his way home from work,
the man who had secretly used a soldering iron to burn his thigh in the middle of the night to stay clearheaded,
the man who had swallowed a highly toxic industrial sedative to resist the will of the Hive,
turned into a ghastly cloud of blood mist.
Only his eyes remained open until the very last moment.
Those cloudy, bloodshot eyes.
Tenderly and despairingly, they gazed through the glass wall.
They gazed at Mary's slightly rounded belly——
Before you continue