Threshold Protocol

Chapter 1 : First Light

"James," she said sharply.

He flinched—subtle, but she caught it. "Yes, Doctor?"

"Primer depth and sync calibration. Recheck them."

"We already—" He paused, caught himself. "Yes, Doctor."

Vos didn't need to look; she knew his hands were already tapping twice on the holographic interface—his little tic, like knocking on wood. Slow, but reliable. And terrified.

She watched him through the glass as he verified the readings, his eyes darting between the tables and the data stream.

Too young for this clearance. Too careful for fieldwork. But he hadn't quit after Munich. That counted for something.

Her gaze shifted to the male subject. A faint scar traced from temple to jawline—old trauma, perhaps impact-related. She wasn't given full histories. Just the metrics: bloodwork, response scores, neural elasticity.

That was all she needed.

But the female subject... the twitch. Vos's breath caught—not panic, but fascination.

Five percent faster than modeled. The primer cycle was only beginning. The symbiotes shouldn't be active yet. Not fully.

She stepped forward, resting her gloved hand against the glass.

They were in the quiet before the thunder. And if this worked—really worked—it would change everything.

Not just healing. Not just performance.

Something deeper.

Her jaw tightened. It wasn't just about proving them wrong. Though that part would feel good. And it wasn't just to bury Seville under a mountain of results.

This should've saved Eva.

Ten years ago, when a hillside crash ruptured a liver too fast for surgery to stop. Nanotech like this would've bought seconds. Seconds that medicine back then couldn't give.

Vos had learned to speak in protocols because emotion didn't solve bleeding. Precision did. Design did.

Emotion got in the way.

Behind her, James cleared his throat. "Port readings stable, Doctor. Primer cycles holding within threshold. Neural latency is... low. Lower than baseline."

Vos blinked.

Interesting.

She stepped back from the glass, expression unreadable.

"Run a passive EEG overlay. Full spectrum. Let's see how deep the sync goes before Stage Two."

"Yes, Doctor," James murmured, tapping the command—once, then again, just to be sure.

The hum thickened, as though the walls themselves were holding breath.

Vos turned to the display, eyes narrowing as tremors of activity lit the cortical map. No glitches. No drift.

Just something new, unfolding.

And deep behind her calm, something stirred—half awe, half fear.

She silenced both.

"Begin biometric logging," she said. "Threshold Protocol is now officially in Stage One."

01:30 – OBSERVATION ROOM

Red overlays pulsed across the neural display grids, the hum vibrating just below audible range. Helena stood with her hands clasped behind her back, eyes locked on Subject A's biometric readout.