At the center stood him.
Professor Nevar Lokstey.
Genius scientist. Three Nobel Prizes.
And then—three breakdowns, one quantum lock event,
and a complete loss of faith in humanity.
Whether it was arrogance,
or whatever the hell he’d been taking—
something snapped.
And he decided life itself needed to be erased.
Height—slightly above average for a human,
but below average for
someone who had spent far too long in zero gravity.
Posture—slouched,
like his spine had taken a vacation and never came back.
Hair—like tangled server cables;
missing in places,
but with antenna-like strands sticking out, charged with static.
One eye was normal…
if you ignored the fact that it hadn’t blinked in two weeks.
The other glowed—
an experimental quantum sensor, of course self-installed.
“For science.”
His face was stuck in a permanent animation
somewhere between “Eureka!”
and “Why the hell do I even exist?”
A traditional lab coat hung off him,
burned at the edges.
The pockets were stuffed with things that hissed, bubbled,
and were clearly dangerous to life.
From behind his back, just below the shoulder blades,
two mechanical arms extended outward—
awkward, angular, humming with servo motors—
each ending in three thin, tentacle-like manipulators.
They twitched constantly,
grabbing at the air, pressing buttons,
scratching his head, adjusting his collar—
as if they had developed a life of their own
and stopped asking permission a long time ago.
A sticker reading
“CHECK TEST TUBE #7965”
was stuck… directly to his forehead.
Lokstey spoke quickly—
like his thoughts were running ahead
and his tongue was struggling to keep up.
He wrote ideas on anything within reach:
tablets, desks, containers,
even the backs of test subjects.
Even when silent, he sighed—
like he was tired of the entire universe,
yet still kept running experiments
that could wipe out half of life in the galaxy.
He approached the cages
and began scanning the prisoners one by one.
The lab was flooded with screens—
sequences, DNA strands, neural activity, graphs, chaos.
Cables twisted across the floor
like synthetic roots.
The professor smiled, adjusted his experimental quantum sensors, and glanced at Zeros and Blindy.
“Oh… I thought you might change your minds.
But you made the right decision.
These samples are… very interesting.”
Blindy stretched his arms wide, yawned loudly.
“Hey… you crazy-ass professor…
if I gotta sit through all this bullshit—
you payin extra or what?”
Zeros raised his hand.
The hand opened.
A flamethrower slid out.
He aimed it directly at the scientist.
Turrets burst out from the walls and ceiling. Red light flooded the room.
“Blindy, check if you received the payment.
I will begin sterilization. In his own terminology.”
Lokstey panicked.
Grabbed a stack of c-bucks, shoved them into a transparent bag, and threw it at Blindy.
“Alright, alright!
Just take the money and leave me alone!”
Zeros, calmly:
“Blindy, payment confirmed.
Initiating purge?”
Blindy grabbed his metal arm with both hands,
glancing nervously at the turrets—
which, for some reason, were aiming directly at him.
“You walkin piece’a scrap—
you tryna get me killed or what?!”
He jabbed a finger at his own temple, nearly knocking the thought out of his head.
“You ever think for once, huh?!
Guy could still pay us, buddy!”
He looked around, swallowed. The air felt like glass.
“Man… let’s just get the hell outta here…
this place givin me a damn migraine…”
Zeros let out a quiet sigh and retracted the flamethrower back into his wrist.
The turrets slowly withdrew.
The lab returned to its cold gray silence.
They turned and headed for the exit, passing more cages.
Dozens of prisoners.
Some crying.
Some slamming against the bars.
One just staring into nothing,
making wet, broken sounds.
Blindy stretched again.
“Goddamn…
why all these mad scientists gotta sound creepy as hell…
not one of ’em can just… talk normal?”
Zeros muttered, annoyed:
“Because then they’d just be a normal scientists.
You really are a brainless idiot.
Big brain compensates for small balls.
That’s basic anatomy.”
The professor snapped upright.
“HEY!”
His left manipulator shot forward, pointing at them.
“I am NOT some deranged scientist from your stupid holo-comics!”
The right arm gently ran through his hair—
like it was trying to comfort him.
While he spoke, his actual hands were busy writing notes at high speed,
while both mechanical arms gestured wildly—
as if trying to explain the thought faster than he could.
“I am… REAL!
And my testicles are—”
The left manipulator pointed at his crotch.
The right gave a confident thumbs-up.
“—perfectly normal! UNDERSTOOD?!”
Suddenly, the left arm slammed into a terminal.
One of the prisoners—the one who had offered money and “connections”—
dropped straight through the floor.
His scream echoed through the pipes.
A second later, inside a massive machine,
a red liquid flowed down into a test tube.
Monitors flickered. Data surged. Progress bars climbed—
0% → 20% → 60% → 100%.A warning flashed in bright red:
"PATIENT ZERO NOT DETECTED."Lokstey snapped, grinding his teeth.
“Shit…”
Both manipulators reflexively grabbed his head.
Blindy twisted his face into a look of pure disgust.
“Rough day, huh…
hey, ain’t our problem, man. We don’t guarantee shit.
We just deliver.
Take it up with whoever sold it to ya.”
Lokstey stepped forward, lifting his chin and chest—
both manipulators exploding into motion:
one drew a massive “2” and “0” in the air,
the other stabbed dramatically toward the failing monitors.
“TWENTY YEARS…
I’ve been searching for the perfect specimen!To initiate TRUE evolution,
I need a zero carrier—someone whose DNA is already close
to a prototype state!My perfect patient zero!”
The left manipulator opened its palm and started tapping against the right arm’s fist—
like it was complaining that twenty years of work had just gone to shit.
Lokstey stepped forward, turned slightly to the side,
raised his real hand—
and with that one gesture, offended the mechanical ones so badly
they both dropped, limp and useless.
“But thousands… TENS of thousands of subjects…
ALL of them—USELESS TRASH…”
Blindy lazily scratched his stomach.
“Man… can we just go already…?”
Lokstey jerked back.
Both manipulators shot up—
like the wings of an irritated chicken—
palms extended forward in a clear STOP gesture.
“YOU!
PIECES OF EVOLUTIONARY ERROR!
Viruses are the ancient architects of life!
Eight percent of your DNA—viral remnants!
I am merely accelerating the process!
I am returning nature to—”
Zeros raised his hand.
His index finger extended—perfectly straight,
like a calibrated trigger.
“Shut THE FUCK UP.”
Lokstey froze.
The manipulators froze too—
one with fingers clasped together,
the other with a raised index finger—
as if praying… and warning at the same time.
The professor stammered.
“Excuse me …?”
Zeros leaned in. His eyes burned cold white.
“You are NOT a philosopher.
NOT a reformer.
NOT the savior of anything.You are a fucked-up psycho
with four arms, small balls,
and ONE wrinkle in your brain—
which you only use to justify killing.”
One manipulator grabbed the professor by the chest.
The other pulled a vial from his pocket, popped it open—
and tried to shove a calming pill into his mouth,
missing his lips, hitting his chin, trying again—
while Lokstey struggled to speak.
Zeros growled.
“Just say it,
“Say: ‘I’m a killer. And I like killing.’
That’s it.
Take your missionary bullshit somewhere else.”
Lokstey trembled.
The manipulators wrapped around his shoulders,
stroking him gently, like they were whispering
it’s okay, it’s okay…
“I… I act for purification!” the professor finally managed to say. “For the future—”
Lokstey blinked.
The manipulators twitched—
one waving desperately,
the other grabbing his face as if trying to physically stop him.
But the habit of justifying himself was stronger than fear.
“Please, just let me explain, I—”
“Two,” Zeros said, already irritated.
Blindy leaned in, pale as chalk.
“Oh shit… professor… just shut up…”
But Lokstey clung to his words like a drowning man to a splinter.
The manipulators were now full-on signaling: STOP, BOSS!
At one point they even tried to clamp both hands over his mouth—
but Lokstey snapped, swung his real arms,
and knocked them aside—
like a strict father pushing children out of his office.
“If you would just understand… you would see that I—”
And that, dear listener,
was a catastrophic mistake.
“One,” Zeros said, the word falling like a death sentence.
He leaned closer. His voice turned to ice.
“You’re just a hypocrite.
Just… a PATHETIC hypocrite.”
This time, the manipulators didn’t even try to obey.
They lunged forward together—
and slammed his mouth shut so hard
he started choking,
clawing at his own mechanical limbs,
trying to free himself from his own systems.
Zeros’ eyes shifted—drained into a flat, unnatural white.
He flicked a finger.
Like pulling a trigger.
“Bam!”
The professor burst apart.
Into dust.
Into a cloud of biological fluid—
hanging in the lab like a trembling sphere.
His mechanical arms hit the floor with a dull slap—
then immediately crawled away
like two offended worms,
clicking their joints,
as if complaining that their work
had not been worth the effort—
and maybe it was time to change careers.
Blindy screamed instantly:
“ZEEEEEROS!
That—that was one of the clients who PAYS ON TIME!”
Zeros walked to a terminal, pressed a button, and whistled at the floating cloud.
The mass collapsed into a fresh vial.
The system came alive—graphs, numbers, progress bars…
0% → 20% → 60% → 100%.A green notification flashed:
"PERFECT PATIENT ZERO: DETECTED.
INITIATING REBOOT PROTOCOL."Zeros laughed—low, cold.
Blindy felt it crawl across his skin.
“Hah… there it is.
The perfect subject.
The perfect DNA.You see…
if he really believed in his mission—
he would’ve used himself.But he was just a hypocrite.
Small balls.
Big ambitions.”
Blindy threw his hands up, furious:
“DO YOU GET IT?!
A DEAD CLIENT DOES NOT PAY!
We could’ve squeezed THREE—no,
FIVE MILLION out of him!”
Zeros, calmly:
“He annoyed me.
I removed the annoying object.
Absolute zen of killing.”