Chapter 99: Chapter 97 Opening of the Specimen

The cyan room did not seem to have changed since the last time it was observed through a screen, but the difference lay in the proximity, in the way the cold light was no longer a visual datum transmitted by a camera, but a direct pressure on the skin, on the surfaces, on every instrument hidden within the walls, on the body suspended in the center of the room and on those who had entered there to turn observation into procedure. The place had no windows, had no decoration, did not have a single form that existed by accident; everything was designed to eliminate distraction, to reduce any human element to function, and precisely for that reason the presence of the hanging man became more evident. He no longer wore clothes, not because the stripping had the intention of humiliation, but because nothing could interfere with the complete reading of his structure. His body remained held by containment supports that kept him suspended from the torso with calculated precision, enough to prevent involuntary movements, enough to keep him accessible, enough to remind anyone inside the room that there was no patient there in the traditional sense, but a subject of examination whose state defied the normal limits of survival. The cyan lights ran across his skin uniformly, revealing signs of damage, areas sealed by previous procedures, traces of external intervention and biological responses that did not match what a common human organism should sustain after such severe physical reduction.

In front of him, beneath the suspension line, Selena and Reichel waited in full surgical attire. The gowns covered their bodies without seeking elegance, but even so they did not manage to eliminate the difference between them. Selena remained upright, controlled, with the cap fitted, the white gloves without a single unnecessary wrinkle and the transparent plastic glasses reflecting the cyan clarity of the room without hiding the firmness of her gaze. In her, the attire did not seem like a disguise nor an external preparation, but a temporary extension of her discipline, a different form of order, one more layer of control over a situation that she was not going to allow to turn into simple violence. Reichel, at her side, wore the same equipment, although in her the uniformity did not completely annul that nuance of her own presence that always seemed to resist being enclosed within a protocol. The cap contained her dyed hair, the glasses reflected small blue lines from her active systems and her gloved hands moved with a calm that was not a lack of seriousness, but familiarity with spaces where the strange, the dangerous and the impossible ended up becoming work material if given enough time.

Reichel tilted her head a little as she observed the suspended man. She did not do it with horror, nor with immediate compassion, but with that uncomfortable mixture of curiosity, lightness and evaluation that defined her when something managed to surprise her without disorganizing her. Her voice emerged low, almost casual, but not careless, as if even a joke had to adapt to the weight of the room so as not to sound out of place. —Even like that he is still quite handsome —she said, observing the incomplete face of the subject with a strange sincerity, not admiring the damage, but the structure that still remained beneath it—. Although not at the level of the man you are interested in.

Selena let out a brief, controlled sigh, without real irritation, closer to the acknowledgment of an inevitable habit than to a reprimand. She did not turn completely toward Reichel; she kept her attention on the subject, on the readings projected around his body, on the data lines that marked density, neurological activity, tissue stability, response to trauma and a number of values that did not behave as they should. When she responded, her voice retained its usual coldness, but it did not sound distant. It was professionalism, not rejection. —It is not the time for jokes —she said—. We are going to begin the dissection of the subject.

Reichel smiled slightly, but her expression adjusted. The lightness did not disappear; it withdrew to a place where it did not get in the way. Her posture changed with almost immediate precision, her hands lowering to a functional position, her gaze becoming more fixed, more technical, cleaner. —No problem —she replied—. We will proceed when doctor Jorge and Mrs. Helena arrive.

The room listened before anyone spoke again. Reichel did not look toward a panel nor touch any surface; she simply raised her chin slightly, as if directing her voice toward the air itself, to that integrated system that did not need a face to obey. —I request preparatory anesthesia injection.

The response did not come in words. From the ceiling, a section opened without producing a metallic sound, an exact cut within the cyan surface that let an articulated mechanical arm descend. It did not have a humanoid appearance nor any intention of imitating a living limb; it was built for precision, not for familiarity. At its end it held a thick syringe, sealed within a control module, loaded with a greenish liquid of dense transparency that barely moved inside the cylinder as if it had a viscosity different from the expected. The arm descended to the height of the subject with calculated slowness, not because the process required delay, but because each movement had to confirm position, depth, compatibility and response margin before executing. The nearby lights varied in intensity for a second, the sensors marked points of application over the suspended body and the syringe aligned with one of them without hesitation. The insertion was fast, clean, without dramatism, and the liquid began to enter the organism of the subject under automatic supervision.

The man did not wake up. He did not react with violence. He did not open the only remaining eye. However, the readings changed. The activity lines reorganized themselves in the lateral projections, some descending, others stabilizing, while the substance distributed itself through a body that did not obey human assimilation times. Selena observed every change without looking away. Reichel as well, although in her expression there was something closer to interest than to surprise, as if that body confirmed with every second that it had not arrived there to be understood through common protocols. The anesthesia was not a gesture of pity. It was a measure of control. If the subject woke up during the procedure, if his structure responded with anomalous reflexes, if some hidden function tried to activate, the room would have to adapt to an unnecessary variable. Selena understood it. Reichel as well. That was why neither of them said anything while the greenish liquid finished emptying and the mechanical arm withdrew, retracting toward the ceiling with the same precision with which it had descended.

The doors of the room opened shortly after. They did not do so with solemnity, but the change they produced in the room was immediate. Helena entered first, also dressed in surgical attire adapted to her presence, cap, white gloves, transparent glasses and a clean gown that did not alter her posture nor diminish the authority with which she occupied the space. Her black and gold cane was not carried inside as an ornament; it remained held in one hand, firm, controlled, as part of her even in an environment where almost everything had been reduced to sterility and function. Behind her entered doctor Jorge, equally prepared, his face partially hardened by concentration. The surgical attire made him look more fragile and more professional at the same time, as if the older man who had felt rejection toward the state of the subject had been forced to reorganize himself within the scientist who could not allow himself to step back.

Helena did not ask if they were ready. She did not ask if the subject had been prepared. The information was visible, the systems had already recorded the process and any unnecessary question would only have introduced noise in a moment that demanded direction. She stopped in front of the suspended body, looking at it not with contempt, not with fascination, but with a lucidity that did not seek to deny the cruelty of the act that was about to begin. There were enemies who were killed, enemies who were buried, enemies who were forgotten and enemies who, by the nature of what they revealed, had to be opened by science before their existence could become a greater threat. Helena did not hide behind soft words to name that. Nor did she take pleasure in brutality. She simply accepted it when it was functional. —Proceed —she said aloud.

The room responded to the order before the people. From the center of the floor, a flat, wide structure emerged, an intervention table that had not been visible until that moment. It rose with absolute stability, aligning under the suspended body in an exact position, neither too high nor too low, allowing the upper supports to begin slowly readjusting the inclination of the subject. There were no jerks, there were no abrupt movements; the suspension yielded weight toward the surface that had just appeared, transferring the body to a position where it could be examined with greater control. At the sides of the room, other sections began to open. The instruments did not come out as an exhibition of threat, but as classified tools, each one contained in independent modules, protected, sterilized, prepared for a specific function. Some mechanical arms extended with clamps, sensors, fixation plates and depth readers. Other modules displayed cutting, separation, analysis and extraction instruments, all aligned under a logic that avoided improvisation. The cyan room stopped seeming only like a containment chamber. It revealed itself as a complete procedure machine.

Reichel observed the deployment with a smaller, more contained smile, but still hers. There was no mockery in it now. There was recognition. —I always liked this room —she murmured—. It never pretends to be kind.

Selena did not respond to the phrase, but neither did she correct it. She was observing the way the subject’s body settled onto the table, how the supports readjusted tension, how the readings stabilized again after the change of position and how the system prepared each instrument without anyone having to order it twice. Doctor Jorge approached slowly, his eyes fixed on the data before the body, an evident mental strategy to not allow the initial rejection to take control of his capacity for analysis. Helena remained one step behind, not because of emotional distance, but because her function was not to execute the first cut nor to direct each technical movement; her function was to ensure that no one forgot why they were there.

The anesthesia had done its job. The subject was motionless, the table was ready and the instruments waited. The cyan tone of the room covered every face, every glove, every reflection in the transparent glasses, and for an instant the place seemed to contain a stillness more cruel than any scream, because there was no outburst, nor anger, nor impulse there. Only method. Only decision. Only the cold will to enter the unknown by the most direct path, even if that path required opening that which still breathed.

Doctor Jorge did not take command with a loud order nor with a theatrical gesture, but with the silent way in which he positioned himself in front of the table and let his attention distribute itself between the subject, the instruments, the suspended readings and the three women who occupied different functions within that procedure. His back, slightly curved by the years, did not diminish the precision with which he organized the scene; on the contrary, it seemed to concentrate it into a more severe, more ancient point, as if each decade bent over laboratories, bodies, impossible materials and the mistakes of others had reduced him to a more exact form of authority. In front of him, the man remained motionless on the table, held by the fixations that had emerged from the system, with the anesthesia already integrated into his basic functions, not asleep like someone who rests, but suspended under an imposed condition, contained in a stillness that did not eliminate the danger of what he was, it only postponed it.

The doctor observed the data lines for several seconds and then spoke without fully taking his gaze off the body, with a technical, firm voice, devoid of unnecessary emotion. —We will begin by removing the complete epidermis of the specimen —he said—. Not in an aggressive way. Not by improvised sections. It will be done by continuous tracing and controlled separation. Reichel, I will need a laser cutter calibrated for resistant tissue. Initial estimate of the process: one hour at minimum, two hours as the maximum operational limit.

The room did not react to the word “skin” as a human mind would have; the lights did not change, the machines did not hesitate, the instruments remained on their side trays waiting for activation, and that absence of response made the phrase seem even colder. There was no open cruelty in the doctor, but neither was there softness. He was not speaking of a punishment nor of a mutilation, but of a procedure that required preserving biological properties before they degraded due to exposure, sedation, structural tension or loss of internal stability. Reichel did not respond with a joke; this time her smile was only barely suggested, held behind concentration, because the doctor’s precision had displaced lightness to a secondary place. Selena did not move either, but her gaze fixed on the projections surrounding the subject, comparing data with a speed that did not need to manifest in her hands. Helena, one step behind, remained motionless, with the cane held at her side, not as a passive observer, but as an axis of authorization. The decision to open that body had already been made; what remained was to prevent the method from wasting what the violence had left alive.

The doctor remained silent for a few seconds after stating the estimate, not because he doubted his own calculation, but because something in the readings required confirmation from another source. He barely turned his face toward Selena, and in his gaze there was no subordination, but recognition of a specific capability. —Miss Selena —he said—. According to the data provided and the current state of the tissue, do you consider those hours to be well calculated? Selena closed her eyes. It was not a gesture of fatigue nor theatrical concentration; it was a deliberate cut from external stimuli, a way of removing the visible world to leave only relationships, margins, degradation times, anomalous density, response to the anesthetic, internal temperature, partial stability and risk of loss of properties. The room continued to function around her, the cyan sweeping across surfaces, the suspended projections adjusting without noise, Reichel waiting with a patience that was not usual in her but was necessary, the doctor holding the question without repeating it and Helena observing, not Selena as a person, but the way that mind organized what others could barely interpret. Seconds passed, then more. The silence did not feel empty, because it was full of calculation.

When Selena opened her eyes, her response came out without emotional variation, exact, clean, as if it had not been thought but extracted from an invisible table that only she could read. —The best option to preserve useful properties of the specimen’s skin is one hour and forty-five minutes exactly —she said—. That margin allows stable separation without significant loss of structural response. If the procedure extends to two hours, it will still be acceptable, but after that point the samples will cease to be viable for priority study according to the reports and the current data.

The doctor nodded once, slowly, like someone who does not celebrate a confirmation, but integrates it. —Perfect —he replied—. Then we will work under a limit of one hour and forty-five minutes, with tolerance up to two hours only if the tissue forces a slowdown of the process.

Reichel lowered her gaze toward the instrument trays, and this time there was no light comment. Her presence was still there, contained beneath the surface, but now it was directed toward execution. The doctor oriented his attention back to the body and spoke with the same professional firmness. —We will proceed as follows. Reichel will take charge of the chest, shoulders and upper part of the body. I will work from the lower area posterior to the thorax, prioritizing continuity and symmetry of extraction. Selena will collect, classify and place each removed fragment into primary storage before it loses analysis condition. Helena will supervise the loading of samples into the system and the assignment of destination for subsequent studies.

There was no discussion in the distribution. Each function aligned with the nature of the one who assumed it: Reichel, technical precision and capacity for adaptation in the most complex area; the doctor, control of rhythm and methodological guidance in the lower extension of the procedure; Selena, cold classification, protection of the value of each sample; Helena, authority, decision and transfer of information to the greater system. The doctor stepped away from the table and walked toward the side wall, where the instrument trays waited sealed within transparent compartments. He did not hurry his pace. Each movement remained within a severe economy, as if age had stripped away everything that did not serve and left him only with that which could still fulfill a function. As he extended his hand toward the cutters, turning his back to the others without losing control of the room, he continued speaking. —Miss Selena, you will not touch the subject more than necessary. Your priority is to receive the sections as soon as they are separated, verify orientation, register area of origin and place them into preservation tubes. Each sample must be associated with thermal reading, density and residual response. I do not want material without exact origin.

—Understood —Selena replied.

The doctor opened the compartment and removed the laser cutters. At first glance they retained a shape similar to surgical knives, thin, clean, with a blade that did not seem like a blade until activated, but the handle revealed their different nature. On the upper part there was a button covered by a flexible membrane, sealed, designed to prevent accidental activation and allow controlled pressure even with gloves. The body of the instrument did not reflect light like common metal; it absorbed part of the cyan of the room and returned a minimal, contained, almost opaque glow. The doctor took two, verified the calibration indicators without turning them on yet and returned to the table. When he stood in front of Reichel, he handed one to her. She received it without theatrical gesture, adjusting the position of the handle in her right hand, testing the weight with a slight variation of the wrist, as if the instrument were not new to her, but still deserved respect for what it was about to do.

—Progressive superficial cut, separation assisted by minimal tension —said the doctor—. Do not go deeper than the target layer. If you encounter anomalous resistance, stop and report.

—Of course —Reichel replied, and this time her voice was professional, clean, without entirely losing her identity, but focused—. No improvising with the impossible guest.

Selena gave her a brief look. Reichel smiled slightly, enough to show she was still herself, but did not insist. The doctor did not react to the comment because it did not interfere with the procedure. Helena did not either; her attention had already shifted toward storage preparation. She stepped away from the table and walked toward a side wall, her cane marking a firm cadence on the cyan floor. When she stopped, she did not touch any visible panel. She simply spoke clearly. —Deploy sterile conveyor. Deploy storage tubes for organic components. Preservation priority: high. Link samples to meta-human specimen file.

The room responded immediately. From the floor, parallel to the intervention table, a white conveyor emerged, narrow, clean, built with a smooth surface that showed no visible joints. It did not look like an industrial belt, but a sterile transfer system, designed to receive material without contaminating it, move it toward preservation points and keep it under isolation fields during critical seconds. From the far wall came vertical modules that contained storage tubes, each connected to a small computerized interface, with indicators of temperature, pressure, sealing and classification. The tubes were not simple containers; each one seemed an independent preservation unit, capable of recording and preserving at the same time, absorbing the sample as data and as matter. The internal lights of those modules turned on in sequence, one after another, forming an ordered line that waited for the first fragment.

Selena then moved to her position. She did not stand too close to the doctor nor to Reichel; she chose the point where she could receive samples from both without crossing trajectories or invading their workspaces. Her gloved hands remained ready over the receiving area of the conveyor, and her gaze alternated between the body, the instruments and the tubes. There was no repulsion in her. Nor fascination. Only concentration. Reichel took position at the upper part of the subject, at the level of the thorax and shoulders, her body inclined just enough to work without straining her back, with the cutter still off in her hand. The doctor positioned himself in the delimited lower area, reviewing one last time the reference lines that the projections marked over the body of the specimen. Helena returned to a supervision point from which she could see the table, the conveyor, the tubes and the general readings without interfering with any of them. The cyan room was complete now, not as a containment chamber, but as a closed system of dissection, analysis and preservation.

For a few seconds, no one spoke. Not out of doubt, but because of the precise gravity of the beginning. The subject remained motionless, his breathing controlled by the anesthesia, his readings stabilized within ranges that should not belong to someone in that state. The laser cutters remained off, but their presence was enough to change the weight of the air. That procedure was not an impulsive act nor a vengeful reaction against a defeated enemy. It was a deliberate entry into a boundary where science had to behave with the same coldness as the threat it intended to understand. Doctor Jorge pressed the button covered by the membrane on his handle, and a thin line of contained light appeared where the blade should exist. Reichel did the same a second later. The light did not illuminate the room; it only defined the working edge. Helena observed without blinking. Selena adjusted the position of her hands next to the conveyor.

The first movement was not of cutting, but of verification. The doctor brought the instrument close to the edge of the marked area without touching yet, allowing the room’s sensors to compare temperature, estimated depth and surface response before authorizing contact. The projection adjusted a thin line over the body of the specimen, not as a visual guide for beginners, but as an exact boundary between what had to be removed and what could not be compromised at that stage. Reichel imitated the protocol in the upper area, with a concentration that almost completely erased her usual lightness, though not her confidence. Her eyes, behind the transparent plastic glasses, followed the trajectory suggested by the system and then corrected it slightly, not contradicting it, but refining it according to the real irregularity of the body. Selena registered that adjustment with a brief glance, enough to understand that Reichel was not obeying mechanically; she was thinking, and that made her useful.

Doctor Jorge made one last pause before beginning. It was not fear. Nor late compassion. It was the kind of pause that separates an intention from an irreversible action. Every deep procedure has a point like that, a boundary where it is still possible to decide not to advance even if all preparations indicate otherwise. The doctor did not step back. Helena did not pressure him. Selena did not speak. Reichel did not either. The room held that instant with an almost severe clarity, and when the doctor moved his hand for the first time, the gesture had nothing violent about it. It was precise, contained, slow in appearance, although each millimeter advanced under an amount of calculations that no external observer could have seen.

Reichel began after, not before, respecting the hierarchy of the procedure, entering the rhythm marked by the doctor without turning it into dependence. The light of the cutters touched the target surface, and the room registered the official beginning of the process with a minimal change in the projections.

Selena did not look as someone witnessing something horrible. She looked as someone waiting to receive a responsibility. Her function would begin as soon as the first segment was ready, and until then her entire body remained prepared, not tense, but aligned. Her mind was occupied with orientation, time, sealing, preservation and data correlation. Each fragment that reached her hands had to cease being part of a body to become preserved evidence, and that transition could not be contaminated by disgust, haste or distraction.

Helena, at the back, observed the whole in a different way. She did not follow the cutter’s line, she followed the behavior of those executing it. The doctor maintained control. Reichel adapted. Selena classified before touching. The room responded. The method did not eliminate the cruelty of what was happening, but it prevented that cruelty from becoming useless.

The first separation readings appeared in the storage tubes before they received material, preparing empty identifiers, numbering associated with anatomical region, extraction time, exposure and stability. Helena allowed those technical names to occupy the place of any more human word, because that was the only way the procedure could advance without becoming a shapeless act. There was no pity in the room, but there was purpose, and within that purpose, even silence became a tool. Then, under the cyan glow of a room that did not pretend to be kind, the operation began.

The first real contact of the laser cutter with the body of the specimen did not produce a broad sound nor a visible reaction that altered the room, but it did immediately change the nature of the silence. Until that moment, everything had been preparation, delimitation, calculation, assigned positions and systems adjusting to turn an intention into procedure; now, instead, the luminous line of doctor Jorge’s instrument advanced over the marked area with a slowness that seemed almost ceremonial, not because it sought solemnity, but because any excess of speed could ruin the sample before separating it. The subject’s skin did not yield like ordinary tissue. It resisted first, not in an active way, but with a density that forced the laser to maintain contact a fraction longer than expected, and that resistance made the lateral projections immediately adjust intensity, temperature and cutting depth. The opened edge was sealed almost at the same time it formed, leaving a dark line, clean in its precision and terrible in its meaning, while a reddish moisture accumulated only slightly at certain points before being contained by immediate cauterization. There was no useless overflow nor uncontrolled loss; there was fresh evidence, minimal but visible, enough to demonstrate that it was still a living body, even though the room strove to treat it as a study piece.

Reichel began her own section after the doctor, entering from the upper part with an exactness that eliminated any trace of lightness. Her hand did not tremble, her breathing remained measured and her eyes followed the edge of the instrument as if the world had been reduced to the exact distance between the surface that had to be opened and the layer that could not yet be compromised. The tool traced a slow curve over the assigned area, adapting to the irregularity of the previous damage without invading unstable zones. Each time it encountered a strange variation in density, the system emitted a silent correction in the projections and Reichel adjusted the angle with an almost unsettling naturalness, as if that controlled violence were for her a difficult equation, not a horror. The doctor did not correct her. He observed her only as much as necessary to confirm that her rhythm was compatible with his and then continued advancing through the delimited lower area, separating the tissue by broad segments, but not abrupt ones, creating extraction lines that would allow preserving the orientation of each piece. The cyan room, under that procedure, stopped seeming like a medical space and became something colder: a machine for revealing truths layer by layer.

Selena received the first fragment when the doctor finished the initial separation. She did not take it with doubt nor rejection, but with both hands firm, holding it only by the edges indicated by the sensors so as not to alter the useful surface. The sample still retained residual heat from the action of the laser, and in some sectors recent signs of the process could be distinguished, areas where the cauterization had closed the edge without completely erasing the organic condition of what had been removed. Selena did not stop to observe it as something repulsive. She rotated it with precision, verified orientation, read the code that the projection assigned to the region of origin and placed it in the first preservation tube. The container closed as soon as it detected the sample, adjusted temperature, pressure and internal field, and registered the fragment as biological evidence associated with the meta-human specimen. Helena observed that transition with absolute attention. She did not look at the sample out of morbid curiosity, but out of function: each part removed ceased to be damage and became information, each sealed tube was one less piece of ignorance, each record reduced a minimal fraction of the unknown territory they had agreed to cross.

The procedure became long not because it advanced without efficiency, but because efficiency required slowness. The doctor and Reichel did not tear, did not force, did not improvise. They opened lines, waited for depth confirmation, separated with minimal tension, handed to Selena, and Selena classified. That pattern repeated again and again, with small variations that only mattered within the room: an area that required more temperature, another that had to be cooled before being removed, an edge that did not seal with the same speed, a reading that forced a pause of a few seconds before continuing. The scene was not dominated by disorder nor by excess, but by a precision that made everything more severe. That was not a butchery. It was worse in another sense. It was order. It was patience. It was a cruelty without rage, a form of violence so disciplined that it did not need to overflow to be brutal.

Beneath the removed layer began to reveal structures that confirmed Reichel’s first suspicion. Not everything under the skin responded to a normal anatomy. The visible fibers did not have the common arrangement of an ordinary human body; some seemed too compact, others too uniform, as if they had been reinforced by an internal process that did not depend solely on training nor on superficial modification. There were zones where the tissue maintained an anomalous tension even under anesthesia, resisting manipulation with a firmness that forced the separation instruments to increase mechanical assistance. Reichel tilted her head slightly at one of those sectors, not smiling this time, but focused on the strangeness. —The structural response is maintained even after the cut —she said, with a professional voice, without taking her instrument away—. It is not just resistant skin. The underlying layer also sustains anomalous density.

—Register variation by zone —ordered the doctor—. Do not alter depth.

—Already did —Reichel replied, and in her tone there briefly returned a shadow of cheerful confidence, brief, controlled, before disappearing under the work.

Selena received another segment and placed it in the corresponding tube. —Upper sample three: increased density, stable thermal response, cauterized edge without immediate degradation —she dictated, and the room registered her words without need for additional confirmation. Helena remained still, but her gaze shifted toward the data lines where each sample began to form an incomplete cartography of the specimen. The body was transforming before them into a physical archive, into a progressive reading of something that should not have existed in that state and that, nevertheless, continued to resist even reduced to silence.

The first half hour brought no major interruptions, but it did bring an increasingly uncomfortable understanding. The subject did not react, the anesthesia kept his functions repressed, and even so the body did not behave like passive matter. There were small internal compensations, almost imperceptible adjustments in temperature, residual contraction and vascular sealing that did not seem to come from the room, but from the organism itself. Doctor Jorge did not allow that to stop the process; each anomaly was pointed out, recorded and surrounded with method. Reichel worked from the thorax toward the shoulders, separating zones where previous damage made tracing difficult, not seeking beauty, but producing a kind of involuntary symmetry in the horror of the procedure. The skin came off in increasingly larger sections, not out of haste, but because the technique had found the correct rhythm. Selena received them one after another, and the white conveyor carried them toward the tubes with impeccable continuity. The room did not smell of death nor chaos. It smelled of disinfection, of contained heat, of material opened under control and of a cleanliness so absolute that it made what was happening more evident.

Helena broke her silence only when one of the readings showed a slight drop in viability in the previous samples. —Elapsed time.

—Thirty-seven minutes —Selena replied without looking at the main chronometer.

—Acceptable pace —said the doctor—. We will not accelerate yet.

—It is not advisable —Selena added—. If the cutting temperature increases, we will lose superficial properties in high-density regions.

Reichel did not take her eyes off her work area. —Then we keep it slow and clean.

Selena gave her a brief, dry look, without real irritation. —Slow and useful —she corrected. —That too —Reichel replied, and continued working.

The phrase did not relieve the scene. It only showed that Reichel could still exist within herself without breaking. That, for Selena, was useful. For Helena as well. A mind that could joke without losing precision was a valuable tool in a room where others would have confused horror with incapacity.

As the procedure advanced toward the full hour, the body of the specimen became increasingly exposed in its subdermal structure. It was not a sudden revelation, but a gradual appearance of deeper layers, a map of compact fibers, internal lines and responses that forced one to look twice to accept that they still belonged to a living organism. The doctor worked with fewer comments now, his concentration closed over the lower area, where the separation demanded maintaining continuity despite the damage that Sebastián had already caused before the capture. Reichel, in the upper part, found zones where the skin seemed to have bonded more firmly to the inner layer, as if the body had developed reinforced anchoring mechanisms. She did not pull. She did not force. She changed the angle, reduced the power of the laser, opened a secondary line and waited for the sensors to confirm that the sample could be removed without breaking. When she finally separated it, Selena received it with more care than the previous ones. The fragment retained a different texture, more rigid, with darkened edges from cauterization and fresh signals that confirmed that, even separated, it continued to react in a residual way.

—Upper sample nine —Selena dictated—. Anomalous dermal anchoring. Residual response present after separation.

Helena said nothing, but her fingers tightened slightly around the cane. It was not emotional tension. It was hardened interest. That body was not only resistant; it was built, or rebuilt, to not yield under normal conditions. The man that Sebastián had reduced was not a superficially enhanced soldier. He was a living proof that someone had crossed a technical boundary, biological or both.

Time continued to advance. One hour. One hour and twenty. One hour and thirty. Each segment left less skin on the body and more samples sealed in the far wall, tubes aligned with internal lights that indicated successful preservation or pending analysis. The white conveyor did not stop. Selena did not lose rhythm. Reichel stopped joking entirely during the final minutes, not because she was affected, but because the final area demanded maximum concentration. The doctor breathed more slowly, his age visible in the rigidity of his shoulders, but his hand remained firm. Helena did not intervene, and that lack of intervention was a form of control: it allowed the procedure to continue as long as utility remained intact.

When the last viable segment was separated, the room did not produce any signal of emotional closure. It only recorded the time: one hour, forty-four minutes, fifty-two seconds. Selena placed the final sample in the assigned tube, verified sealing and waited for the indicator to change from pending analysis to stable preservation. Only then did she withdraw her hands from the conveyor and look at the doctor. —Process within the margin. The samples retain priority viability.

The doctor turned off the laser cutter before responding. Reichel did the same. The absence of those lines of light changed the room more than expected, as if the procedure had depended not only on the tool, but on the exact threat represented by its glow. The body of the specimen remained on the table, now without the layer they had removed, turned into a controlled exposure of what lay beneath: compact muscle, dense structures, zones of anomalous response and a silent resistance that did not disappear despite everything that had been done. It did not look like a defeated body in the common sense. It looked like something revealed by force, a living architecture partially stripped of its first mask.

Reichel let out the air slowly, still not removing her glasses. —One hour forty-four —she murmured—. I admit that was almost elegant, in a horrible way.

Selena did not respond to the comment. She checked the tubes, one by one, with her gaze. —All samples are registered.

Helena stepped forward. The cane touched the floor with a contained sound. —Then the first phase is finished.

Doctor Jorge looked at the body, then the samples, then the data. The initial rejection had not completely disappeared, but now it was buried under something stronger: professional understanding that that, however dark it was, had yielded results. —Yes —he said—. The first phase is finished.

No one celebrated. No one smiled with satisfaction. No one allowed themselves to confuse success with relief. The cyan room remained cold, clean, methodical, filled with sealed tubes and incomplete data, while on the table the specimen continued breathing under anesthesia, exposed not as a victim of an impulse, but as a boundary opened by hands that had decided that understanding it was more important than looking away. The procedure had been long, careful and cruel, a twisted surgical work not due to lack of control, but precisely because of having too much. And in that excess of method, in that precision without mercy, it became clear that the darkest thing in the room was not the opened body nor the blood contained at its edges, but the serenity with which all had accepted that this was only the beginning.

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END OF Chapter 97

The path continues...

New Chapters are revealed every

Sunday, and also between Wednesday or Thursday,

when the will of the tale so decides.

Each one leaves another scar on Sebastián’s journey.

If this abyss resonated with you,

keep it in your collection

and leave a mark: a comment, a question, an echo.

Your presence keeps alive the flame that shapes this world.

Thank you for walking by my side.

If this story resonated with you, perhaps we have already crossed paths in another corner of the digital world. Over there, they know me as Goru SLG.

I want to thank from the heart all the people who are reading and supporting this work. Your time, your comments, and your support keep this world alive. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

If this story resonated with you, I invite you to support me — your presence and backing make it possible for