It was 0210 hours, and Azir Darya was still awake. His body was slumped in the gel-filled, ergonomic cradle at the center of the security office, but his fingers were flipping through the seventeen different camera feeds scattered throughout the facility. Every room was empty except the staff sleeping quarters, the security barracks’ bunks, and the Assembly Lab. Darya adjusted the zoom on the lab camera, focusing on the head of a seven-foot-tall zeo covered in iridescent, synthetic flesh, then the face of the woman carving a thin slice off it.

The suit represented two years of unrelenting research, enough funding to build a mid-sized space station, and the kind of non-disclosure contracts that were enforced with convenient accidents and unexplained disappearances. In his briefing, Darya was informed in no uncertain terms by Biological Yokari-Tannith Corporation representatives that the lives of everyone in the facility were superseded by the security of the suit and the survival of Dr. Renata Tessari. Whenever she was awake, he would be awake and watching her.

Now, at 0210 hours, Dr. Tessari worked like a dead-eyed sculptor, carving more pieces off the zeo to run flesh-repair tests. She was thirty-seven, dark-haired, pallid, and bespectacled, with perpetual dark bags under her eyes. Darya closed his own eyes, took a deep breath, and felt the heaviness of exhaustion hit him doubly hard. He glanced over the security dashboard, reciting his list of checks.

Perimeter sensors online.

Satellite connection up.

Comms channels…

Darya reached out and pressed the “TEST” button for the comms channels, sending out a ping. This facility was located on the second moon of Gemeka, far from travel lanes or any colonies, but he still picked up a steady stream of fragmented comms from penny-ante smugglers or wide-band broadcasts from distant trade hubs. Someone was always screaming into the void.

Darya watched the lab monitor as he waited for the ping to finish. The synthetic flesh of the experimental zeo was adapted from squid, with the goal of mimicking the creature’s ability to dynamically camouflage itself. As much of the suit as possible was biological, rather than electronic.

The ping signal returned, filling Darya’s headset with a harsh ring that faded slowly. As it drifted to silence, Darya felt dread seep into his gut.

Immediately, his finger jabbed a button on the console, bringing up a spectrogram of the ping’s results. A single, smooth peak stood in the center—the original ping signal. Nothing else.

His dread bloomed.

There’s always noise, Darya thought. Fragments of chatter. Radiation. 

But there was only silence.

Either it’s an error, or someone’s hacked our comms channels.

His finger hovered over the ping button again.

Instead, he pushed the intercom button for the Assembly Lab.

‍

###

‍

In the Assembly Lab, Renata heard the digital trill of an incoming call. She gazed at the blinking light on the wall panel, realized what it was, and let out a disgusted groan as she set down her scalpel and dish. She walked to the panel and touched the screen displaying a 3D portrait of Chief of Security Darya. The hologram expanded, rendering Darya’s dark complexion, buzz-cut head, and closely trimmed beard in wavering light. 

“Yes? What is it?” she said, yawning.

“Tessari, I need you to do something for me.”

Renata paused. For the past twenty-two months, Darya had always used the same script: “Dr. Tessari, we have an issue,” or, “Dr. Tessari, I’m checking in to see…” 

On top of that, instead of the usual clipped, procedural tone, Darya’s voice had an edge of desperation.

Renata felt a prickle of apprehension. “What do you…need?”

“Walk to the lab doors as quietly as you can and listen with your ear against them for fifteen seconds,” Darya said quickly. “Make sure to count it out—fifteen. When you’re done, come back and talk to me.”

Renata turned her eyes to the ten-foot-tall double-doors of the lab entrance and walked slowly toward them, swaying slightly as she suddenly became conscious of every noise her shoes made on the floor tiles.

She pressed her ear against the cold metal of the left door and listened.

One, two, three, four…

Renata struggled to listen over the dull roar of fans and the hum of electronics.

…five, six, seven, eight…

She could hear her heart thudding in her chest.

…nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen…

Was that a noise from the hall? Or some pipe in the wall?

…fourteen, fifteen.

Renata lifted her ear from the door and crept back to the wall panel.

“I…I don’t think I heard anything,” she said.

“Okay, that’s good. Good,” Darya said, sounding relieved. “Now, next question: what’s the status of the experiment? Is it operational?”

The zeoform was officially “the experiment,” never “the suit” or “the zeo”—it was against protocol to refer to it that way, lest some bug slipped into the facility overheard them. It had earned a nickname among the staff, though: the Imp.

“It’s…88% operational, at last check,” Renata said, trying to remember the number from her test at midnight.

“Is there anything the experiment can use as a weapon? Like a metal bar or a steel table?”

Renata laughed nervously. “No, not really…”

“I need you to get into the experiment now. Boot it up, get it ready to move.”

Terror stabbed into her. “Is there someone in the facility? Did you pick up something on the cameras?”

The last two years of her life flashed through her mind. She’d disappeared from her family, left her old career behind, and spoken to no one outside this facility for those years, all to make this suit a reality. The thought of someone ruining it all made her want to vomit.

Darya paused. “No, but out of an abundance of caution, I strongly advise—”

Renata frowned and glanced at the zeo. “If I get into the experiment now, it will set testing back by two weeks. I’d have to scrap all my data, recalibrate everything from baseline. What’s the alarm?”

Darya stared at her, his jaw shifting. She could tell he was getting impatient.

“If someone’s going to breach the facility,” Darya said, “they would start with disabling the comms, so we can’t get out a distress signal. I have reason to believe comms are compromised. The next step would be to cut the power, then enter the facility with overwhelming force.”

“It could be a comms malfunction.”

“It could be, but—”

The hologram disappeared. Silently, the overhead lights shut off, then the humming of the lab equipment stopped, plunging Renata into pitch darkness and resounding silence.

Oh god… she thought.

Renata felt something pulse against her head, causing her hand to fly to her ear. She realized her earpiece was vibrating. She touched it with a shaking finger and heard Darya’s voice.

“Get in the suit, Tessari.”

‍

###

‍

“What’s the alarm?”

“If someone’s going to breach the facility, they would start with disabling the comms, so we can’t get out a distress signal. I have reason to believe comms are compromised...”

Fang Xi listened to the distorted voices as her zeo’s onboard computer ran audio comparisons to known BiYoTa personnel. A web of 55 faces was spread across her HUD, all centered on one woman: Dr. Renata Tessari.

Eight faces were Class A—Researchers.

Ten were Class B—Technicians and Assistants.

Fifteen were Class C—Security.

Twenty-two were Class D—Engineers, Maintenance, and Staff.

The audio comparison came back with two matches: Azir Darya, Chief of Security, and Dr. Tessari, Head of Research.

Fang’s zeo began tracing the endpoints of the intercom call. Her zeo was crouching in the shadows of the facility’s rear, near the communications tower.

“The next step would be to cut the power, then enter the facility with overwhelming force.”

Part of the trace came back. As expected, Darya was in the security office.

“It could be a comms malfunction.”

Fang’s eyes searched the blueprint of the facility. It sounded like Tessari was working, but in which lab? The building had three. 

The trace was almost complete.

“It could be, but—”

The lights in the facility went out, and so did the intercom system, leaving Fang with an orange “ERROR” on her cockpit screen. The trace had failed.

Perfect, she thought, sighing in exasperation.

Fang’s Stormer zeo stood up, shrugging off the reflective camouflage shroud draped around its shoulders. The Stormer was black with purple stripes and a gray GuardCorps badge wrapped with a pale red snake—the livery of Blackout. 

When inter-corp diplomacy failed and veiled threats were not enough, Blackout was tasked by Unitas Consortium Special Activities to deliver a simple message: submit or be annihilated. Blackout pierced the world of corporate lies, intrigue, and feints with merciless, surgical violence, and its members reveled in the fact that their continued necessity proved that sophistication was no substitute for force.

There were planned to be 10 survivors, all Class D personnel. The 45 names, faces, and voices of the others had been marked on the squad’s onboard computers as “Terminate on Sight.” Before the mission, 45 melons had been lined up on two long tables. Each was about the size of a human head, and had a name written on it. Fang had watched her squad members eat them with only their combat knives, letting juice run down their chins while scraping out the rinds.

It was a tradition—if you ate a melon with a name, that name had to be dead by the end of the mission.

Fang hadn’t asked for a melon. She’d asked to secure the experimental zeo.

Below her feet, Fang felt the earth rumble as clamp charges breached the facility’s reinforced doors.

‍

###

‍

In the security office, the lights flickered back to life, but only at half brightness. Darya watched the console lights reignite, followed by the monitor screens. A large red countdown had begun rolling backward from 22 hours—the lifespan of the facility’s backup generator. 

Half of the monitors had “ERROR” pulsing on them, but the one in the corner of the Assembly Lab showed Dr. Tessari climbing the metal ladder to enter the cockpit of the Imp.

Darya glanced at the monitor feed for the barracks, which showed dozens of flashlight beams rushing around the room as the security personnel scrambled to suit up. Apparently, the backup generator hadn’t restored power to that section of the facility.

A silent explosion lit up the screen, followed by a chain of flashes that mowed down anyone left standing. In the light of the muzzle flashes, Darya could see the outline of a Stormer zeo.

Darya exhaled as the monitor feed was replaced with a pulsing, blood-red “ERROR.”

His gaze moved back to the Assembly Lab, where he saw the Imp carefully lift itself out of its restraint harness and take its first steps toward the doors. Darya’s eye searched the lab for something Tessari could use as a weapon, but he couldn’t spot one.

“Can you still hear me, Tessari?” he asked.

“Yes! Did you hear an explosion?” Tessari whispered in his ear.

He looked at the feed for the hallway near the Assembly Lab and saw a trio of black-armored soldiers swiftly moving down it, their rifles raised. When he looked back at the lab feed, he saw the Imp reaching for the door to the hall.

Darya’s eyes widened.

‍

Part 2 coming November 12th, 2026!

‍Christopher Mahon is a writer and worldbuilder based in Brooklyn, New York. He is also the Producer for Best Hobby. Some of his career highlights include speaking on panels at New York Comic-Con and Columbia University on the topics of science and speculative fiction and delivering a presentation about ARGs at Glasgow International Fantasy Convention. You can learn more about his projects and stories at occulttrianglelab.com.

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