The Utah facility turned out to be an underground complex hidden deep in the mountains. An unassuming cave just off the highway abruptly transformed into a sleek tunnel just wide enough for their car. It wound on for miles before terminating in a brightly lit parking garage, where Jongdae now stood, alone. Director Choi had abandoned their small group at the airport, whisked away by chauffeured car as soon as they’d arrived in the country. Sarai had her hands full trying to manage a very groggy Baekhyun, but she’d given Jongdae a breathless mandate to ‘take a look around’ before hauling her droopy charge away.

Jongdae examined the employee badge Sarai had pressed into his hand before she left. They’d somehow gotten his picture from his police ID, and his blood type, height, weight, and thumbprints were displayed on the badge’s back. He swapped out the badge with the ID in his wallet, tucking the old one into his backpack before setting off in search of the entrance. He walked the length of the garage before finding a faint rectangular outline in the paint, a card reader lock embedded in the wall beside it. Jongdae held his badge against the lock, and, after a moment, a handprint glowed above it. He placed his hand against it and was rewarded by a soft hiss as the door slid into the wall, revealing a corridor that curved out of sight.

The first door Jongdae encountered was reinforced steel, the word INTAKE etched into its surface. A digital display near its card lock showed a calendar for the week, and he skimmed through it, recognizing all of the names as the most recently quarantined vivus patients. There was even a block of time scheduled for the next morning labeled ‘Kim, Minseok.’ He tapped his badge against the lock, and the door slid open to reveal a room crammed with medical equipment, all surrounding a single bed. He opened every drawer, cabinet, and closet in the room, but, other than a small express elevator, the room held nothing of interest. He returned to the main corridor, following it around the bend.

The first level looked just like a upscale office building, workspaces with glass doors lining one wall, coffee nooks with chic furniture dotting the other. A few of the office occupants looked up as he passed by, but most paid him no attention. He barely had time to wonder why they seemed so unconcerned about a stranger in their midst when he nearly bounced off of a pair of patrolling guards. Their combat gear and assault rifles clashed with the elegant recessed lighting and expensive floral arrangements, their glowering silence at odds with the soft Muzak tinkling in the background. They took his badge, suspiciously inspecting the hologram and comparing his name and face with their database. As a fellow peacekeeper, Jongdae appreciated their attention to detail, but they seemed a bit excessively equipped for simple security. The next pair he encountered were considerably friendlier, dressed comfortably in polos and tactical pants, tasers on their hips. They didn’t even pause their conversation, but simply gave him a thumbs up as he walked by, badge on display. He was stopped and searched by three more pairs of the overkill brigade before he found an elevator.

Level Two was boring and quiet, its tastefully decorated halls full of doors he couldn’t unlock, labeled with names he didn’t know, and mercifully free of guards. He wandered the floor for a while before coming across a neighboring set of doors for Sarai and Baekhyun. Realizing what this level was for, he jogged around excitedly until he found his own door, the nameplate shiny and new. Swiping his way inside, he found a moderately sized dorm with simple, utilitarian furnishings. Military barracks were more luxurious, but after everything that had happened in this endless day, even a pile of straw would’ve looked comfortable. He stowed his backpack gratefully and gave the bed a pat before he left, promising to return soon.

Jongdae stepped out of the elevator on Level Three to find himself in haunted hospital. The rooms were set up for patients, the bedding neatly turned down, equipment waiting, but nary a person in sight. He passed by room after unoccupied room, their doors ajar, the sounds of his footsteps echoing in the emptiness. Even the nurses’ stations were unmanned and layered with dust, as if these rooms hadn’t seen use in months, perhaps even years. He finally discovered signs of life as he reached the final corridor. An expansive, glass-enclosed lab dominated the space, populated by bunny-suited researchers bent over their work. Beyond the lab, a doctor leaned over the nurses’ station, scribbling notes as she gave orders to the attentive nurses. The patient rooms in this wing were all sealed, and he peered through the window of the closest one to check if it was occupied. A woman lay there, staring listlessly at the ceiling, her body bound tightly to the bed. Jongdae tapped his badge to the door lock, and to his surprise, it actually opened.

“You should wear a spit guard if you’re going in there.” The doctor strolled up to him, one thumb hooked into her pocket, a plastic face shield swinging from her other hand. “The sicker they get, the more desperate they are to spread the infection.” Jongdae stepped away from the door hastily, a little unnerved. He’d assumed it was safe because the patient was strapped down. He hadn’t even considered the possibility that she could just hawk a loogie at his face.

“Most quarantine agents don’t go past L2.” The doctor seemed amused at his discomfiture. “You’re a real pioneer.”

Jongdae reddened a little. “I’m new,” he said defensively.

“It shows,” she responded with a smirk. She swept out her arm to gesture to the other patient rooms and the lab. “Welcome to the one and only Vivus Research Center, where the quarantined graciously assist us in our search for a treatment. Explore all you like.”

Assist seemed like a flowery word for people who were essentially kidnapped from their lives, but Jongdae didn’t quibble the point as she walked away. Looking back at the woman in the bed, he noticed now the signs of worsening illness: hair plastered damply to her head, pale skin, the rapid but shallow rise and fall of her chest. Her chart hung from a peg beside the door, and her name jumped out at him. Anna Torv, the mother who saved herself, but lost her family to a sinking car. That accident had been less than a week ago, so her name had been on the intake schedule as well. He tried to read the rest of her chart, but it was just meaningless jargon to him. He moved on to the next few rooms, finding more names he recognized, all of them patients that had been quarantined within the past week. Where are all the others?

A sudden alarm whined through the corridor, and a red light began flashing above the door of the stricken mother he had left behind. He braced himself for a flood of doctors rushing to save her, but nothing happened. There was no flurry of activity, no frantic effort. One of the doctors stepped out of another room, strolled to the emergency, and swiped his way inside. The alarm quieted a moment later and the wing’s normal sounds of activity resumed. Apparently, death was an frequent and uncontested visitor.

Before Jongdae had time to consider the implications, a familiar voice caught his attention. He hid without thinking, letting himself into the last room in the hall. The wasted patient hissed menacingly from his bed, and Jongdae covered his nose, trying to take shallow breaths in case the air was somehow contaminated. Sarai walked past the room a moment later, wearing purple scrubs and moving quickly, her voice raised as she berated someone over the phone. Jongdae poked his head out of the room, watching her call the elevator —the express car to the intake room. He had to duck back inside of the room when she leaned against the opposite wall, her hands splayed out at chest height, apparently tired from the long day. The elevator pinged its arrival, just as a hidden panel recessed silently into the surface under her hands, gliding open and revealing a stairwell. She was through the opening and gone in an instant. No-one in the hall was looking her way; nobody would have noticed her disappear into the secret door. Every investigative instinct Jongdae had told him to follow her, and he lunged across the hall, slipping into the stairwell just as the panel slid shut. He grimaced as he studied the panel from this side, belatedly realizing that he had no exit strategy. There was no card lock, no visible way of opening the door at all, and the stairwell only went down, into the unknown. He sighed, then took off his shoes and began tiptoeing down the concrete stairs. As long as he was trespassing, he might as well find out what they were hiding behind the secret door inside of the secret base.

Jongdae could hear Sarai descending rapidly a couple of flights below him. He picked up his own pace, trying to catch up to her without making a sound. Adrenaline jolted through him at the familiar hiss of another door unlocking at the bottom of the stairwell. Throwing caution to the wind, he vaulted over the railing of the last two flights and dove forward to jam his shoe into the door frame at the last second. He exhaled shakily at the close call and took a moment to gather himself. It took all of his strength to force open the door wide enough to squeeze through, and as soon as he let it go, it snapped shut with a heavy thud. He assessed his surroundings quickly, finding himself at the end of another hospital-like corridor identical to the one he had just left, deserted and dark but for a few lights at the end where the lab would be. He crept toward the light, footsteps landing soundlessly, checking for potential hiding spots as he moved. All of the patient rooms he passed were locked and windowless; only the unoccupied nurses’ station in the middle of the corridor afforded any chance of cover.

The corridor dead-ended in a blank wall in the lit area, dashing his faint hopes of an elevator or second stairwell. There was also no airy research lab here, just a simple steel door with a pull handle. Sarai had to be inside. Jongdae knelt and pressed his ear to the door, listening. When he couldn’t hear any sounds of activity, he gingerly tugged at the handle, revealing a tiny crack of darkness. When there was no ambush or whoop of an alarm, he eased the door open a little farther to peek inside, then slipped in and shut it silently behind him. As his eyes adjusted, he realized he was in an observation deck. One wall was half tinted glass, and there was another door at the end of the narrow space leading to the larger room beyond. He inched closer to the window, raising his head just enough to see what was happening, poised to duck if anyone was looking his way. The observation deck looked down on a room that was part operating theater, part tinkerer’s garage. Sarai was organizing a tray of tools that belonged in a machine shop, while a similarly attired physician fiddled with the settings on a piece of medical equipment. Director Choi was sitting on a stool on the opposite side of the room, his cane crossed neatly in his lap, foot tapping impatiently. In the middle of the room, insensate on the operating table, thick straps holding down his head, torso, and limbs, laid Minseok.

What the hell? Jongdae ducked down, his back against the wall, mind racing.The intake room schedule had clearly listed Minseok’s arrival for tomorrow morning. Back at the rescue site, Director Choi had even made a point of ordering Team B to quarantine Minseok tonight. Jongdae scrubbed his face with his hands, ordering his thoughts. Maybe he misunderstood. Maybe Choi’s orders were for Minseok to arrive at the quarantine facility tonight. Maybe the intake schedule was a misprint. Maybe he was getting worked up over a simple miscommunication. There was no reason they would lie about something as trivial as a patient’s arrival time.

But Jongdae’s gut told him it wasn’t a mistake. He hadn’t been suspicious when both Director Choi and Sarai ditched him; they were busy people, and he didn’t need a babysitter. But now they were prepping factory tools in an operating room nobody could find with a patient that nobody knew was here. Even though he had no idea what they were doing, the whole clandestine setup reeked of felonious intent.

“Are you almost ready?” Director Choi’s chair creaked as he shifted restlessly. “If there isn’t enough time confirm this before our sponsors arrive, just use Poseidon for the demonstration.”

“Must you use those weird codewords?” Sarai asked as she cut away Minseok’s shirt, exposing his upper body. An IV tube ran from the back of Minseok’s hand to a bag of clear liquid. “Our patients have names.”

“It’s our duty to protect their anonymity,” Choi retorted. “Plus, our sponsors prefer projects with impressive names. Think of it like built-in marketing. If Guardian reports about this one are true, I’m going to call him Yeti.”

The doctor approached the bed and picked up a soldering gun from Sarai’s tray of tools. Jongdae’s eyes widened, his whole body going rigid with dread. What are they doing?!

Choi sat up expectantly as the doctor positioned himself beside the bed. “Dr. Han, you’re ready to begin?”

“Indeed.” Han snapped his fingers at Sarai. “The camera, please.”

Sarai pointed a remote at a video camera suspended above the table. “It’s recording now.”

“Vivus Subject..mm…Yeti,” Han began, prompting a chuckle from Director Choi. “The Guardian anecdotes suggest that the subject possesses an unusual tolerance to extreme temperatures. His tolerance of low temperatures was witnessed by Team A prior to quarantine. It remains to be seen if that tolerance extends to heat as well.” Jongdae was frozen in place, aghast, as the doctor calmly pressed the wide wedge-like tip of the soldering gun against Minseok’s shoulder.

“The subject’s flesh responds normally to extreme heat,” Han said, his tone impassive and clinical as Minseok’s skin blistered and blackened under the gun. “These burns will be quite nasty. Perhaps 600F is too high.” He traced the gun back and forth across Minseok’s chest, thin trails of smoke hissing in its wake. “Nurse, please make a note to take care of these well so they don’t get infected.”

Han raised the gun, fanning away the smoke with a cough. “This has put me in the mood for a cheeseburger.” Jongdae gagged, struggling not to vomit.

“Let’s move on to the conscious test. Sarai, wake the subject, please.” Sarai clamped the IV, cutting off the flow of the sedating drug.

Jongdae sagged to the ground in the observation deck, fists shaking. He knew he couldn’t stop this. This facility wasn’t buried underground because it was cool, and the armed guards patrolling the only entrance weren’t there to give warm hugs. One false move and he would disappear without a trace. A sardonic smile played over his lips. He didn’t even have any family to notice when he was gone.

But he couldn’t run away. Duty nailed him to the ground, and acid burned in his chest at the thought of doing nothing. He was still a cop, no matter how many stacks of paperwork he had stamped to sign his life away. He pulled out his phone, and opened up the camera app. He was powerless right now, but he could be a witness and gather evidence of the director’s crimes. The moment he was above ground and away from this reception black hole, that proof would be sent straight to every authority that would listen. Steeling himself, he held the phone up to the window so the image would be clear and damning.

Jongdae ground his teeth, heart in his throat, as Minseok began to stir, the effects of the IV wearing off. Go back to sleep Go back to sleep.

Sarai leaned in close and patted Minseok’s cheek gently. “Minseok? Can you hear me?” The straps around his body tightened as Minseok tried to move. “The subject is awake.” Sarai fitted a biteguard into his mouth, and braced herself against his shoulders, holding him down. “You can proceed.”

“Testing Yeti’s conscious response now,” Han droned in that horrible emotionless voice. “Please monitor his vitals.”

Han pressed the soldering gun against his chest and Minseok bucked against his restraints, his shrieks of pain muffled by the bite guard.

Jongdae’s hands started shaking, but he tried desperately to keep the camera steady as Minseok screamed and thrashed on the table, trying to pull away from the searing metal.

“It’s working!” Director Choi exclaimed suddenly, climbing heavily out of his chair and staggering forward for a better view.

The doctor pulled the gun away, and Minseok collapsed against the table with a low moan, trembling. “The subject is not burning,” Han said, a note of incredulity breaking his clinical detachment. Jongdae plastered himself against the window, trying to see what they saw. Han dropped the soldering gun onto the tray and picked up a handheld blowtorch. The blue flame blazed to life, and Han kept up his soulless commentary as Minseok writhed in agony.

“There appears to be slight redness in the areas where the flame is applied, but…” After an eternity, Han turned off the torch and straightened. “Even that begins to fade as soon as the source of heat is removed. Remarkable.”

“Marketable,” Director Choi amended, fingers flexing excitedly on his cane. “Our sponsors will throw money at us to replicate this ability!” He reached out to touch Minseok’s shoulder, probing the charred, bleeding flesh lightly with one gloved finger. “But why didn’t it work before? He burned in the beginning.” Behind them, Sarai restarted the IV, and Minseok went limp.

Dr. Han settled the blowtorch into the tray of tools by the bedside and crossed his arms, hand drumming against his chin. “It’s hard to say without more exhaustive testing,” he said speculatively. “This ability seems to be a conscious defense mechanism, an acute stress response rather than something intrinsic to his physiology. He has to be awake to control it.”

“Not the same as Phoenix, then,” Sarai chimed in.

“Unfortunately not,” Dr. Han agreed. “But they are fascinatingly similar. If only we had them both to compare…”

First Poseidon, now Phoenix? Jongdae filed the codenames away to investigate later.

Director Choi’s eyebrows beetled as he glowered down at his cane, his former good humor vanished. “Yeti is completely fireproof, just like Phoenix,” he commanded. “That’s what our sponsors want, and that’s what our demo will show.”

“We can’t keep Minseok awake for the whole time!” Sarai protested. “He might not burn, but he’ll be in extreme pain. Drugs will affect his ability, but without medication he could pass out or even have a heart attack. It’s too risky.”

Dr. Han held up a eager hand. “There’s another test we could try.” When Choi motioned for him to continue, Han pointed to the machine he had been fiddling with earlier. “Electroconvulsive therapy. Originally, I thought it could be used as a treatment method— disrupt the vivus activity in the brain and we could effectively ‘reset’ an infected person.” He sighed gustily. “Alas, Poseidon is not the most cooperative subject, and his response to electrical stimuli has always been a bit extreme. My experiments proved inconclusive.”

“But?” Director Choi prompted.

“But the ECT treatment agitates the vivus enough to induce the fight-or-flight response. I can use it to activate Yeti’s ability even if he isn’t awake.”

Sarai shook her head vehemently at the idea. “We’re not prepared for that kind of procedure right now.”

“It’s perfectly safe,” Han said to the director. “It’ll cause a little seizure, but no permanent damage.”

“You can’t be sure of that! We skipped all the normal intake procedures, and we haven’t done any baseline tests!” Sarai gripped the director’s arm, vibrating with apprehension. “The demo is in an hour. You cannot tax Minseok’s system like this and expect good results.”

“Two seconds,” Han wheedled, holding up a pair of paddle-like electrodes. “Just a tiny charge to see how the vivus defends itself. It will barely tickle, and we could learn so much.”

“Two seconds,” Director Choi allowed, shaking off Sarai’s grip. He stabbed a stern finger in Dr. Han’s direction. “Do. Not. Damage. Him.”

Dr. Han swallowed and adjusted a dial backwards on the ECT machine. “Is the camera still recording?” Sarai shot him a baleful look, but nodded in confirmation.

In the observation room, Jongdae’s head bumped against the glass as he wished he was anywhere but here. His phone felt heavier than a brick as he raised it again, preparing to film yet another atrocity.

Dr. Han, in contrast, was positively giddy as he flipped switches on the machine. “Vivus Subject Yeti, undergoing an exploratory ECT treatment to induce hyperarousal. Settings are the same as the Poseidon tests. The charge will be applied using a bilateral electrode placement.” Han settled the paddles near Minseok’s temples. “Start the charge, please.”

Sarai crossed her arms in stubborn protest, refusing to help.

Director Choi walked around the bed to stand beside the machine. “Do I just push the yellow button?”

“Indeed.” The machine activated with a quiet beep.

Minseok’s hand and feet curled into claws, his whole body rigid. The machine switched off after two seconds, and Sarai cursed under her breath as Minseok started convulsing. The window went cold under Jongdae’s forehead, and he jerked away in astonishment, almost dropping his phone. Recovering it, he filmed himself tracing a finger through the condensation now beading the entire surface.

“You see!” Dr. Han announced triumphantly, his breath puffing into the chilled air. He dropped the electrode paddles and grabbed a digital thermometer from a shelf of tools. “The temperature dropped by almost thirty degrees just from that tiny excitation.” He spun in circles in excitement. “He’s not just immune to cold, he can create it! Imagine the effect he could have if he were outside!”

Cold spot, Jongdae remembered. There was a cold spot over the mountain that never moved and didn’t originate from any storm. Cold air that just appeared.

“ I can’t even begin to speculate what kind of physiological changes were required for him to be able to leech heat from his environment with such efficiency.” A scalpel appeared in Han’s hands, and it flashed between his fingers as he toyed with it. “We should take a proper look inside.”

Sarai slapped him across the face, and the scalpel clattered to the ground as he clutched his cheek. “He is a human being, and he is our patient,” she snapped. “You might have proved your point, but you are done playing mad scientist today.”

Choi rapped his cane on the ground in reproof. “She’s right. We have more than enough to impress our sponsors. There’s no need to rush things.” He turned to Sarai. “Use whatever you need to stabilize Yeti, but have him ready when our guests arrive.”

Sarai’s face scrunched unhappily, but she bowed her head in acquiescence as Choi began climbing the small stair that led to the observation deck.

Jongdae hastily stuffed his phone into his back pocket and eased swiftly into the corridor, running to the nurse’s station. He hunkered underneath the desk, his blood singing in his ears as the slow tap of Choi’s cane echoed into the hall. Choi neared the nurse’s station, and Jongdae froze, waiting for him to pass by. Another set of footsteps joined the director’s, Sarai’s, light and fast.

“Why would you let him do that?” Sarai’s voice was hushed, but shrill with anger. “You know how important Minseok is!”

“I admit that the ECT was probably not the safest idea,” Director Choi’s voice was unruffled, and just as quiet as Sarai’s. “But fortune favors the bold.”

“Whatever,” she said. “When are you going to share what we ‘learn,’” Jongdae could hear the bitter air-quotes, “ with the actual research team?”

“Dr. Han is doing fine work on his own.”

Sarai’s barked a laugh. “He’s been ‘on his own’ for far too long. Did you know he was performing ECT on Poseidon? I didn’t!”

“I’ll speak to him about that.”

Sarai paced back and forth, her agitation clear. “Just bring in the rest of the research team. They’re only working with samples from the Level 3 cases. They need to know about Level 4.”

“Level 3 provides more than enough data to inform our research for a treatment,” Choi disagreed, irritation beginning to creep into his voice. “Including the exceptional cases in our study serves no purpose and will only confound our results.”

“They aren’t exceptions,” Sarai argued. “The first is a fluke, a second makes coincidence, and three forms a pattern. You taught me that. Now there’s four. Four means there’s something we’ve missed.”

Jongdae counted on his fingers. Minseok, Poseidon, and Phoenix. Who’s the fourth?

“Vivus doesn’t work the way we think it does,” Sarai insisted. “If we don’t account for these outlier cases, we will never find a cure for this condition.”

“I’ll take your words under advisement,” Choi said.

“But-”

Choi rapped his cane against the ground. “I’ve wasted enough time on this conversation. Our sponsors will be arriving shortly, and I still need to prepare a response to the Hong Kong situation. The research team is not your concern. Go do your job.” Sarai slammed her hand against the side of the nurses’ station before stomping back to the operating theater, and Choi continued on his way to the exit.

After the sounds of the two faded, Jongdae waited a few minutes more before cautiously crawling out of his hiding spot.

“Naughty.”

Jongdae leapt backward, slamming against the wall in surprise, expecting…expecting…

His heart slowly settled back into his chest as he gaped at the last thing he’d expected to see. A gun in his face, an army of scowling security guards, Han with a blowtorch, anything would have made more sense than Baekhyun lounging on top of the nurses’ station. on a lollipop. Wearing tight pink Pororo pajamas clearly meant for a little girl.

“Isn’t there a law against eavesdropping?” Baekhyun tapped the candy against his lips, leaving little red stains. “Illegal Use of Ears or something like that?”

Jongdae slapped on a poker face, struggling not to betray how completely dumbfounded he was by the kid’s presence.“You were spying, too,” he managed to say. How long has Baekhyun been here?

“True,” Baekhyun sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the desk. “But if the old man found me,” he pointed to himself with the lollipop, “lingering on Level 4 while he whispered dirty secrets in Sarai’s ear, he’d get frowny-faced. If he found you,” the candy slowly swiveled around to point at Jongdae, and Baekhyun shuddered in mock horror. “I can’t imagine.”

Visions of Dr. Han’s blowtorch flashed through Jongdae’s head, and he had shake himself to get rid of the memory. If Baekhyun wanted to turn him in, he could’ve ratted him out when Sarai and the Director were still close by. Instead, he’d waited until they were gone to make his presence known. Jongdae leaned forward, resting his hands on the desk, nose to nose with Baekhyun, challenging him with his stare.

“Tell me what you want,” he demanded.

Baekhyun broke eye contact first with an insouciant shrug. “I just want to watch the world burn.”

He hopped off of the desk, forcing Jongdae to step back. He started to walk away, bare feet silent against the floor, then looked over his shoulder. “I’m curious to see what you’ll do,” he flicked his wrist and a blank employee badge clattered at Jongdae’s feet, “with that match in your pocket.”