The pods hummed in the dark like a sleeping city.
Rows upon rows of glass cylinders stretched away into the black, each filled with viscous liquid that refracted the weak light into pale, breathing stars. The air smelled faintly of bleach and something metallic, like a hospital that had been preserved for centuries.
Leon’s hand had left a smear on the glass of Kiera’s pod. Her eyelids were shut; the line of her jaw relaxed as if she were mid-breath. A thin web of biological tubing curled around her neck, feeding pale nutrients into the fluid. A strip of faded paper, sealed in a small slot at the base of the pod, read:
SUBJECT: KIERA LANG — REGENESIS PROFILE: LEAD ARCHITECT
His chest tightened until it hurt. He could have stayed there forever, watching, cataloguing every rise and fall o
