‘Kill Everything That Moves’ Part 14

Newlife City's hospital wing hummed with grim activity as we delivered the wounded.

Nis 6, 2025

THE RECYCLING
Newlife City’s fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as Professor Danny paced the lab, her fingers stained with equations. The holographic display showed our fallen comrades—not as dissolving corpses, but as data points.

“It’s not random,” she muttered. “The Eluzacid isn’t just killing us. It’s harvesting specific elements from human tissue.”

She zoomed in on the molecular scan. A cluster of atoms glowed red.

“See this? Lithium-7 isotope. Normally inert in living tissue. But in our bodies after exposure? Hyper-concentrated. They’re mining us.”

Ocean’s coffee cup shattered. “For what?”

Danny’s eyes darkened. “Power. This isotope is perfect for cold fusion reactors. They’re not invaders—they’re strip-mining Earth. And we’re the richest ore.”

THE FAMILY
In the makeshift dorm, Avva braided Eva’s hair while Olive hummed an old folk song. The scene was so normal it hurt.

Eva suddenly grabbed my wrist. “The bad men are singing again.”

Her finger pointed up—through meters of concrete, toward the ship.

A new sound whispered through Newlife’s vents:

Not screams.

A choir.

THE LAB’S SECRET
I found John in Sector 7—a sealed wing even most soldiers avoided. Through the glass, I saw them:

Rows of cocooned survivors, their bodies half-dissolved in black sludge. Wires fed into their skulls.

“You’re harvesting them too?” I choked.

John didn’t deny it. “Their neural patterns stabilize the isotope. One living donor produces ten times more than a corpse.”

He tapped a screen showing Eva’s brain scan.

“Hers does a hundred.”