The Lazarus Directive

Jessica studied Dr. Whitaker. He was  a thin, hollow-cheeked man. The kind of man who had been left behind long before today. His lab coat, once white, was streaked with dust, the fabric worn at the seams. His hair was unkempt, silver creeping into what had once been brown. He didn’t look surprised to see them.

If anything, he looked tired.

Jessica kept her gun steady, but she didn’t pull the trigger. Not yet.

Leanna didn’t lower hers. “Start talking.”

Whitaker exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over his face. “No introductions, then?” His voice was hoarse, like he hadn’t spoken aloud in days. “I suppose that’s fair.”

Jessica didn’t blink. “You said you’re the reason I exist. Say it again.”

Whitaker tilted his head slightly, studying her in return. Then—a flicker of recognition in his eyes. Something old. Something distant.

“Yes,” he murmured. “I did.”

Jessica’s grip on her 1911 tightened.

The monitors flickered, displaying encrypted logs, old security footage looping in uneven cycles. Olivia had already moved to one of the terminals, her fingers skimming over the controls, pulling data before it could vanish forever.

“Some of this is recent,” she muttered. “Not just records—there was remote access last week.”

Jessica didn’t react. Not outwardly. But inside, something shifted. This place wasn’t as abandoned as it seemed.

She turned back to Whitaker. “What do you know about The Lazarus Directive?”

His expression darkened, the weariness in his face settling deeper. He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he gestured toward the single chair in the center of the room.

“May I?”

Jessica nodded, but barely.

Whitaker sat slowly, as if the weight of years had finally caught up to him. He exhaled again, then gestured at the monitors. “I assume you’ve pieced together the basics. Project Lazarus was never about healing—it was about control. The ability to rewrite, erase, and replace a person at will.”

Jessica said nothing.

Leanna crossed her arms. “You’re saying it wasn’t just memory manipulation.”

Whitaker shook his head. “No. Memory wipes are crude. Too unreliable. Vanguard wanted more. A system that could overwrite identity itself.” He looked at Jessica. “And you, my dear, were one of our finest successes.”

Jessica’s jaw tightened. “Define that.”

Whitaker gave a dry, humorless smile. “You’re still alive.”

—

At the terminal, Olivia’s screen flashed with a completed decryption. She pulled up a hidden directory—encrypted logs under a codename she hadn’t seen before.

>>LZ-00.

Jessica caught the change in Olivia’s posture. “What is it?”

Olivia hesitated, scanning the files. “The original test subject.”

Silence.

Jessica felt the air shift. She stepped closer, reading the metadata over Olivia’s shoulder. The dates stretched back decades. Long before Vanguard had even been public knowledge.

Whitaker watched her reaction carefully. “You’re asking the wrong questions.”

Jessica turned back to him, her voice controlled. “Then give me the right ones.”

A pause. Then— “Have you ever wondered why there’s no record of your birth?”

Jessica felt something tighten in her chest. She had searched, in the early days. Dug through medical records, university archives, even her mother’s old files. There was nothing. No hospital records, no official birth certificate. Just gaps.

It had been easier to let it go.

Whitaker leaned forward. “LZ-00 wasn’t just the first test subject. They were the template. The proof of concept.”

Jessica’s pulse slowed. “You’re saying I wasn’t the first.”

Whitaker’s gaze did not waver. “No.”

—

Olivia’s fingers moved quickly over the controls, bypassing firewalls, digging deeper.

“There’s a name attached to this one,” she murmured.

Jessica’s breath felt too shallow. “What name?”

Olivia hesitated. Then, finally—she read it aloud.

“Lazarus Vellum.”

The room went silent. Jessica didn’t know what she had expected—a blank name, a corrupted file. But not this. Not something that would drag the whole structure of her past down in a single breath.

Jessica’s vision narrowed, her mind moving too quickly, too many connections snapping into place at once. The experiment’s origins, the missing pieces, the way Project Lazarus had never truly ended.

Whitaker exhaled, rubbing his temples. “They never told you, did they?”

Jessica kept her voice steady. “Told me what?”

Whitaker smiled faintly, but there was no warmth in it.

“That you were never meant to survive this long.”

It landed like a quiet truth, not a twist. Somewhere deep inside, she'd always known—she was a test, not a conclusion.

Jessica stared at him silently. After a pause that seemed like eternity, she simply said, “Explain.”

Whitaker gestured toward the files on the screen. “The Lazarus Directive was built around a principle—death is irrelevant. If the mind can be erased and replaced, then the body is just another component.” He met her eyes. “You weren’t the first, Jessica. But you might be the last.”

Jessica swallowed back the instinctive flare of resistance.

“You’re lying.”

Whitaker tilted his head. “Am I?”

She could hear the hum beneath her skull again—low, insidious. Then another realization hit. The bodies in the other rooms. The empty observation chambers. The handprints on the walls. These were not just ghosts of the past. They were echoes of herself.

Her fingers curled into fists.

Leanna’s voice broke the silence. “If what you’re saying is true, then why are you still here?”

Whitaker’s lips twitched. Not quite amusement. Not quite regret.

“Because Vanguard left me here.” He exhaled. “This place was supposed to be erased. The only reason it still exists is because someone—someone more powerful than Vanguard—decided to keep it.”

Jessica’s pulse slowed.

Leanna frowned. “Who?”

Whitaker’s gaze flickered toward Jessica. A long pause. Then he spoke.

“The man who never stopped watching. Your architect. Your benefactor.”

Jessica felt the words settle into the air, heavier than the concrete around them. She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. He had already answered. She just wasn’t ready to hear it. Because the truth was already pressing against her rib cage.

She knew that he meant Mr. Black. He was always watching. Always two steps ahead. And now, Whitaker had just confirmed it. Mr. Black had known exactly what she would find here because he had kept it waiting for her.