May 4-5, 2025
Fredericksburg, Virginia

The Merriweather Medical Research Foundation was quiet at two in the morning. Not exactly silent—the climate systems hummed behind the walls, cycling filtered air through corridors built to preserve things that should not have survived as long as they had—but quiet in the way of a building with no one else in it.

Elijah Merriweather sat alone in his private office on the basement level, behind the biometric lock that responded only to him, looking at his own ...