Frank didn’t move. Time fractured in the doorway Mia Caldwell in tactical black. Beta, the clone. Armed operatives fanned out behind them like an execution squad.Ella stepped between Frank and the door instinctively.“Don’t,” she whispered.Mia raised a hand, and the soldiers halted. Her voice was smooth, practiced. “Frank Sutton. You’ve stolen highly classified information. You’re harboring unstable assets. And you’ve endangered a top-tier subject.” She gestured at Ella without looking at her.Frank’s eyes stayed on Mia. “You lied to me.”“I recruited you,” she corrected. “And you started asking questions. The wrong kind. The kind that bring walls down.”Beta chuckled, stepping forward. “You always did have a problem with curiosity. Guess we share that flaw.”Frank’s hand inched toward his belt, where a compact flashbang rested beneath his jacket. “And you always had a problem with staying in line.”“Frank,” Ella said urgently. “Now’s not the time.”Mia raised her weapon. “You’re ou

Professor Huxley looked just as Frank remembered only older, with a wariness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. His once-polished demeanor had dulled into a soldier’s stillness, a man who had waited too long for something he hoped would never arrive.And now it had.Frank stepped inside the cabin cautiously, Ella trailing behind him, still pale and shaken from her failed reactivation.Behind them, Winston remained slumped in the backseat of the vehicle, still too weak to move. But alive.The cabin was quiet. No electricity, only the crackle of the fire and the faint hum of old radio equipment.“I wasn’t sure you’d make it here,” Huxley said, motioning to a chair. “Especially not… like this.”Frank didn’t sit. “You knew what they turned me into.” Huxley nodded, slowly. “I helped build the framework that allowed it.”Ella lowered herself into the corner of the room, eyes vacant. Frank glanced at her, then stepped forward. “Start talking.”Huxley sighed. “You were part of Project

Frank’s head throbbed as he sat up in the crisp white bed, the sterile scent of the room sharpening his disorientation. The light was too clean. Too artificial.He was being watched.He turned slowly toward the mirrored glass across the room, the one-way wall that pulsed with invisible eyes.Behind it, two figures.One he recognized instantly: Marla Vex—WrenTech’s cold, calculating head of International Development. She stood like a monarch: polished, unmoved.The second…Ella.Standing just behind Marla, her face blank. Professional. A badge clipped to her jacket.WrenTech—Executive Division.Frank’s breath caught.“Ella…” he whispered. She didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t smile.Frank pressed his palm to the glass. But she just turned… and walked away.Behind the mirror, Marla observed without emotion as the biometric sensors mapped Frank’s heart rate, ocular activity, and micro facial twitches.“His reaction to seeing her is within predicted parameters,” said the technician beside

The emergency lights pulsed red as Frank slipped through the lower corridors of the WrenTech facility. The Omega Directive had locked down most floors—but Frank wasn’t using doors.He moved through old ducts, forgotten wiring shafts, and broken access ladders he once scrubbed as a janitor. Back then, they were a reminder of everything he wasn’t. Now, they were his map back into the heart of the storm.He pulled up a schematic from memory. Sublevel 9—the Deep Vault. No blueprints. No guards. No return.And that’s where they’d taken her.Ella.And Beta.Meanwhile, in Sublevel 9, Ella was strapped into an upright rig, thick restraints across her arms, chest, and neck. The room was freezing—designed for control, not comfort.Marla Vex stood at the center console, a biometric tablet in one hand.Beta lingered by the wall, arms crossed, watching.“You were always the deviation,” Marla said coolly. “You feel too much. Love too easily. All that softness—they called it strength. But it’s weakn

Lucien Creighton stood at the center of the boardroom like a conductor preparing his final symphony. Behind him, the screens flickered between code and faces—hundreds of them. Maintenance workers. Receptionists. Programmers. All blinking in sync. All controlled.“They were never just employees,” Lucien said, smiling. “They were installations. Blank slates. Walking nodes, waiting for Nemesis to wake.”Frank felt the weight of the moment press into his chest.He wasn’t just in a room full of powerbrokers.He was in a room full of puppets.Ella clutched the disruptor seed tightly in her fist. “Tell me this is reversible.”Frank shook his head slowly. “Not after this long. He’s been building this network for years.”Davros Hale—the board’s figurehead—took an unsteady step forward. “Lucien, this is madness. You’re destroying the very structure you claim to protect.”Lucien turned to him, eyes calm. “On the contrary, Davros. I’m cleansing it. Humanity built this company. But human greed, we