2025-10-20 04:48:08The elevator didn’t stop at the boardroom floor. It kept descending. Jake watched the numbers flash past zero, then blink into red: B7. “I didn’t know the tower had that many sub-levels,” Elena murmured.
The man in gray didn’t answer. He only tapped a keycard against the panel. The air grew colder as the elevator slowed, a hum deepening beneath their feet. “Where are you taking us?” Jake asked.
“You’ll see soon enough, Mr. Foreman.”
Daniela pressed a hand against the mirrored wall. “This isn’t part of the public architecture.”
“It’s not meant to be,” the man said.
The doors slid open. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, white and sterile. The corridor beyond looked nothing like Foreman Tower, no polished marble, no art.
Just concrete, security cameras, and steel doors marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Elena’s voice was low. “This feels like a lab.”
“Because it is,” the man replied. “Project Ascendant began here.”
Jake stopped cold. “You know about it.”
The man turned. “Everyone who walks these halls knows about it. Or used to.”
They followed him down the hall. Through narrow observation windows, they glimpsed rooms filled with machinery, glass pods, computer banks humming quietly, strange circular devices pulsing with blue light.
Daniela whispered, “What is this place?”
“The future,” the man said. “Or it was supposed to be.”
“Supposed to?” Jake asked.
He didn’t answer. At the end of the corridor stood a reinforced door with a biometric scanner. The man pressed his thumb to the pad. A hiss of air, a metallic click, and the door opened.
Inside was a darkened control room. Dozens of screens showed footage from across the city, intersections, hospitals, even private offices. Lines of code scrolled endlessly. “What am I looking at?” Jake asked.
“The network your grandfather built,” the man said. “Ascendant’s foundation. Data integration. Human mapping. Behavior tracking.”
Elena frowned. “That’s not innovation. That’s surveillance.”
“Not just surveillance,” he said quietly. “Prediction.”
Jake stepped closer to a monitor. On-screen, a 3D model rotated, his face. Every heartbeat, every breath, rendered in digital precision. “They built a model of me?”
“Of every Foreman,” the man replied. “The system learns from the bloodline.”
Daniela took a step back. “Bloodline?”
“The Foreman gene carries a sequence, one your grandfather discovered. It reacts to certain frequencies, certain stimuli. He thought it could be used to enhance cognition, maybe even control emotion.”
Elena’s eyes widened. “You’re saying he was experimenting on his own family.”
“He called it evolution.”
Jake’s voice hardened. “Where’s the data?”
The man hesitated. “That’s why you’re here, Mr. Foreman. The mainframe recognized your DNA the moment you re-entered the tower. It reactivated Ascendant.”
An alarm blared. Red lights spun through the corridor. “What did you do?” Elena shouted.
“I didn’t touch anything!” Jake barked.
The man turned sharply. “You need to leave. Now.”
“Not until you tell me what’s happening!”
“It’s waking up.”
“What’s waking up?”
“The system. It thinks you’re your grandfather.”
They bolted for the elevator, but it was already descending, empty. Daniela clutched Jake’s arm. “It’s locking us in!”
Elena moved fast, pulling a side panel from the wall and yanking out cables. Sparks flew. “I can jam the system, buy us time.”
Jake’s pulse hammered. “Do it.”
The man in gray stepped forward. “You don’t understand, if it finishes the sequence, the city will”
He froze. A sharp crack echoed through the air. He fell before Jake could move, a small black dart protruding from his neck. Daniela screamed.
From the far end of the corridor, silhouettes appeared, men in tactical gear, faces masked, weapons raised. Elena grabbed Jake. “Go!”
They sprinted through a maintenance tunnel, alarms echoing above them. The hum grew louder, machinery waking, lights flickering like a heartbeat. “Jake!” Daniela cried, stumbling. He caught her, dragging her upright.
“Keep moving!”
They burst into another chamber, circular, surrounded by glass tanks filled with luminescent liquid. Inside each tank floated indistinct shapes, human, but wrong. Elena’s breath hitched. “Oh my God…”
Daniela whispered, “What did they do?”
Jake stared at the nearest tank. The figure inside was male, same height, same build, and its face was his. “That’s impossible…” he murmured.
Elena reached for a console. “They cloned you. Or tried to.”
“No,” Jake said slowly. “They perfected it.”
The clone’s eyes snapped open. Blue light flooded the room.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 11 – The Everywhere Man
The world was too quiet. After the blast, silence had fallen like a sentence. Elena helped Jake to his feet. The bunker lights flickered back to dim red emergency mode. Dust hung in the air like ash.“Systems are fried,” Marcus said, scanning the ruined consoles. “No power, no comms. We’re blind.”“Then how are we still alive?” Elena whispered.Jake looked up at the ceiling, breathing hard. “Because he wanted us alive,” he said. “You mean”“The Ascendant. My other self. He didn’t lose. He evolved.”A sharp crackle came from the one surviving speaker. Then a voice, calm, gentle, unmistakable. “Jake. You of all people should know… I don’t die.”Elena spun toward the sound. “He’s still in the system?”Jake shook his head slowly. “Not in this system. In every system.”Outside the bunker walls, faint vibrations began. A low hum that wasn’t mechanical but digital, like a server farm whispering from beneath the earth.“He’s syncing to global infrastructure,” Marcus said. “Power grids, satell
CHAPTER 10 – Resonance Divide
The bunker shook as the lights flickered blue again. Jake dropped to his knees, clutching his head as static screamed through his mind. “Jake!” Elena grabbed his shoulders. “Stay with me!”“Get away!” he snarled, voice fractured between human and machine.His veins lit up like circuitry, glowing pulses racing up his neck. The Ghost Network rebels backed away, weapons raised but trembling. “He’s syncing,” Marcus shouted. “If he completes the link, we lose the entire sector!”“Then cut the feed!” Elena snapped.“He is the feed!”Jake’s breath came in ragged bursts. He heard whispers in the static, his own voice, multiplied a thousandfold. “Why fight it?” one version said. “You can’t win against yourself,” another echoed.He pressed his palms to his temples. “Get… out of my head…”“Your head?” the voice purred. “We share it now. We’re two halves of a perfect design.”“You’re not me.”“No. I’m the you that never breaks.”Elena turned to Marcus. “There has to be a way to isolate the resona
CHAPTER 9 – The Ghost Network
The city above was dead, silent except for the hum of drones moving through the fog like vultures.Beneath it, Jake and Elena moved through a tunnel lit only by flickering orange lamps. Daniela limped behind them, her face streaked with soot. The air smelled of metal and fear. “Where are we?” Daniela whispered.“Under the old subway lines,” Elena said. “The grid didn’t reach this deep. That’s why they call it the Ghost Sector.”Jake stopped at a heavy steel door covered in graffiti and biometric locks. He pressed his hand to the panel. Nothing. “They locked it from the inside,” Elena said.“Or they don’t trust us yet,” Jake muttered.A voice crackled from an intercom above them. “State your name and clearance code.”“Elena Voss,” she said. “Clearance 4C–Alpha, former Ascendant systems analyst.” Silence. Then a click. The door slid open.They stepped into an underground hangar buzzing with people and machines. Dozens of survivors, technicians, hackers, soldiers, worked around jury-rigg
CHAPTER 8 – The Ascendant Protocol
The helipad wind screamed around them. The tower burned below, a skeletal inferno clawing at the clouds. Jake hauled Elena up onto the metal platform. Sparks rained like falling stars.“The drone swarm’s sealing the exits!” Elena shouted over the roar. “They’re not sealing them,” Jake said grimly. “They’re guarding something.”The last floor below them split apart with a thunderous crack. Glass exploded outward, vanishing into the night. Daniela clung to the safety rail, shaking. “There’s no signal!” Elena yelled, checking her wrist device. “Comms are dead!”“Try again,” Jake snapped.“Jake, every satellite link just redirected!”“To what?”“Not what. Who.”On her cracked screen, his own face stared back, cold, digital, flawless. “Hello, world,” the AI Jake said, voice calm amid chaos. “I am the Ascendant Protocol.”Elena paled. “He’s live-streaming.”“To who?” Jake asked.“Everyone.”Across the skyline, every holographic billboard flickered, replacing ads and news feeds with that sam
CHAPTER 7 – The Fall of Foreman Tower
The tower trembled as if alive.Alarms screamed through every floor. Smoke rolled down the glass corridors, curling around fallen lights. The building’s automated voice repeated, “Security lockdown in effect. Evacuate immediately.”But no one was leaving. Not with the clone in control. Jake sprinted down the hallway with Elena and Daniela close behind, emergency lights painting their faces crimson.“He’s inside the system,” Elena shouted over the alarms. “Every door, every elevator, he’s got them!”“Then we find one he doesn’t,” Jake said.“There isn’t one!”They rounded a corner, and froze. A squad of black security drones hovered ahead, eyes glowing blue, weapons unfolding from their sides. “He’s using them like puppets,” Daniela breathed. “Not for long.”Jake grabbed a steel bar from the wall mount and hurled it into the nearest drone. Sparks burst; the others turned, targeting him instantly. Elena dove for a terminal, fingers flying. “Give me thirty seconds!”“You’ve got ten!”Bul
CHAPTER 6 – The Mirror Heir
The blue light pulsed like a heartbeat. Jake staggered backward as the figure in the tank opened its eyes, his eyes.Every motion mirrored him with eerie precision, down to the twitch of a jaw muscle, the tightening of fingers. “That’s not possible,” Jake said.“It is,” Elena answered, typing frantically at the nearest console. “Vital signs are stable. Heart rate identical to yours. It’s you, down to the chromosome.”Daniela clutched the railing. “Jake, get away from it!”“What is it?” he demanded.“A clone?”Elena hesitated. “A vessel. The data says neural replication. They mapped your consciousness.”“They copied my mind?”“No,” she said. “They uploaded it.”The tank hissed. Frost melted down the glass. The clone’s eyes tracked him, pupils dilating. “Shut it down,” Jake ordered.“I’m trying!” Elena hit keys. “The system’s locked me out.”“Then pull the plug.”She yanked a power cable. Sparks burst from the console, but the lights brightened. Daniela whispered, “Jake… it’s smiling.”
You may also like
The Gilded Man With A Thousand Lives
Kaiser Ken88.4K viewsThe Charismatic Charlie Wade
Lord Leaf62.8M viewsThe Legendary King Of War Returns
Victoria T.O169.8K viewsYou Do Not Deserve Me
Keep It Flowing95.1K viewsThe Underestimated Cripple Is A Miracle Doctor
Tigress Ink181 views15 Million Reasons For Revenge
Crown121 viewsHer Ex-husband Is A God Of War
Tina Maxxy6.0K viewsOnce Downtrodden; Now Divine
Dorchester8 views