Rebirth of the Forsaken Heir

Chapter Seven: Awakening the Prototype

The sun hadn’t risen, but the city already stirred, restless and unaware of the silent war building beneath its surface.

Ethan Blake stood in front of the full-length mirror in his private quarters, shirt unbuttoned, staring at the surgical scar that ran behind his right ear. He’d never paid attention to it before—just one of many from his accident-riddled youth. But now he knew it was a mark of control.

His hand hovered over the scar.

A prototype.

That’s what Arden had called him. Not a patient. Not a survivor. A human experiment embedded with a dormant trigger that could rewrite his will, override his thoughts, even steal his memories.

Behind him, Zara leaned in the doorway, her expression softening.

“You haven’t slept,” she said.

“No time for sleep,” Ethan replied. “Not when I might not be in control of my own mind.”

She stepped closer. “We’ll figure this out. The implant hasn’t activated—yet. But we need to extract it before it does.”

He nodded slowly, turning to face her. “How long before Victor realizes we know about it?”

Zara hesitated. “If he’s monitoring your neural patterns remotely? Maybe hours.”

Ethan’s jaw tensed. “Then we do it now.”

NeuroLab 6 – The Extraction

Within the lower vaults of Atlas Venture, Zara prepped the surgical lab. Jayden and Mira stood by, calibrating the nanobot-assisted extraction module. The procedure was dangerous. One wrong movement and the implant could hemorrhage the memory cortex.

Jayden looked at Ethan on the medical bed. “Still time to back out.”

Ethan smirked. “Not when someone out there’s got their hand on my mental puppet strings.”

Zara injected the anesthesia. “Ready?”

“Do it,” he said.

The lights dimmed, the machine hummed, and Zara guided the micro-surgical probe into Ethan’s neural interface. His vitals remained steady—until they weren’t.

Mira’s monitor blinked red.

“He’s slipping!”

Zara cursed. “He’s resisting the interface. The implant’s fighting back!”

On the screen, neural wave patterns spiked.

Suddenly, Ethan’s body convulsed—and the screens flashed a series of encrypted images: blueprints, faces, voices. A cascade of memories unlocked and dumped all at once.

Zara worked fast, isolating the implant’s command center. With a final flick, the probe clamped around the implant’s spine and pulled.

The machine whined—and then went silent.

Ethan collapsed, unconscious.

Zara looked down at the tiny black shard on the tray, still pulsing faintly.

“That,” she whispered, “was never just tech.”

Ghost Memories

Ethan awoke in the recovery bay.

Zara sat beside him, her eyes red from exhaustion.

“You were out for seven hours,” she said. “But you’re stable.”

Ethan blinked, his voice hoarse. “I saw something while I was under. A woman... in a lab coat. She was arguing with Marcus.”

Zara leaned in. “You remember her name?”

He shook his head. “But she called me ‘E9.’”

Jayden entered, holding a tablet. “That checks out. Mira ran a cross-reference of the images your brain fired during the procedure. Most of them match old BlakeCorp R&D logs from twenty years ago.”

Zara turned to Ethan. “Your father was funding human enhancement experiments. You weren’t born sick. You were born modified.”

Ethan’s pulse quickened. “Why?”

Jayden looked grim. “That’s the part we’re still decrypting. But the woman in your vision? We found her.”

He pulled up a file.

Dr. Sienna Mallory. Neuro-geneticist. Presumed dead in a lab fire eighteen years ago.

“She worked with Marcus,” Jayden said. “But according to our source, she survived.”

Ethan stood slowly. “Where is she?”

Jayden hesitated. “Underground. Off-grid. But one name kept appearing in her old files—Aria.”

They turned to Aria, who’d just entered.

She froze. “You think I’m connected to Mallory?”

Jayden raised an eyebrow. “We think you might be her daughter.”

Bloodline Secrets

The room fell silent.

Aria stepped back, shock washing over her features. “That’s not possible. My mother died when I was ten. Her name was Elena.”

Zara handed her a DNA comparison chart.

“Your mother went by Elena Mallory after the fire. She changed identities. We ran a sample from the implant—its genetic encryption was keyed to her DNA.”

Aria’s voice trembled. “Why... why would she keep this from me?”

Ethan stepped closer. “Because she was protecting you from the same people who turned me into their prototype.”

Jayden tapped the screen again. “There’s more. We found a vault. A secure satellite lab in Norway registered to a shadow company your mother once funded. We think she left something behind.”

Ethan’s eyes burned with renewed purpose. “Then that’s our next stop.”

Norway – The Memory Vault

Three days later, under cover of night and armed with a black-ops team, Ethan, Zara, Jayden, and Aria breached the snowy ridges of Lofoten.

At the base of a granite cliff, they found the vault—buried beneath decades of ice and erosion. The biometric scanner was damaged, but Aria’s DNA unlocked it.

Inside, the lab was preserved in cryo-stasis. Data drives. Journals. And one pod sealed with her mother’s final message.

“If you're reading this, you’ve survived what they tried to make you. I’m sorry, Aria. I couldn’t stop them. But I made sure Ethan wouldn’t be alone. He was never just a project. He was my last chance to make something right.”

Aria’s hands trembled. “She knew. She knew they’d come for him again.”

Ethan opened the final journal.

Inside was a blueprint. Labeled:

HELI-X ALPHA: CONTROLLED EVOLUTION INITIATIVE.

And one line scribbled in red ink:

“The key lies in the Source Code. Not written... but born.”

Victor Strikes Back

That night, as the team worked to extract the remaining files, Ethan’s satellite phone rang.

Zara answered—and her face went white.

“It’s Devin,” she whispered. “There’s been an attack at Atlas HQ.”

Ethan grabbed the phone. “Devin?”

Static. Then a broken voice.

“They… knew. Someone sold us out. Jayden’s codes were used. AI core is compromised. They're taking everything—”

Gunfire. A scream. The line went dead.

Jayden stood frozen, guilt flooding his face. “My codes? I never gave them to anyone.”

Aria spoke. “Then someone cloned your access. Which means the mole’s still close. Closer than we thought.”

Zara turned to Ethan. “Victor made his move.”

Ethan looked at the icy vault, the secrets they now held.

“Then it’s our turn.”

Declaration of War

Back at their Norway hideout, Ethan broadcasted an encrypted transmission to every remaining Atlas node, partner, and ally.

His face filled the screen.

“This is Ethan Blake. Son of Marcus. Survivor of their lies. They created me to be controlled. They failed. They tried to erase me. They failed. Now I know what they are. Who they are. And I promise you this—”

“I will expose them. Every name. Every secret. Every crime. The Helix Council has ruled in silence long enough. No more.”

“I am not your prototype.”

“I am your reckoning.”