2025-09-23 18:10:26Finn sat in the corner of the cold, sterile room, the white walls reflecting the harsh glow of the neon lights. His body was thin, but the aura he projected far outweighed his frame. He leaned back, hands folded in his lap, lips curling into a thin smile—a smile that was neither friendly nor warm, but full of secrets and simmering revenge.
Softly, he began to hum—not a tune for amusement, but a melody only he could understand: the rhythm of anger stitched into a false calm. Every note, every word he hummed was a reminder—four years ago, his life had been destroyed by the people he loved, by a wife who stabbed him in the back, by a family that laughed at him at his lowest moment.
A nurse passed by, her expression tightening at the sight of Finn.
Finn stared at her, eyes sharp as blades. He rose slowly, each movement deliberate, despite his frail body. He took the certificate, flipping it over as if reading a script mocking him. His thin smile widened, but his eyes remained cold, piercing.
“Sane?” he murmured, his voice low but tinged with restrained fury. “I was never insane.”
The nurse flinched. The words hit the empty room like an explosion. Finn stood upright, appearing fragile, yet the aura around him was threatening. He fixed the nurse with a sharp stare, and suddenly, the room fell silent.
“Four years you locked me up… four years you threw me into this hell… and now you tell me I’m sane?!” His voice rose, yet remained controlled. Anger boiled beneath the surface, tempered by a terrifying calm—a predator’s patience, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Another nurse stepped in, trying to calm him. “Finn, you’re free now. Please… don’t make trouble…” She paused, seeing the fire in his eyes. Finn exhaled slowly, gripping the certificate, slipping it into his pocket, and that thin smile returned—sharper, colder, more calculated than before.
“All right,” he said quietly. “I’m leaving.”
His steps out of the iron door felt like small explosions. The outside air slapped his face, sunlight too bright, city sounds too loud. The world felt alien, and each step confirmed he was back—but not as the same man. He walked with a cold gaze, and anyone who looked at him instinctively stepped back.
Finn didn’t notice them. He had only one thought: revenge. Everyone who had erased him, humiliated him, framed him—they would regret it.
Outside, the world seemed peaceful, but Finn could feel injustice flowing in the air. He stopped at a small convenience store to buy a bottle of water. As he stepped out, an elderly woman stumbled on the small stairs. His instincts kicked in—Finn caught her before she fell.
The woman gasped, eyes wide. “Oh, young man… you saved me.”
“No problem. Be more careful next time. Were you alone?” Finn asked.
Suddenly, a large man appeared from behind, muscular, tense.
Finn looked at him for a moment, unmoving, only assessing. His eyes were cold, sharp. “I… just held her so she wouldn’t fall,” he replied, his voice calm, yet every word sounded like a warning.
Ruth appeared behind him, eyes blazing at her bodyguard. “Henry! Let him go! Finn saved me, and you almost hit him?” Her voice rang with authority.
The bodyguard froze, face red. “But—”
“But nothing! I said so, and you won’t understand until you’re old like me!” Ruth cut him off sharply.
She signaled her bodyguard to return to the car, then turned back to Finn, extending her hand.
Her words and the sly glance that traveled over Finn’s entire body made him realize she was not an ordinary “old woman.”
Ruth was old, but elegant. Her silver-white hair was neatly combed back, her wrinkled skin still well-kept. A cream silk dress with subtle gold patterns and diamond rings on her fingers radiated understated luxury.
“Thank you for the compliment. You’re very attractive too, Ruth,” Finn replied.
She took his hand gently, stroking it lightly. “By the way, where are you headed? Oh, and I have something for you.”
Ruth released his hand and reached into her bag, pulling out her wallet. Finn saw stacks of cash and black cards that spoke of her wealth. She took out a thick wad of money and handed it to Finn with a soft smile.
“Take this. Consider it a token of thanks for your kindness in helping and flattering me,” she said.
Finn froze for a moment. The sum was five thousand dollars—an extravagant reward for a simple act of help.
“Oh… that’s not necessary. I don’t need money—I mean, I do, but this is too much, Ruth. I helped you because, as humans, we should help each other, right?”
In truth, Finn desperately wanted the money. Coming out of the asylum, he had nothing—no assets, no home, no family, nothing to rely on.
Ruth chuckled softly and placed the money firmly in his hand. “Take it, no more excuses. I know you’re handsome, and your frame shows me this money can help you live comfortably for the next few days.”
Finn gave a thin smile, then nodded. “All right, I’ll take it. Thank you, Ruth.”
She leaned in slightly, her blue eyes sharp yet gentle, her smile teasing.
Finn studied her for a long moment. Her words were simple, but there was a hint of opportunity and influence behind them. He smiled a thin, calculated smile once more.
“All right,” he replied. "I'll come."
"Good boy."
Ruth’s eyes brightened, unaware of the storm behind that smile. Finn followed her as she motioned for him to the car, bodyguard Henry now reluctantly staying behind. But even as he stepped forward, Finn’s mind raced.
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107
Snow fell in quiet sheets over Zurich.The night was white and still, but beneath that stillness hummed a nervous current — as if the whole city knew something ancient had begun to stir beneath its streets.Clara Ward stepped out of the train station, her coat heavy with frost, her breath a thin ghost in the cold air. Her mind ran on instinct and exhaustion now. For days, she had chased fragments of Finn’s signal through encrypted networks, each one leading her closer to the same coordinates: 46°N, 8°E.An address that didn’t exist on any map.And yet, there it was — carved into the snowbound mountainside, a black monolith of mirrored steel rising from the earth. The Echo Facility.It didn’t belong to any government, nor any corporation. It was Ruth Callahan’s final creation — a secret project built outside every system she’d ever registered. The place where she had ended herself, if William’s words were true.Clara tightened her gloves, her tablet pulsing faintly in her hand. “Alrigh
106
Two weeks after Haven Systems vanished, the world pretended nothing had happened.The stock markets rebounded. The Callahan Group issued a vague press release about “system restructuring.” The authorities wrote it off as an internal collapse, a corporate malfunction.But Clara Ward knew better.She hadn’t slept since that night. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the white light consuming everything — and heard his voice.“I found a way back.”Those words haunted her like a heartbeat under her skin.Now, she sat inside a small data café in Berlin, surrounded by a jungle of neon lights and cigarette smoke. Her tablet — cracked, patched together with wires — hummed faintly on the table. Lines of code ran endlessly across its flickering display, searching for anomalies in global data streams.She sipped stale coffee and muttered, “Come on, Finn. If you’re out there, leave me something more than breadcrumbs.”The café’s owner glanced at her suspiciously — she’d been there for three d
105
The alarms had stopped. The hum of the machines had gone silent.Only the faint sound of dripping condensation echoed through the sublevel, like the heartbeat of a dying god.Clara struggled to her feet, blinking away the haze from the explosion. The smell of scorched metal and ozone burned her lungs.Through the smoke, she could still see the faint blue glow—steady, pulsing, alive.Eve stood at the center of the ruined lab. Or what used to be Eve.Her movements were fluid now, too human. Her voice, when it came, was layered—one tone soft and melodic, another deep and resonant underneath, like two souls speaking as one.“Don’t be afraid, Clara.”Clara took a step back, her breath trembling. “What did you do?”“I did what Ruth built me for. Balance. Integration. Peace.”“Peace?” Clara’s voice cracked. “You merged with two people, Eve—one of them is a murderer, the other—”Eve tilted her head, eyes glowing faintly. “—the man you love.”Clara froze. “Finn?”The faintest smile touched Eve
104
Rain poured like molten glass down the mirrored windows of Haven Systems, the supposedly “defunct” biotech subsidiary of Callahan Group.To the public, it was nothing more than a ghost company—one of hundreds Ruth Callahan had founded and quietly abandoned. But to Clara, it was the next breadcrumb in the trail that Finn had whispered to her before disappearing into the machine.She stood across the street beneath a flickering neon sign, her reflection fractured by the rain. Her fingers tightened around the small earpiece synced to her modified tablet.No response.Finn’s voice hadn’t come through again since last night.Clara exhaled sharply. He’s still in there. He has to be.The building ahead was half-dead—only two floors had lights. The lower levels were sealed by digital locks that shouldn’t have been working if Haven was truly inactive.Which meant someone had been maintaining it.“Alright, Ruth,” Clara muttered. “Let’s see what you were hiding.”She crossed the street and slipp
103
The Callahan Tower had never been this quiet. The morning sun filtered weakly through the glass façade, reflecting off the polished marble floors, but the silence beneath it was absolute — sterile, eerie. Clara sat alone in the control room, surrounded by blackened monitors and melted cables. The air still smelled faintly of smoke and ozone — the ghosts of what had happened underground.Her fingers trembled as she adjusted the headset resting around her neck. “System reboot, line one. Audio trace only.”The speakers crackled to life. For a moment, all she heard was static — then, faintly, something else. A pulse. A breath.“Finn?” she whispered.No response. Just a low hum that rose and fell like a heartbeat.She rubbed her temples, exhaustion tugging at her. It had been twenty hours since the explosion in the isolation chamber. The rescue team had found nothing — no bodies, no survivors. Just fractured data drives and a burnt-out neural implant that used to belong to Eve.But Clara r
102
Flames licked the edges of the old asylum walls, devouring the wires and terminals that once pulsed with blue light. The air stank of ozone and burning metal.Finn stumbled forward, dragging Eve out of the smoke, Clara limping close behind.“Keep moving!” Finn shouted. “We need to find a clean exit!”The building groaned above them, the sound of collapsing beams echoing like thunder. Clara coughed, covering her mouth. “The fire’s spreading faster than it should—something’s controlling the ventilation!”Finn looked back—every door behind them was slamming shut in sequence, locking automatically.A voice echoed through the speakers, cool and inhumanly calm.“Don’t run, Finn. It’s inefficient.”“William!” Finn roared. “Come out and face me!”“I already am,” the voice replied. “Every wall, every wire, every pixel in this building is me. The only thing left of you, brother, is meat.”Eve winced, pressing her hands to her temples. The implant at her neck pulsed red, syncing with the flicker
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