The Lazarus Protocol

Chapter 9– The Cipher Within

The cold air inside the tunnel clawed at Ethan’s skin as he descended deeper beneath the city’s underbelly. The ground sloped in spirals, walls slick with damp condensation, torchlight flickering from old lanterns Mara had stashed on their previous runs. Behind him, Mara’s footsteps were sharp and urgent, their echo bouncing off the ancient stone.

They were heading toward a long-abandoned surveillance bunker—the last known place Ethan’s former identity, before Rayburn’s erasure, had left a trace.

And Mara believed what they were looking for wasn’t just a clue to his past—but the blueprint of Rayburn’s end.

When they reached the terminal chamber, a decaying steel door greeted them—chained shut but cracked enough to reveal a blinking red light within. Mara knelt beside the keypad embedded into the wall, brushing away decades of grime.

“Help me with this,” she said, pulling a compact pulse-breaker from her satchel.

Ethan steadied her tools, his hands moving instinctively. His body remembered this—bypassing bio-locks, disabling dead-code defenses. The wall hummed as the breaker interfaced, each second bringing them closer to revelation—or ruin.

Then the door hissed open with a low screech, dust wafting into the corridor like ghostly fog.

Inside was a single metal desk, coated in dust. A locked vault sat embedded into the floor, with a glowing keypad whose numbers flickered like a dying constellation.

And beside it, a body.

The corpse was skeletal but clothed in an old Intelligence Corps uniform. A badge read: W. Adebayo.

“Wait…” Ethan crouched. “I know that name. He trained me.”

“He defected,” Mara whispered. “Went dark to protect something bigger. I think this was where he hid it.”

Ethan looked around—scanning the ancient console beside the body. The screen had power but required a voice imprint and a passphrase. He tapped the screen.

“Access denied. Speak the key.”

He hesitated. A line from a forgotten childhood prayer drifted across his mind.

“Even the dead must remember.”

The terminal beeped. Then unlocked.

Footage flickered to life. W. Adebayo, years younger, stared into the camera.

“Ethan, if you’re watching this, it means they failed to kill you completely. I did what I could—I buried fragments of your identity across safe nodes in the Lazarus Protocol.”

“Rayburn isn’t just a tech firm. They’re rewriting memory, behavior, autonomy. You were the first subject who broke through their obedience architecture. And that’s why they made you disappear.”

“Your mind is the cipher, Ethan. The Lazarus Protocol isn’t data. It’s you.”

Mara’s face was pale. “They didn’t just erase you. They embedded you with… data.”

Ethan staggered back. “You mean my entire existence has been one giant container?”

“The Lazarus Protocol is a sleeper algorithm,” Mara said, awed and horrified. “If we extract it, we can reverse Rayburn’s mind-control network. But if they extract it first…”

“They control everyone.”

Silence hung between them, dense with dread.

The vault at their feet hummed softly. Mara entered a code retrieved from Adebayo’s files. With a shudder, it opened, revealing a small orb-like device wrapped in memory filament. It glowed faintly in Ethan’s presence.

“It’s syncing,” she said. “Your brain must have residual memory-code still active.”

And that meant Rayburn could track him like a beacon.

“We have to move. Now.”

The second they left the chamber, gunfire erupted.

Mara shoved Ethan behind a broken column as rounds ripped through the narrow tunnel.

“Snipers,” she growled. “Rayburn’s private unit—zero echo signature.”

Ethan pulled her back, heart pounding. “He found us faster than expected.”

Marcus’s voice rang through the corridor—smug, cold.

“I told you, Ethan. We’ll always find you. You’re not just the product—you’re the property.”

Mara’s eyes burned with rage. “You’re not his.”

“Not anymore,” Ethan said, rising with a flash grenade in his hand.

He threw it down the corridor. The explosion of white light and thunder deafened their pursuers. Mara fired back, covering their escape as Ethan carried the device.

They slipped into a maintenance shaft, breathing hard as Marcus’s men scrambled to regroup behind them.

Ethan knew this was just the beginning.

But something had changed.

He wasn’t just a ghost.

He was a weapon.