The Silent Trace

THE HUNTER'S MARK

Chapter 5

(Covert infiltration – London MI5 Headquarters)

Night pressed like glass against the Thames. The MI5 building rose from the riverbank, all steel ribs and mirrored windows, reflecting nothing but rain. Ethan Vale watched from across the water through a pair of borrowed thermal lenses. Inside, the corridors glowed faintly red with body heat, guards, analysts, ghosts who thought they were safe.

“Entry point?” Detective Isla Hart whispered beside him, her breath misting in the cold.

“Sub-level loading dock,” Ethan murmured. “One guard, two cameras. The internal grid still runs on Division 9 architecture. I wrote that code ten years ago.”

He packed the lenses, slid his hood up, and crossed the pedestrian bridge. Each step measured. Each shadow rehearsed. The sound of the city drowned everything, the rain, his pulse, the low rumble of unseen traffic.

At the service gate, Isla produced an MI5 clearance badge she’d cloned from a dead agent’s record. Ethan overrode the biometric lock with a wire and a whispered prayer. The gate hissed open.

They slipped inside.

{The Ghost Corridor}

Fluorescent light buzzed overhead. Every wall smelled of antiseptic and bureaucracy. Ethan’s reflection stared back from polished glass, too many faces in one man.

“Where now?” Isla asked.

“Server wing. Roth’s ghost will be somewhere near the archive bay.”

She frowned. “And if he’s real?”

Ethan didn’t answer.

They moved past rows of security doors, each guarded by retinal scanners. Ethan pulled a thin lens from his pocket, pressed it over the sensor, and blinked once. The door light turned green.

Isla stared. “You cloned your own retina?”

“Standard paranoia,” he said. “Never know when you’ll need yourself.”

They entered a stairwell that dropped into the belly of the building. Below, machinery hummed like a sleeping animal.

{Archive Bay 12}

The room looked more like a morgue than a data center. Dozens of vertical pods lined the walls,each pulsing faintly with blue light, each labeled with a codename.

Ethan approached one marked V-09 / Vale, E.

He froze. “They kept a copy of me here.”

Isla’s voice was soft. “You think the clone came from this?”

“Or from something worse.” He slid a drive into the port. Lines of data filled the monitor: timestamps, behavioral logs, voice algorithms. And at the bottom, PROJECT : ECHELON II / LIVE FIELD UNIT DEPLOYED

He whispered, “They launched it.”

A faint click echoed from the door. Motion sensor. Someone else was in the corridor.

Ethan killed the lights. They flattened behind the pods as two agents entered, their torches cutting the dark.

“Check Bay 12. We’ve got a thermal spike,” one said.

Ethan’s pulse steadied to nothing. Isla’s breath trembled near his ear. When the nearest agent turned away, Ethan moved, silent, precise,disarming him, pressing the muzzle of the man’s pistol under his chin. A muffled thump, and the body sagged soundlessly.

The second agent spun, too late; Isla struck him with the butt of her gun. He went down.

Ethan checked his watch. “Seventy seconds before the cameras reboot.”

They slipped out, dragging the bodies into shadow.

{The Core}

Beyond the archive lay a glass room humming with light. At its center stood a single terminal encased in bulletproof polymer, its screen alive with encrypted code.

On the monitor: TRACE COMMAND / Roth.Primary Online.

Isla whispered, “That’s him.”

Ethan approached, fingers hovering over the keyboard. “This is a live neural network. If we open it, we talk to him.”

“Do it.”

He keyed the bypass. The room’s lights dimmed. A voice crackled from the speakers,calm, measured, unmistakable.

“Still picking locks, Ethan?”

Ethan’s throat tightened. “Roth. Where is she? Clara Daines.”

“Safe, for now. You should be proud,your pattern produced remarkable stability.”

“Clone me again and I’ll burn this place to the river.”

“You can’t burn what you are,” Roth said gently. “You’re running on the same code.”

Isla stepped forward, fury sharp in her tone. “What’s Echelon II for?”

Silence, then:

“Prediction requires data. Control requires faith. Soon there’ll be no difference.”

The connection snapped. The screen went black.

Ethan looked down, his drive was missing.

A red light flashed above the door.

“Security lockdown,” Isla said. “We’re trapped.”

Ethan’s gaze went to the ceiling vent. “Not yet.”

They climbed just as the room flooded with armed agents. Alarms howled through the complex.

{The Exit}

They emerged into the service shaft two floors up. Sirens echoed below. Isla clung to the ladder, soaked in sweat and dust. “Where to?”

Ethan jammed a panel open. “Roof. We exfil through the maintenance lift.”

They broke into the night air just as floodlights swept the rooftop. A helicopter roared above.

Ethan grabbed her hand. “Jump.”

“What?”

He pointed to the Thames far below. “Trust me.”

Bullets sparked off the railings as they leapt. Wind screamed. The world spun into darkness and water.

Cold silence. Then, faintly, the thrum of rotors.

Through the rainhaze above the river, a second helicopter hovered.

Inside its open door stood another Ethan Vale—dry, calm, expressionless,watching his original self vanish beneath the water.

“Target confirmed,” he said into his comm. “Begin the next phase.”