2025-11-01 05:24:00Chapter 6
(After the fall, London under siege, new players emerge) Rain lashed the Thames like broken glass. Ethan’s body surfaced near a moored tugboat, lungs screaming. He clawed his way up the slick ladder and collapsed on the deck, coughing water and blood. The city lights shimmered above, distorted, unreal. Isla wasn’t there. He staggered upright, scanning the black current. A faint light bobbed downstream, a buoy, or maybe her flashlight. He dove in again, every muscle burning, chasing that glimmer through the dark. But when he reached it, all he found was her badge. {The Shadow Operative} Hours later, Ethan broke into a derelict flat in Camden. He stripped off his soaked clothes and stared into the cracked mirror. Bruises, cuts, eyes like hollow glass. And beneath it all, a faint pulse of light under his left collarbone. He pressed it. A holographic code flickered across his reflection: UNIT: VALE-01 ACTIVE / SYNC LOST / RETRIEVE CORE DATA He froze. They hadn’t just copied his DNA. They’d networked him. His comm buzzed once encrypted frequency, one he hadn’t used in years. Unknown Voice: “You survived. That’s… inconvenient.” Ethan: “Who is this?” Voice: “Someone who wants Roth erased. Meet me at the Old Vic Theatre. Midnight. Bring the badge.” The line went dead. {The Old Vic} The theatre was abandoned, scaffolding draped like cobwebs. London slept beyond its walls, unaware of the war simmering in its veins. Ethan entered through a side door, pistol ready. A single figure stood center stage, backlit by the ghost light. “Hello, Ethan,” she said. It was Isla. She looked untouched, dry clothes, no wounds, calm as a photograph. “I watched you drown,” he said. “Then maybe you watched the wrong one.” He aimed his gun. “Clone?” “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She stepped closer, eyes sharp. “You broke into MI5. You found Echelon II. That was the point. Roth wanted you to.” “Why?” “Because he’s running a simulation, seeing which version of you reaches him first. You’re not just his experiment, Ethan. You’re his weapon.” Ethan’s hand trembled. “You’re lying.” She tossed him a drive, the one he lost in the archive. “That contains the original trigger file. Open it, and you’ll see what you are.” Before he could speak, the stage doors burst open. Black-clad soldiers flooded in. “MI5 Tactical! Drop your weapon!” Isla smiled faintly. “Too late.” Smoke grenades erupted. She vanished into the haze as bullets tore through the stage. Ethan rolled behind the curtain, firing blind, adrenaline spiking. A round grazed his shoulder. Another hit the scaffolding, showering sparks. He bolted toward the fire exit and crashed into the alley beyond. The sound of sirens echoed across the night. {The Chase} He ducked into an underground station. Lights flickered. Footsteps thundered behind him, agents shouting, boots on tile. He jumped the barrier, sprinted down the empty platform, and leapt onto the tracks just as a train screamed into view. He pressed flat against the wall. Heat and air tore past him. When the train was gone, so were his pursuers. He climbed into a maintenance tunnel, breath ragged, the drive clutched in his hand. {The Revelation} In the dark, Ethan connected the drive to his wrist comm. The screen filled with data, neural maps, chemical markers, timestamps. Then a single video file opened: A sterile lab. Roth at the console. “Subject Vale-01 showing stable integration. Memory fragments reinserted successfully. Emotional response: intact. Recommend release into population to observe behavioral variance.” The camera turned,showing Ethan himself, unconscious on the table. Roth’s voice continued: “If he ever discovers this recording, initiate Phase Two.” The feed ended. Ethan sat in the dark, shaking. {Phase Two}. He looked down. The implant under his collarbone pulsed faster, syncing to an invisible rhythm. A voice echoed from deeper in the tunnel,soft, almost kind. “Phase Two initiated.” From the shadows stepped another figure. Same face. Same eyes. Ethan’s clone, expression blank, a pistol steady in his hand. “Don’t move,” the copy said. “You’re the control subject. I’m the evolution.” Ethan’s finger tightened on his own trigger. Two identical men, one heartbeat apart. Then the lights cut out.
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THE CITY THAT LISTENS
Chapter 68 The alarms didn’t scream. They breathed. A low, rhythmic pulse rolled through the tunnel, red light waxing and waning as if the walls themselves had a heartbeat. Naomi stood frozen, every instinct tearing her in opposite directions, run, fight, scream, deny. The man before them hadn’t moved, yet the space felt smaller with each pulse, compressed by his presence. Maya tightened her grip on Naomi’s arm. “Naomi,” she whispered, “say something.” Naomi swallowed. Her mouth tasted like copper. “Don’t, don’t let him separate us.” The man smiled faintly at that, as if she’d solved a riddle too late. He lowered his hand, and the alarms softened, settling into a steady hum. “I won’t,” he said. “Not yet.” Elena’s voice trembled. “You said he was dead.” “I said the case was closed,” Naomi replied. “I said the evidence ended him.” Her eyes never left his face. “I never said the truth did.” He inclined his head, acknowledging the distinction. “Truth is inefficient,” he said. “I
THE MAN IN THE TUNNEL
Chapter 67 The tunnel twisted like a throat carved beneath the earth, narrow and damp, the air thick with dust stirred by the collapse above. Naomi’s lungs burned as she sprinted forward, boots slapping the cold concrete. Behind her, Maya and Elena followed close, their breath ragged, their shadows flickering in the dim emergency lights lining the walls like dying fireflies.“Harris,” Maya gasped. “We have to go back for him,”“No,” Naomi said, voice cracking but firm. “He told us to run. You know what that means.”Elena flinched at the truth in those words.If Harris was still alive, he was buying them seconds.If he wasn’t… then he had already given everything he could.The tunnel sloped downward, the angle steeper than Naomi remembered from the old schematic Harris had shown them weeks earlier, back when hiding underground was still a theoretical fear, not a reality closing in on their heels.A deep metallic groan echoed through the tunnel walls.Not structural.Mechanical.Maya s
THE BASEMENT DOOR
Chapter 66 Darkness swallowed the house so quickly it felt intentional, precise, engineered, timed down to the heartbeat. Naomi’s breath hitched as the lights blinked off, leaving only the thin silver glow leaking through the cracks around the boarded windows. Maya grabbed her hand. Elena stumbled back, hitting the wall with a soft thud. Harris didn’t yell. He didn’t panic. He spoke with the cold authority of someone who had rehearsed this moment in nightmares. “Stay close. Move now.” He switched on a small tactical light clipped to his vest. A tight white beam cut through the dark, trembling slightly with his breath but steady enough to guide them. He led them toward the kitchen, toward the cellar door that sat half-hidden behind an old, dust-covered shelf. Another click cracked through the house. This one louder. Deeper. Mechanical. Elena flinched. “What is that? What did they turn on?” Harris didn’t look back. “A lock. Or a trigger. Either way, it means we’re running out
THE HOUSE THAT KNEW THEIR NAME
Chapter 64 Naomi didn’t understand why the quiet felt hostile, but from the moment the three of them stepped into the abandoned safe house, something was wrong. It was too still, like a place waiting for its occupants, not welcoming them.Detective Harris locked the door behind them, then moved through the room with the sharp, scanning focus of a man who expected danger in every shadow. He checked windows, corners, floorboards, every surface his eyes touched carried suspicion.Maya rubbed her arms, trying to shake the goosebumps rising there. “Harris, how long are we supposed to stay here?”“Long enough to figure out who’s hunting you,” he said, voice low. “And long enough for me to confirm if what I’ve been told is real.”Naomi turned to him. “What you’ve been told? By who?”He didn’t answer.Instead, he held up a small envelope. Thin, brown, sealed.None of them had noticed it on the kitchen counter before.Elena frowned. “Where did that come from? That wasn’t there when we walked
THE SECOND CALL
Chapter 64 Naomi didn’t realize she was holding her breath until Detective Harris finished speaking. The living room felt suddenly too small, the air too thin, as if the walls themselves were leaning in to listen.Maya was the first to find her voice. “What do you mean someone called asking about us? Who?”Harris didn’t sit. He stayed standing, tense, watchful, every muscle tight like he expected the situation to turn at any moment.“I don’t have a name,” he said. “The inquiry came through an encrypted line routed through three different servers. Whoever made that call knew how to hide. But they asked directly for you three. By full name. And they referenced the night of the incident.”A shiver rolled through Elena. “How would anyone outside the department know the details? That case wasn’t public.”“That’s the problem,” Harris said. “Someone on the inside is leaking information. Or someone on the outside has access they shouldn’t.”Naomi paced, fingers pressed against her temples. “
THE VISITOR AT THE DOOR
Chapter 63 Naomi’s fingers tightened around the edge of the door as the figure stepped fully into view. The early morning sun cast a long shadow behind him, turning his presence into something larger, heavier. Maya and Elena stood slowly, uncertainty knotting in their chests.“Detective Harris?” Naomi breathed, disbelief slicing through her voice.He nodded once. Serious. Focused. His dark coat looked too heavy for the warm morning, and the badge clipped at his belt glinted sharply in the sunlight. He scanned each of their faces, first Naomi, then Elena, then Maya, studying them the way only someone trained to read people would.“Sorry to show up unannounced,” he said, “but we need to talk. All three of you.”Maya swallowed hard. “About what?”Harris stepped inside without waiting for permission, though his presence didn’t feel forceful, just urgent. He closed the door behind him and let out a breath as though he’d been holding it for miles.“It’s about the incident,” he said. “The o
