2025-10-30 00:41:41
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CHAPTER NINE ~ REMNANTS
The alley burned. Ethan kicked the detonator just as his double raised the gun , the explosion erased everything.Ethan woke to fire and rain. The air was thick with smoke, metal, and ash. Every breath felt like swallowing knives. His vision swam between the pulse of orange light and the wash of blue rain from the broken sky above.He rolled onto his side, dragging himself from the cracked pavement. Pain flared along his ribs ,sharp, deep, but distant somehow, as if his body had grown numb from overuse. His ears rang, a high whistle that drowned out the world.Bits of brick and burning paper drifted down. The walls that framed the alley were half-collapsed, their edges glowing red. The van was gone , nothing but a twisted skeleton smoldering beside him.For a heartbeat, he thought he might be the only one left alive.Then he saw her.Aria lay several meters away, pinned beneath a slab of concrete. Her face was streaked with soot, her breathing shallow.“Aria,” Ethan rasped, dragging h
CHAPTER EIGHT ~ ECHO PROTOCOL
For a moment, time hung suspended , two identical men standing in the flicker of dying light, surrounded by dripping steel and the faint hum of the city above.Ethan stared at the figure before him. The resemblance was perfect , the same scar along the jawline, the same hard eyes that had stared back at him from mirrors and nightmares. But there was something colder behind this man’s gaze , confidence, control, something Ethan had long since lost.The impostor , or the “original,” as he claimed ,stepped forward slowly, hands open, unarmed.“Hard to process, isn’t it?” he said, voice steady. “Seeing the truth wearing your own skin.”Ethan raised his weapon, finger hovering on the trigger. “You’re lying.”The man chuckled , a low, humorless sound. “Roth didn’t create me. He recreated you.”Ethan’s grip tightened. “You’re bluffing.”“Then tell me something,” the man said, taking another step closer. “What’s your first memory, Ethan? Not your file. Not your mission record. The first thing
CHAPTER SEVEN ~ THE MiRROR WAR
The tunnel smelled of oil and rain-soaked metal. Far above, trains thundered across the city, shaking dust from the ceiling and echoing like distant artillery. Ethan Vale stood knee-deep in shadow, water swirling around his boots, pistol clutched tight.He had just seen his own face vanish into darkness.Now that same face stepped out of it.The clone , clean, calm, eyes unblinking ,moved with precision Ethan recognized too well. The light from a flickering overhead bulb cut their features in half, one side human, the other ghost.For a long moment neither spoke.Ethan’s breath misted in the cold air. He raised his gun slowly. The clone mirrored him perfectly, even the tremor in his right hand.“Who are you really?” Ethan asked.The other’s voice was measured, almost gentle. “The part of you that didn’t quit.”They fired at the same instant. The tunnel exploded with sound. Sparks flared as both bullets hit metal , one striking Ethan’s weapon, the other shattering the clone’s. The echo
CHAPTER SIX~DOUBLE CROSS
(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 DATAHe froze.They hadn’t just copied his DNA. They’
CHAPTER FIVE~ THE HUNTER'S MARK
(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 wit
CHAPTER FOUR~ THE GHOST WITHIN
Rain struck the windshield in steady, furious lines as Isla drove through the empty streets of Shoreditch. Ethan sat in the passenger seat, the hard-drive clutched in his hands like something alive. Neither of them spoke. The city slid by, amber streetlights, reflections in puddles, the dark pulse of a sleepless metropolis.“Where now?” Isla asked.“Somewhere with air-gapped power,” Ethan said quietly. “If Roth’s people can reach us through networks, we go dark.”She nodded, turning into a narrow lane between shuttered cafés. The tyres hissed over water; the car stopped behind an abandoned print shop. Ethan was out before she cut the engine, scanning rooftops. The tension in his posture was animal, pure instinct.Inside, the air smelled of ink and dust. He found the breaker box and killed the main line. The world fell into silence, broken only by the distant thrum of rain.Isla crossed her arms. “You think they’ll track the drive?”“They’ll track me.” He set the hard-drive on a count
