The chamber hissed as pressurized air cycled out. Cold metal beneath their boots, and a hum too deep to hear—felt more in bone than ear.
Evan stared at the figure in the pod. Same height. Same eyes. But the face was too perfect, like memory edited by a machine.
It stepped out with controlled grace.
"Don't be afraid," it said. "I've waited a long time for you."
Trey raised his rifle. Maya moved in front of Evan.
"What are you?" she asked.
The figure smiled. "I'm what they built when Evan Mercer failed. The last prototype. Fully converged. Architect-integrated, memory-fluent, decision-free."
Evan stepped forward. "That means you're not me."
"No," it said. "I'm what you would have become if you'd stayed in the program. If they hadn't let you escape."
Frost circled, watching its movements. "What do you mean, 'let him'?"
"They knew you'd run. It was part of the design. The rebellion was a controlled infection. You were the virus to stress-test the world. I was the cure they bred in response."
Maya tapped her neural node. "If that's true, why haven't you stopped the broadcast?"
The prototype turned to her. "Because the Architect doesn't want it stopped."
Trey narrowed his eyes. "You're working for her."
"I'm her spine," it said. "You are ghosts. I am the present."
Maya's visor lit. Data streams flared behind her eyes—signals from the core of the station.
"He's right," she whispered. "He's hardwired to this place. If we kill him, the station collapses. Burnout failsafe. Total orbital descent."
Trey adjusted his grip. "So what—talk him down?"
"No," Evan said. "I talk to him."
He stepped forward, face-to-face with the prototype.
"You remember everything I do?"
"Yes."
"Then you know I don't give up."
The prototype blinked. "That's what made you a threat. That's why she wanted you erased."
"You could've erased me," Evan said. "Why wait?"
The figure tilted its head. "Because I was waiting for you to realize you're not just a mistake. You're the key."
Maya whispered to Frost, "He's stalling."
Frost touched a hidden console with an ashglass edge. A small beep confirmed a system link.
Maya's voice dropped: "Buy us two minutes. We might be able to separate his core link."
The prototype kept speaking.
"She tried to overwrite your identity hundreds of times. It always fractured. Do you know why?"
Evan didn't answer.
"Because you never believed the world was real. Not even once. That's what made you unstable to control. And dangerous."
Trey added, "And you're just a stable copy."
"I'm the proof," it said, "that humanity can be designed. You are the proof that chaos cannot be contained."
Suddenly, Maya nodded once. The signal was ready.
"Now!" she shouted.
Frost plunged the ashglass spike into the override panel. Energy cracked—red static exploding from the walls.
The prototype screamed—not in pain, but rage.
"Traitorous noise—"
Evan charged first.
His fist collided with the prototype's jaw, but it didn't flinch. It moved like water, countering with a palm strike that sent Evan flying into the wall.
Trey opened fire. Ashglass rounds hit. One embedded in its leg.
It staggered.
Maya surged forward, plunging a conductor node into its side.
"Rewriting interface!" she shouted. "Just hold him!"
The prototype turned, metal crawling under its skin. "You think this ends with me?"
"No," Evan said. He was already moving again.
He grabbed the node Maya had placed and forced it deeper into the prototype's chest.
"You're just a mirror. And I'm done looking at reflections."
The surge of data inverted.
The chamber filled with shrieking noise—digital and organic at once.
The lights went out.
Then silence.
When power returned, the prototype lay on the ground, twitching. Its eyes stared upward, glowing faintly.
But the signal was gone.
Frost looked at the instruments. "The broadcast… it's stopped."
Maya collapsed to her knees. "We broke the chain."
Evan stood over the broken version of himself. "Then let's finish it."
He lifted the final ashglass blade.
But the prototype looked at him and whispered, "You think she didn't plan for this?"
A new alarm began.
Trey turned toward the viewport.
Outside, above the planet, a larger station blinked into existence—previously cloaked.
VANTA-PRIME.
The pod around the prototype sealed again.
Frost aimed to shatter it—but a barrier repelled him.
"Auto-preserve mode," Maya said. "She's keeping it. Maybe using it to patch the next signal."
The orbital platform shook.
Maya checked the core. "This station's being drained. She's pulling data to the new one."
Evan turned to the others. "Then we're going there."
Back on the surface:
Signal and Lyra, watching from the ground through partial uplink sensors, saw the cloaked station form above the planet like a second moon.
Lyra whispered, "That's not a station. That's a weapon."
Signal nodded. "She's moving to phase two. Evan better hurry."