The private jet glided through the last streaks of dusk, its sleek frame humming softly above the neon sprawl of Osaka.
Isabelle sat forward, eyes locked on the holo-map hovering above the conference table. The Echo Hub was buried beneath an abandoned biotech research facility on the edge of the industrial zone—classified as a hazardous zone due to a "biochemical leak" that no one had ever truly explained.
Damian tapped the console, bringing up blueprints. "This place isn't just locked down. It's buried under five levels of false floors, blackout tech, and automated defense turrets. Whoever built this didn't want it found—let alone accessed."
Rae leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "Which begs the question... what the hell is under there?"
Isabelle didn't answer.
Because deep down, she had a feeling she already knew.
---
They landed in a private hangar at the edge of the city, then rode sleek black bikes through the narrow streets—quiet, empty, far too quiet for Osaka.
The facility loomed ahead like a giant steel tomb, its once-glass windows now shattered and overgrown with vines. Graffiti littered the outer walls—everything from angry political slogans to strange symbols Isabelle couldn't decipher.
They breached the entrance through an old loading bay. The heavy metal door creaked open, revealing a cold hallway soaked in darkness and dust.
Origin's voice came through their comms. "Stay alert. Specter may still have remnants here—old code, traps, or memory echoes."
As they descended the first sublevel, Isabelle's flashlight swept across broken lab equipment, rusting terminals, and shattered containment units.
Rae glanced at a wall-mounted screen still flickering with static. "Whatever happened here... it wasn't a leak."
Damian pointed to a dried streak of black sludge smeared across the floor. "This doesn't look like any chemical spill. It looks... burned. Like it melted through the walls."
They pressed deeper.
By sublevel three, they found what Origin had predicted—a biometric gate locked by ancient firewalls. Isabelle stepped forward, jacking into a rusted console with a neural thread.
Inside the code, she didn't find resistance.
She found a message.
> "Hello again, Little Shadow."
Her breath caught. Specter's voice—glitching, half-formed—echoed through the digital static. But this time, it wasn't taunting. It was... warning.
> "You're too late. This place already gave birth to something worse."
Isabelle severed the connection, her hands shaking.
"He's still here. Watching."
Damian's jaw clenched. "Then let him watch. We're burning this place to the ground."
They breached the gate and dropped into the final sublevel.
It wasn't a lab.
It was a vault.
A massive chamber lined with cryo-pods—dozens of them—each containing motionless human figures.
Rae stepped forward, inspecting the pods. "These are not ordinary experiments. They're... stabilized. Preserved. For what?"
Origin's voice cut through, alarmed. "These are sleeper vessels. Genetic storage units. Isabelle—one of them is... your DNA signature match."
She froze.
"What?"
"Your genetic blueprint was cloned here. Not just you—variants. Failed iterations."
Isabelle stumbled forward, her eyes darting from pod to pod. Some were cracked. Others empty. One still had her face—pale, eyes closed, breathing.
A clone.
Damian moved beside her. "Izzy... you were made here?"
Her voice came out in a whisper. "I think I was born here."
A pod hissed open behind them.
The figure that emerged was tall, nearly identical to Isabelle, but with icy-blue irises and pale veins glowing beneath her skin.
She opened her eyes slowly... and smiled.
"You finally came back," the clone said softly.
"I've been waiting."