Ashes of the prototype

---

Rain.

It fell like static across the rooftop gridlines, drumming against the rusted shell of the safehouse. Beyond the skyline, Sector Nine burned—riot drones chased protestors through smog-drenched streets, while Zehrion issued new statements calling the leak "a terrorist fabrication."

But they were lying.

And the world knew it.

Inside the safehouse, the resistance core had grown. The once-quiet warehouse now thrummed with tension: new faces, hushed strategy meetings, stolen tech being fitted into scavenged armor. Screens lit up the walls—clipped footage of DUSK-0's destruction looping like a pulse.

Noah stood at the center of it all, a shadow caught between myth and memory.

His spine still burned from the upload.

Clara adjusted the final node on his neural stabilizer.

"You're still running hot," she murmured. "You shouldn't be walking."

Noah didn't respond.

She stepped in front of him.

"Noah."

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not."

"I have to be."

Clara exhaled. "You know this is bigger than a system breach now."

He looked past her at the map.

Twelve red markers.

Only one was active.

> **DUSK-3: DEEPWEST NODE // CLASSIFIED: PROTOTYPE BLACK**

The only one *they* hadn't touched yet.

Noah's jaw clenched.

"That's where we go next."

---

Rye hated Deepwest.

It was lower than even the off-grid sectors—buried beneath the city's industrial decay, filled with old-world factories and abandoned experimentation grounds. The air was too dense for drones. The surveillance net thinned to near-dead silence.

It was the *perfect place to hide monsters.*

The Specter team moved in silence, weapons primed.

Vire had returned to form—shoulder still stiff, but rifle steady. Nova guided the children they had rescued to a temporary outpost Clara set up in Sector Five, then met the team at the entry gate.

"This place is haunted," she said quietly.

"Technically, we're the ghosts," Rye muttered.

Clara keyed the door.

The rusted metal screeched open.

Beyond it: blackness.

And the hum of something alive.

---

DUSK-3 wasn't like the last one.

It was cleaner.

Too clean.

White corridors, silent vents, lights that flickered at precisely timed intervals. Not like a lab.

Like a *showroom.*

Noah stepped through the first chamber and froze.

Along the walls were dozens of containment tubes. Inside each: failed clones. Some curled like infants, some twisted, others half-formed—skin translucent, eyes wide open but empty.

Clara scanned the node at the far wall.

"These weren't memory hosts," she said. "They were body shells."

"Cloning?" Rye asked.

"More than that. These were grown to test something... adaptive. They're not just vessels. They were meant to *evolve.*"

Nova peered into a tube. "Into what?"

Clara didn't answer.

Because just then, the lights cut out.

Everything went dark.

---

They heard it before they saw it.

Breathing.

Slow, mechanical. Like air being pulled through a dead man's throat.

Then a voice.

Low. Distorted.

> "Why do you wear my face?"

Noah spun around.

A shape stepped from the dark.

It was him.

But older.

Bigger.

Stronger.

The same eyes.

The same scar under the right eye.

But this Noah wore armor the color of dried blood. And something in his movements was… *wrong.*

Rye raised her pistol.

The figure moved faster than light.

Her gun hit the wall in pieces.

She hit the floor a second later, breathless.

Vire aimed.

Too slow.

He was disarmed in a blink, pinned to the wall by a grip that bent steel.

Clara backed up, eyes wide.

The figure turned to Noah.

> "You're the echo."

> "I'm the original."

Noah didn't move.

"Who are you?"

> "I am what Zehrion made before they made *you.*"

The clone tilted its head.

> "They called me *Project Black.* I called myself *Ash.*"

---

Ash walked slowly around the group, never taking his eyes off Noah.

"You're their cleaner," he said. "The one they programmed to forget. The ghost who slipped through."

Noah's fists clenched. "You're lying."

Ash stopped.

"Am I?"

He pointed at the core console.

"Go ahead. Ask your precious hacker. Pull the sequence file."

Clara hesitated. Then moved.

Her fingers danced across the interface.

The screen flickered.

Lines of code spilled down like a waterfall.

She froze.

"Noah… he's not lying."

Everyone turned.

She looked at him, voice low.

"You weren't the first."

Ash's eyes glinted.

"I was."

---

Zehrion had tried to make a perfect soldier.

Not just enhanced.

*Unbreakable.*

Ash was the original test: more power, less restraint. They engineered him to hunt, kill, survive. But he was *too* good.

He started asking questions.

Started remembering.

So they locked him away in DUSK-3.

Buried the lab.

Wiped the records.

And then created a softer version.

One who *could* forget.

Noah.

Noah staggered back, the truth sinking into his bones.

"I was made to replace you," he whispered.

Ash smiled.

"No. You were made to *bury* me."

A pause.

Then:

> "And now you've brought me back."

---

Clara keyed a silent signal to Nova.

Nova understood.

She lunged—blades flashing.

But Ash was ready.

He caught her wrist mid-swing.

And threw her through a wall.

The building shook.

Noah stepped forward.

"Why are you here? Why haven't you left?"

Ash turned.

"Because I wanted to see the world that replaced me. And because…"

He raised his hands.

Energy crackled around his spine.

"…I'm not done with it."

The lights shattered.

The floor trembled.

Ash moved like lightning.

And the world went dark.

---

---

**The Shadow Prototype (Part 2)**

**Boom.**

The blast rocked the corridor.

Debris exploded outward as Ash stepped through the haze, his movements eerily fluid—an apex predator in a familiar cage.

Noah rolled, barely avoiding the crush of twisted metal that had once been a console. Nova was already recovering, a gash blooming across her eyebrow. Rye scrambled behind cover, dragging Vire with her.

Clara slammed her fist against the emergency lockdown controls.

Nothing.

"Power's cut," she said, voice tight. "He's hijacked the grid."

"Then we take it back," Noah growled.

Ash turned to him, as if amused.

"You really believe you're capable of stopping me?" he asked.

"I don't know what I believe anymore," Noah replied, steady. "But I know I'm not the same as you."

Ash moved so fast the air split.

He appeared in front of Noah, fist slamming downward.

Noah raised his arm, intercepting—but the impact sent a seismic jolt down his spine.

"You're me," Ash whispered. "You feel it. The fire. The code beneath your skin."

Noah staggered back, bracing. "I feel a choice."

Ash's smile faded.

"There is no choice. Only purpose."

He struck again, and the corridor lit up in sparks.

---

*Elsewhere in the facility…*

Clara darted between panels, yanking cables and rerouting circuits. Nova covered her, eyes trained on the far hallway where Ash's echoing footsteps had begun to reverberate.

"He's using the prototype uplink," Clara said. "It's like an internal network rooted in the architecture itself—he's jacking the DUSK systems from his spine."

"Can you cut him off?"

"Maybe. But I need a hardwire port."

Nova turned to the wall, spotted a maintenance hatch, and tore it open.

"Go. I'll hold the corridor."

Clara dove in.

---

Ash and Noah traded blows in the central reactor.

Fists cracked air like thunderclaps. The floor buckled under their feet. Sparks danced around them—a dance of mirrored fury, where neither quite outmatched the other, but both understood the pattern.

Ash swept Noah's legs, sending him crashing into a steel pillar.

"You're slow," Ash said. "Soft."

Noah pushed up, breath ragged. "I'm not finished."

Ash lunged.

But this time, Noah *didn't block.*

He redirected.

Ash stumbled—off balance for a split second.

Enough.

Noah drove his fist into Ash's side.

The armor bent inward.

Ash's face twisted—not in pain, but rage.

"You've *adapted,*" he hissed.

Noah stood firm.

"So did you. But you chose hate."

---

In the system core, Clara broke through the final firewall.

Data streamed across her visor.

Logs. Experiments. Memories.

A dossier labeled **PROJECT BLACK\_00-A: "ASH."**

Another: **PROJECT SPECTER\_00-B: "NOAH."**

She scanned fast.

They weren't just clones.

They were *branches.*

Ash was the original line—a pure combat prototype. Noah was the diverged variant: memory-malleable, socially adaptive, emotionally programmable.

A cleaner.

A sleeper.

A man engineered to *look human.*

Clara's hands trembled.

But there—buried in corrupted code—was something else.

> "Black Directive 001: Override Trigger – CODE NAME: MIRRORFALL."

She keyed it.

---

The lights in the corridor stuttered.

Ash froze mid-motion, his spine flaring with red pulses.

He turned sharply.

"What did you do?" he growled.

Noah hesitated. "What is it?"

Clara's voice crackled over comms. "It's a kill code… not for Ash, but for the interface that keeps him synced with DUSK's systems. I've severed the uplink."

Ash stumbled.

His control waned.

Around them, doors unlocked. Energy cells flickered. Systems rebooted.

Ash snarled.

"You think this makes a difference?"

He leapt forward.

Noah caught him mid-air, and the two crashed through the reactor wall.

---

They fell two stories into the maintenance level.

Ash landed first, cracked concrete underfoot.

Noah rolled through sparks, shoulder bleeding, but alive.

Ash rose.

His skin steamed.

He looked at his own hands—trembling.

"I was supposed to be perfect."

Noah climbed to his feet.

"No one is."

Ash shook his head.

"I remember the first time I looked at the sky. The DUSK scientists watched me like a weapon, not a person. I bled for them. Killed for them."

He looked at Noah with hollow fury.

"And then they *made you.*"

Noah's voice was quiet. "I didn't choose any of this."

"No. But you survived it. And that makes you *weak.*"

Ash charged.

Noah didn't retreat.

He met him.

Fist to fist.

Pain burst through Noah's side as Ash slammed him into a wall.

But Noah twisted, grabbing the neural conduit embedded in Ash's spine.

He yanked.

Ash screamed.

The pulse link ruptured.

Ash dropped to his knees, sparks crawling along his back.

"Do it," Ash whispered.

Noah raised his arm.

Paused.

"I'm not like you," he said.

And let his arm fall.

Ash stared up at him, something broken in his expression.

Then collapsed.

---

Clara and the others reached them minutes later.

Ash was unconscious, his neural core fried—but alive.

Clara scanned him, then looked at Noah.

"You did it."

Noah looked down at his double—his mirror.

"No," he said quietly. "*We* did."

---

That night, the team set up a temporary camp in the hollowed DUSK-3 facility. The system was offline, the cloning labs exposed. Clara encrypted every log she could before uploading them to the web.

Rye stared at Ash's motionless body, sealed in a stasis cell.

"You think he can be saved?"

Noah didn't answer right away.

He stared at the ceiling.

Then:

"I don't know. But if there's a chance…"

He trailed off.

The firelight flickered over his face.

"I'd want someone to take it for me."

---

Far above the Deepwest, Zehrion's inner council watched the footage in silence.

The Director turned to the others.

"Project Black is compromised."

The councilman nodded. "And Specter?"

"He's changing."

Another voice spoke from the shadows.

"Then we move to Phase Two."

A new file loaded on the screen.

> **PROJECT REVENANT\_00-C**

> **Subject Status: In Testing**

> **Target Directive: Eliminate All Echoes**

And a final name.

> **Codename: SILAS**

---