Bloodlines and Broken Codes

Location: Hidden Underground Transit, Tavara

The tremors of nearby explosions rumbled through the ancient corridors. Dust fell from the ceilings as Victor, Nora, Zuri, and Prototype Zero raced through the narrow transport conduit beneath the Echo Vault.

"We're not going to outrun those drones for long," Zuri muttered, eyes glued to her wrist console. "They've hacked the old metro grid. They're tracking us through magnetic resonance."

"Then we need a distraction," Victor said.

Prototype Zero slowed his pace, head tilted to one side. "You still don't understand. They're not tracking your devices. They're tracking me."

Victor halted. "What do you mean?"

"My signature was built into their command framework. I am Dominion's key—and its ghost."

Nora frowned. "Then you're the backdoor?"

"No," he replied calmly. "I'm the original command."

A heavy silence fell.

Then he turned to face the group, shadows dancing on the ancient metallic walls. "If I stay with you, they'll never stop. If I separate… I can rewrite the chase."

"Rewrite?" Zuri asked, confused.

"I'll give them false coordinates. Scatter their hive directives. It'll buy you time."

Victor hesitated. "And what happens to you?"

Zero's voice was eerily detached. "I don't need time. I just need to be in the right place when Thorne is exposed."

---

Location: Dominion Orbit Station Alpha – Personal Quarters of General Thorne

Thorne paced his private suite, now dimly lit by red emergency luminescence. His neural implants were pulsing, feeding constant streams of incoming data. None of it was good.

Prototype Zero's reactivation had triggered cascading malfunctions in several Dominion AI nodes.

"Sir," a voice chirped through his comm, "our targeting grids are failing. Sector-7 drones now recognize Subject Zero as primary command. Orders are being rerouted—some even contradict yours."

Thorne's eye twitched.

"He's seizing control of the hive… from the inside."

---

Location: Tavara – Voss Estate, Mountainside

Meanwhile, high above in the quietude of the Voss Estate, an elderly man stood by a glass wall overlooking the valley. Beside him sat a younger woman—an informant from the Old Guard.

"You see it now, don't you?" she said softly. "The child they buried is now the sword they fear."

The old man nodded. "He's not just a ghost. He's a reckoning."

"He's also… their blood."

He turned sharply. "What?"

"The DNA sequence used to build Prototype Zero came from Dominion's founder. From Thorne himself. That boy is Dominion's son."

---

Location: Escape Tunnel End – Tavara Border

Victor, Nora, and Zuri emerged into fading daylight, breathless from the sprint through the underground. But Zero wasn't with them.

"He's still in there…" Nora whispered, turning back toward the tunnel. "We left him."

Victor shook his head. "No. He chose to stay."

Zuri's console blinked.

"Coordinates scrambled. Drone formations have split. We've got a thirty-minute window."

Victor looked up toward the darkening sky.

"Then we move. We find the next base. And we prepare for the counterstrike."

But in his heart, one truth thundered louder than any battle:

The war had shifted.

And it now ran through the veins of a boy who bore Dominion's blood—and its undoing.

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