Chapter 34: The Mirror and the Fire
🕒 Ashlands Relay Site – 08:15 AM
The clone's eyes—Liana's eyes—fluttered open fully, as if fighting through a thousand years of sleep. Her first breath came in a sharp gasp, her lungs rediscovering air. Cold mist from the cryo-vault curled around her body like ghostly hands reluctant to let go.
She sat up slowly, movements stiff, tentative. Her gaze swept the room—three figures watching her closely. Strangers, yet not. Mason. Daniel. And… her.
Liana stepped forward, voice soft. "You're awake."
The clone blinked. Her lips parted. "You look like me."
"I am you," Liana replied gently. "But… different. I'm what came after."
The clone swallowed hard, her throat raw. "How long?"
Mason answered, his voice steady but low. "Long enough for the world to forget what it used to be."
Daniel stood in the shadows, arms folded. His expression unreadable. The clone's gaze lingered on him before shifting back to Liana.
"You feel... familiar."
Liana nodded. "You were the original. I was built on the echoes they left behind."
The clone closed her eyes. "I remember fire. Pain. Screaming. Then... nothing."
"That's all anyone remembers of the Reaper labs," Daniel muttered, bitterness sharp in his voice.
The silence that followed was thick with unspoken memories.
---
🔥 Interior Chamber – 08:40 AM
They relocated to a more stable section of the ruins—a reinforced data room beneath the relay site. Here, the walls still stood, and the equipment still hummed faintly. The clone, wrapped in a blanket, sat on a rusted bench, clutching a warm canteen with trembling hands.
Mason leaned against the far wall, eyes on Liana. "She's not just confused. She's... fractured."
"She's been reborn into a graveyard," Liana said, staring at the ash swirling beyond the broken glass window. "It's a wonder she can even speak."
Daniel sat alone, hunched over a damaged tablet. A broken data stream looped endlessly: flickers of corrupted video, distorted audio, voices without faces.
Mason approached him. "Still trying to pull something from that?"
"There's a pattern," Daniel replied. "The Reaper we killed was broadcasting. Just before it died."
Liana turned. "Broadcasting what?"
He pressed play.
The glitchy audio twisted, hissed—then a phrase emerged from the noise, clear as a bell:
> "Protocol: Mirror. Initiated."
They all froze.
Mason frowned. "Mirror?"
Liana's breath caught. Her eyes shifted toward the clone. "It's not just a name. It's a design."
---
🔍 Ashlands Network Tunnel – 10:03 AM
The lower levels of the relay site were older—untouched by recent war, hidden from every satellite and scan. The walls bore Reaper insignias, faded and scratched. An oppressive chill filled the air.
"This part wasn't on any schematics," Daniel said, flashlight beam cutting through the darkness. "A ghost node."
At the end of the corridor stood a sealed vault door. A single word was painted in flaking red letters above it:
MIRROR
The clone stared at it, her face pale. Her lips trembled. "I know this place."
Liana stepped beside her. "How?"
"I heard them speak of it… during the trials. Before the sedation. They called it 'the fallback.'"
Daniel activated the console. The door creaked open, revealing a vast room beyond.
Dozens of pods lined the walls.
Each held a version of Liana.
Some scarred. Others mutated. One with cybernetic implants covering half her face. One barely more than a skeleton. One—alive, conscious—her mouth open in a silent scream.
Mason stumbled back. "This is... monstrous."
"They made copies," the clone whispered. "They copied me over and over."
Liana moved from pod to pod, eyes wide with horror.
Daniel worked a terminal. "There's a central system. Deep encryption. This wasn't just redundancy. It's a failsafe. A mechanism for control."
"What kind of control?" Liana asked.
He didn't answer. Instead, he turned the screen toward them.
A name blinked on the interface:
> Mason Lark
Access Level: Creator Override
The silence was deafening.
Liana stepped back. "What?"
Mason's face went pale. "I—this isn't possible."
Daniel's voice was cold. "You knew about this."
"I was part of the initial design phase," Mason admitted. "But this… this went beyond anything I signed off on."
"You lied," Liana said, her voice shaking.
The clone looked between them. "You helped build the system that imprisoned me?"
"I tried to stop it," Mason insisted. "I sabotaged the labs. I stayed behind to destroy everything I could."
Daniel's hands curled into fists. "But you didn't destroy this, did you? You buried it."
---
🧠 Mirror Core – 11:20 AM
The core screen flared to life. Video files played—archival footage from the early trials.
Liana saw herself—strapped down, screaming. Electrodes dug into her skin. A younger Mason watched from the observation deck, notes in hand.
"We said it was worth it," a recording of him said. "She's stable. Responsive."
The clone collapsed to her knees, tears streaming silently. Liana turned her face away.
Mason's voice broke. "I didn't know what they would become. I thought I could fix it."
"You don't get to fix it now," Daniel said. "Not after this."
A final file unlocked.
PROJECT: ECHO – FINAL FAILSAFE
Daniel read aloud: "If Subject Liana-X shows signs of instability, initiate Protocol: Mirror. Deploy agent doubles. One to infiltrate. One to replace."
Liana's voice was barely a whisper. "They were going to erase me."
"Not just you," the clone murmured. "They were going to erase us all."
---
🌩️ Ashlands Exterior – 01:07 PM
The light outside had dimmed. A storm gathered at the edge of the horizon, wind stirring the ash into swirls.
The team emerged from the underground—changed.
The clone walked beside Liana now, taller somehow. More grounded.
Daniel kept his distance.
Mason tried to speak, but Liana raised a hand. "Later. Not now."
She turned to the clone. "You don't have to come with us."
The clone gazed at the sky, then back at her. "I think I do. Because I need to know who I really am."
Daniel's voice came from behind. "Then don't follow. Lead. Choose."
The clone nodded slowly.
Far in the distance, deep in the ash fields, a new signal awakened.
Reaper-3 online.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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🔥 PROMO – Chapter 35: "Origin Rewritten"
> The truth is no longer buried. As the shadows of Mirror twist into new forms, the team faces their deepest fracture yet.
Mason must confront the legacy he never outran.
Daniel must choose between justice and vengeance.
And Liana?
She must face the version of herself that was never meant to exist.
Next time on The Silent Core — Chapter 35: Origin Rewritten