Chapter 4: Echoes of the Mind
The emergency tunnel curved downward into a corridor lined with dormant machines, their surfaces humming to life as Anderson passed. Blue-white lights blinked along the walls, casting long shadows that danced with each of his steps.
Behind him, faint echoes of pursuit—boots on steel, muffled orders. He tightened his grip on the vial and nanotech ring, his breath shallow. He didn't know what this place was, but instinct told him it had been waiting for him for a long time.
At the end of the passage stood a steel door etched with the Z insignia. Anderson pressed the ring into a slot on the control panel. The ring pulsed, scanning his DNA. A moment later, the door groaned open.
Inside: a circular chamber bathed in bioluminescent light. Floating in the center was a sphere of crackling energy. Around it, suspended in glass pods, were test subjects—humans frozen in stasis, all seemingly untouched by age. One of them looked no older than twenty… but was marked "Subject: 1984."
Anderson stepped forward, drawn to a console beside the sphere. A file blinked open:
Project: Eden Seed
Phase III: Neural Replication + Memory Transfer
Test Subject Alpha: Zephyrus Cain see
A voice rang out behind him. "So this is what your great-grandfather was really working on."
Anderson turned. The woman in grey stood at the threshold, alone now. She held her weapon lowered but ready, her expression unreadable.
"Who are you?" Anderson asked.
"Agent Vora. Biotech Enforcement Division, Geneva. I was ordered to kill you." She stepped closer. "But now that I've seen this—" she gestured to the room, "—I need answers too."
The hologram of Dr. Z flickered into being once more. "The formula was only the beginning," he said, eyes flicking between them. "The real gift is not just stamina or time. It's memory—consciousness—legacy. A way to preserve the soul."
Anderson's voice cracked. "You put yourself in the machine?"
"I had to. They would've tortured the knowledge from me. But you—Anderson—you are my echo. I encoded pieces of myself into your mind. They'll awaken... when it's time."
Vora stared at the hologram, stunned. "He's living inside you."
The lights pulsed. A tremor rocked the chamber. Anderson looked up—warning sirens flared across the walls. "They found us."
Dr. Z's voice was calm. "Let them come. You now know what you are. What you must protect."
As explosions shook the lab, Anderson turned to Vora. "Are you with me?"
She hesitated, then nodded. "For now. But I want the truth."
Anderson activated the chamber's escape route—a magnetic elevator buried beneath the floor. As the platform descended, the lab collapsed behind them in a storm of fire and memory.
And above ground, the world was about to change.
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