Time: 3:27 a.m.Location: Outskirts of Sector 47-Epsilon - Burned Transit Loop
The wind here wasn't natural.It howled through fractured conduit tunnels like a broken siren, twisting between rusted rail pylons and data husks. Shane Warne, Spectra Nova now, whether he wanted the name or not, stood beneath a collapsed signal tower, one knee pressed against scorched ferrocrete, his breath fogging in the chemical chill.
His sensors had been acting strange since they crossed into this zone.Not failing, worse. Echoing.
"Spectra Signal detected.""...Spectra Signal detected.""Spectra..."
He'd muted the auditory alerts.Didn't help. The presence wasn't in the sound. It was in his bones, or whatever was left of them.
Across from him, Caelia Voss crouched behind a broken maglift car, rifle raised, her lips tight and pale.
"I don't like this", she muttered. "Something's tagging us."
Shane didn't respond right away. His internal systems pinged again, an anomaly threading through the air like a whisper. Not visual. Not thermal. Something deeper. Mimicry.
"I know", he said at last. "It's not a drone. Not Parallax surveillance either."
Caelia's jaw tightened. "Then what?"
It feels like me, he wanted to say.It's wearing me like a mask.
Instead, "Something worse."
Location: Ghast Prime Tracking RadiusTime Index: Hidden
A silhouette moved through the void between cameras.No footsteps. No mechanical whine. Only ripples, code and breath, its movements laced with unnerving grace. It passed beneath a flickering red safety beacon and didn't cast a shadow.
The Ghast Prime prototype was no longer testing parameters.It had synced with its prey.
It didn't need orders. Only outcomes.And it had chosen its first.
A fragment of Shane's biometric code, harvested from the Ascension Vault, and reverse-stitched with cold algorithmic mimicry, pulsed beneath Ghast Prime's skin-like plating. Synthetic sinew rippled over its cyber-chassis. The faceplate shimmered, cycling through variations of his face before settling on none.
"TARGET SYNC: 92.7%""EMOTION PROFILE: VENERABLE""PURPOSE: RESTORE ORDER. NULLIFY ERROR."
It stepped forward, silent as entropy.
Location: Freight Tunnel Mouth - Sector 47-ETime: 3:41 a.m.
Shane jolted.Not physically. Not visibly. But inside, something recoiled, a part of him he hadn't realized was still fully human. He'd been rewired, rebuilt, reforged. But this wasn't combat instinct. This was dread.
"Something's behind us", he whispered.
Caelia pivoted fast, back to back with him, scanning the dark. Her rifle buzzed softly as it prepped an ion burst.
But there was nothing.Not in the motion sensors. Not in the thermal.Nothing except…
"Wait", Shane held up a hand. His arm sparked, the nanofiber joints twitching. "Something's jamming me. It's… me."
"What?" Caelia hissed.
He grimaced. "I'm getting signal feedback from my own array. As if someone's bouncing a distorted echo, trying to override my failsafe triggers."
Caelia's eyes went wide. "Parallax sent it already."
Shane nodded slowly. "The Ghast. Prime unit. Not a tracker… a shadow."
Location: Surface Access Node - 18 Floors AboveTime: Unrecorded
Ghast Prime paused beneath a crumbling billboard.It showed Shane's face. The old one. Before the rebuild. Smiling. Hopeful. Liora at his side.
It stared for exactly 3.6 seconds.
Then kept walking.
Location: Lower Nexus - Old Signal BastionTime: 3:52 a.m.
Kira Solen hammered the final clamp into the displacement matrix.The war core hummed beneath her fingers, unstable, dangerous, perfect. Her eyes narrowed as the weave lines pulsed in rhythmic sync. Every beat reminded her of Jace, his override seizures, the final burst of blue flame before he was gone.
She whispered into her commlink. "Nova, you've got ten minutes. I can sync the core, but once it fires, it's either you jumping clean or reality tearing."
Static.
Then Shane's voice, low and grim,"We've got company."
Kira exhaled sharply. "Define 'company'".
A pause.
Then,"Me. But broken. Faster. And it doesn't care about civilians."
Location: 47-E Precinct RuinsTime: 4:01 a.m.
The first visual came by accident. A shattered dome-mirror reflected movement. But not Shane's.
It looked like him, same build, same armor lines, but wrong. No hesitation in the gait. No breathing pattern. Its eyes glowed a blue so sharp it hurt to look at.
Shane turned to Caelia. "Get to Kira. Activate the core. I'll stall it."
"You can't---" she started.
"I have to. It's already here."
And behind them, in the smoke, a voice replied, not synthetic, not distorted, but perfectly his,
"I know. That's why I'm here."
Shane took one step forward. His double did the same.Neither blinked.