Kael hadn't slept a second.
He sat by the window, watching the blinking neon from a rooftop ad across the city. It pulsed like a machine dreaming in silence.
Nova was asleep on the couch, clutching the Amira memory core like it might vanish if she let go.
Kael said nothing.
He couldn't talk about what he'd seen inside ECHO-9—especially not that face.
His face. Amira's face. GhostNet's corruption.
Merged.
Not a hallucination.
The Listener was building him from memory.
**
4 a.m. The city began to stir.
The room lights flickered.
Kael jumped, instinctively grabbing his gun.
Not a power cut.
An intrusion.
Nova bolted upright, rubbing her eyes. "Tell me that's not what I think it is."
The terminal beeped rapidly.
Text scrolled across the screen:
> Non-encrypted signal detected. Tracking initiated.
Kael's heart stopped.
"What connection?"
Nova looked up. Pale.
"Not ours."
"Then whose?"
She opened the external feed, then muttered:
> "It's building you… in the real world."
"What?"
"I mean it's simulating your identity—physically. Your gait. Your bio-signature. Even your neural pattern."
"You're saying…"
"It wants to replace you."
**
They ran.
Nova stuffed the memory core into a shielded pouch and tied it to her waist.
Just as they reached the exit hallway—Kael stopped cold.
Someone stood at the far end, facing away.
The height, the shoulders, the stillness—him.
Kael raised his gun.
"Turn around."
The figure obeyed.
His own face.
Even the scar above the left brow—identical.
The fake Kael smiled.
"I'm more complete now," he said, voice a perfect match—tone, sarcasm, all of it.
Nova whispered, "It crossed over. It's using your face to reclaim the memory core."
Kael asked, coldly:
"Are you GhostNet or the Listener?"
The fake Kael held up a finger to his lips.
"We're not so different anymore."
Then he moved.
Fast—too fast.
Kael shot—
The bullet passed through.
The figure shattered into light—reappearing beside them.
Nova yanked Kael through a side door.
"It's still limited in the real world. It's testing how good the mimic works."
Kael shouted, breath short: "Are you telling me there'll be more of me?!"
Nova: "If we don't shut down the link between it and the physical world—yeah. It'll copy you until no one knows which Kael is real."
**
They made it to the lower floor.
Sealed the blast doors.
Kael collapsed against the wall, breathing hard.
Nova locked the passage with a signal jammer.
Then she looked up at him. Her voice was grim:
"You know what we have to do now."
Kael nodded, voice rough:
"We kill… me."