In Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia
The jungle trembled.
From deep within the subterranean facility, red lights flared. Sirens wailed like banshees, echoing through the cavernous chambers. Automated defenses came online, flooding the corridors with shimmering energy barriers and pulse-rifle drones. But none of that compared to the storm building inside Damien's chest.
The clone boy stared at him—uncanny resemblance, down to the curve of his jaw and the slant in his gaze. A mirror twisted by time and tampering.
"Hello, father," the boy repeated, with a voice like cracked crystal.
Nora stepped forward, gun raised, but Damien held out his hand. "No. Let me."
Miguel's eyes flickered between the awakening vessels and the control terminal. "They're connected to the mainframe. We shut it down now, we trap the data… but we also trap ourselves."
Damien didn't blink. "Do it."
He turned to the clone. "What's your name?"
The boy smiled faintly. "Unit A-13. But they whispered another name into my dreams."
"Which is?"
"Dominic."
The name hit Damien like a gut punch. It was his brother's name. His real brother, the one who died in Tavara's civil unrest decades ago—just a child. But this thing… this creation… wasn't him.
"You're not my brother. And you're not my son," Damien said coldly.
Dominic stepped forward. "Then why do I remember crying in your mother's arms? Why do I remember you defending me from a fire in New York? I see your past like flickers behind glass."
Nora whispered, "They didn't just clone—they extracted memories through the Sovereign Codex."
Damien's blood ran cold. "Then he's more than DNA. He's a weapon of emotion."
The alarms shifted pitch. Biopods hissed open across the chamber. One by one, the Archer vessels awoke. Different ages, genders, races… but all linked by the same faint aura of wrongness. Their eyes glowed faintly blue—the color of suppressed sentience.
"They're waking," Miguel said. "And they're all linked to a satellite relay above Colombia. Once online, they'll synchronize. Archer's global resurrection begins."
Elijah's voice buzzed in through the comms. "We've got heat signatures swarming the outer cliffs. Armed. Blackridge and local militia."
"Hold them off," Damien growled. "We'll handle the inside."
In the Control Room, Core Facility
Miguel raced toward the override panel. His fingers blurred across the console, breaking protocol layers, bypassing gene-locked encryptions.
"I can lock the mainframe, but not destroy it," he said. "You'll need to fry the power conduit manually."
Damien's jaw tightened. "Location?"
Miguel handed him a data stick. "Southeast quadrant. But it's sealed with retinal access. Mine."
Nora narrowed her eyes. "Which means…?"
"I stay behind," Miguel said, calm. "You go. You two stop the relay before it links with the satellites."
Damien stared at him for a long second. Then nodded. "Make it count."
Somewhere in the South East Chambers
The corridor was a battlefield.
Clones, now partially awakened, staggered forward. Some still dazed, others violently reactive. Damien and Nora moved like twin shadows, weapons silenced but deadly. Pulse rounds flashed as they cleared a path to the reactor.
At the chamber's heart stood the central relay—an obsidian obelisk humming with data. Cables fed it like umbilical cords from the vessels in the pods.
"This ends now," Damien said.
He pulled out a magnetic disruptor and jammed it into the side port. Sparks flew. The obelisk pulsed violently.
Behind them, Dominic entered.
"No," the clone-boy said, desperation now painting his youthful face. "I am real. I feel real. Let me live."
Nora aimed, but her fingers hesitated. He looked too… human.
Damien stepped forward, his voice soft but firm. "Dominic… you are not a lie. You are a prisoner. But you're not free until this ends."
Dominic faltered.
Then… he stepped back.
And nodded.
"Then end me."
Damien did.
A single shot, clean and silent.
As the obelisk fried, the pods began to shut down—vessels collapsing within, neural feeds cutting off. Nora looked away.
Damien didn't.
---
Moments Later – Extraction Point
The facility was collapsing. Kiyomi and Elijah rendezvoused with them at the ridge, the sky above alight with fire from the satellite relay's self-destruction.
Miguel never made it out.
But his name would be remembered.
Damien stood at the cliff's edge, staring at the rising smoke.
"We stopped a piece of Archer," he said. "But we also saw what he's capable of."
Nora placed her hand on his. "And we saw your strength."
He didn't answer.
Because even now, deep in his bones, Damien feared something worse:
That Archer didn't create those clones to rule.
He created them… to replace.