[00:59:21 Remaining]
The countdown glared across the monitor like a heartbeat of doom. Charles stared at the clone of himself on-screen—the same eyes, same face, same cold calculation that had once driven him to build an empire.
> "Your choices were always predictable," the clone said, leaning back in what appeared to be a perfect replica of Charles's own office. "Specter modeled thousands of iterations of you before settling on the version that could command. But I was the version that could win."
Charles flexed against his zip-ties, feeling the plastic bite deeper into his wrists. The pain was secondary now. All that mattered was stopping this shadow from replacing him—and everyone else.
"You're a ghost made from lines of data," Charles growled. "You'll never have what I've built."
The clone smirked, and Charles saw his own arrogance reflected back at him, refined and weaponized.
