"You can fake a symbol. You can't fake the scar it leaves behind."
— Excerpt from Vihaan Mehra's Sealed Confessional
03:18 AM – Shivajinagar, Lower Slums
Zayen walked through the alleyways like he'd never left.
The chaos, the rusted cables, the hum of distant prayer calls — nothing had changed. Except for one thing:
People no longer whispered his name.
They whispered Red X like a prophecy.
A warning.
A ghost story that returned when corrupt hearts forgot to be afraid.
But Zayen hadn't returned to inspire. He came for one reason — to find the man pretending to be him.
A mural on a brick wall stopped him cold.
It was a face.
His face.
Painted in red.
With a crown drawn above the head.
Kabir – Inside a Scrubbed Data Farm, East Tech Road
The data was raw. Dirty. Obfuscated.
He'd found traces of Project Sarathi's neural shell being installed across low-tier devices: smart fans, LED streetlights, water meters.
Meaning?
Crown didn't just want control of people.
They were infecting the infrastructure.
He scanned one of the test patterns.
Buried in the binary, a brief flash:
ZAYEN_M.7_CLONE.PATTERN_ID_0211_ACTIVE.
Kabir leaned back, heart racing.
It wasn't mimicry anymore.
They'd copied Zayen's neural ID.
And it was running.
A Private Metro Car – Moving West
Zayen received a location ping on an untraceable phone. No name. No threat. Just a three-word message:
"You see him."
He followed the coordinates.
Inside the train car — a boy.
Hood down.
Same frame.
Same face.
Zayen walked slowly forward, unsure if it was a mirror, a trick, or a message.
The clone looked up.
"Is it weird?" he asked.
"That you're me?"
The clone smiled.
"No. That you're not angry."
Zayen pulled the emergency brake.
But before the train stopped, the clone whispered something chilling:
"He said you'd hesitate. He knows everything you forgot."
South Bangalore, Old Telecom Hub
Kabir followed a lead from his surveillance tap. An anonymous tip: "Follow the dust. They test memories where no one remembers the air."
He entered the building and found it gutted — except for one thing:
A chair.
A headset.
And a small monitor playing fragments of childhood footage.
Zayen.
Vihaan.
Family.
But none of it was online.
These were memories that had never been recorded.
He stepped back.
Crown hadn't just copied Zayen.
They'd harvested him.
Underground Medical Lab
Crown technicians gathered around the Zayen clone as it blinked rapidly. His speech was broken but improving.
His eyes, however — unnervingly focused.
The Crown commander entered.
"Does he remember?"
The lead scientist hesitated.
"Too much."
"Perfect," the commander said.
"Upload Phase Two into the grid. And prepare the final mask."
The clone stared into the mirror.
And smiled a real smile.