"Some ghosts don't want peace. They want to be found."
The wastelands stretched endlessly beneath a bruised sky. The air shimmered with heat and radiation, bending light into mirages of things long dead. Rusted aircraft bones jutted from the dunes like the ribs of some ancient creature, their shadows crawling across the sand as the sun bled lower.
Less led the way, her scarf snapping in the hot wind. The rifle on her back caught the light like a blade. Behind her, Khale trudged silently, his armor coated in dust, and Shelly struggled to keep pace with her pack of salvaged medical gear clattering at her side.
They had left Rustlane before dawn, slipping through the skeletal outskirts while the city slept. Now, they followed the faint beacon from the Helix chip—its signal erratic, pulsing like a dying heartbeat.
"Signal's weak," Khale said, checking his wrist console. "Could be interference."
"Or someone doesn't want us to find them," Less replied.
Shelly wiped sweat from her brow. "You two always talk like you're in a war film?"
Khale gave a faint smile. "We were written that way."
Less ignored them both, eyes scanning the horizon. The air was too still. No birds, no drones, no wind. Only the endless hum of static in her comms.
By midafternoon, they reached the edge of an old communication hub—a sprawl of collapsed towers and satellite dishes half-buried in sand. The Helix insignia still gleamed faintly on one of the shattered panels, though time had gnawed it almost away.
Less raised a hand for silence. "The signal's coming from in there."
Shelly frowned. "Looks dead to me."
Khale crouched, studying the ground. "Tracks. Human. Recent."
Less followed his gaze. Footprints—light, quick, in patterns too deliberate for scavengers. Her muscles tensed.
"Ambush?" Shelly whispered.
"Or scouts," Khale murmured.
They moved in.
The interior of the hub was a cathedral of ruin—giant rusted beams overhead, sand piled where floors once stood, cables hanging like vines. Screens flickered intermittently with static, powered by some hidden generator.
Less motioned for Khale to cover the rear. She led Shelly down a corridor lined with half-functional terminals. On one wall, graffiti scrawled in red paint read: "THE EYE NEVER SLEEPS."
"Charming," Shelly muttered.
Less paused at a heavy door marked RESTRICTED ACCESS – LEVEL Θ. Her tracker pulsed violently. "It's in there."
Khale joined her, placing his ear to the metal. "I hear—"
A crash.
The door exploded inward, slamming Khale off his feet. A mechanical shape lunged from the dark—humanoid, tall, plated in black armor that shimmered with light. Its eyes glowed a burning orange.
"Down!" Less shouted, diving aside as a burst of plasma scorched the air.
The creature's voice was distorted static:
"SUBJECT L-01 DETECTED. TERMINATION PROTOCOL INITIATED."
Less rolled to her feet, rifle up. She fired once, twice—sparks flew as the bullets ricocheted off its armor.
Khale recovered fast, blades drawn, charging. He slid under the creature's swing, slicing at its knee joint. Metal screamed, but the cut barely slowed it.
"EMP grenades!" Shelly shouted, rummaging through her pack. "You two built any toys for this?"
"Didn't get the memo," Khale grunted, dodging another blow.
Less aimed for its exposed joints, firing with precision. Each shot tore small sparks from the seams, but the machine advanced relentlessly. It was fast—too fast for its size.
She switched magazines, loaded piercing rounds, and fired again. This time the bullet punched through its shoulder. It staggered but didn't fall.
Khale leapt, driving both blades into its neck seam, twisting. The machine convulsed, grabbing him by the arm and throwing him into a wall with bone-cracking force.
"Khale!" Shelly screamed.
He groaned, dazed but alive.
Less dove forward, slid under the sentinel's legs, and jammed a shock cartridge into the wound he'd made. She hit the trigger. Electricity arced violently. The machine shuddered, sparks pouring from its mouth grill.
"Override code," it rasped, voice glitching. "Project… Vanguard… active…"
Then it fell, crashing into the floor hard enough to rattle the room.
For a long moment, no one moved.
Then Shelly exhaled shakily. "Holy hell."
Less stood over the corpse, breathing hard. Its head twitched once before going still. She pried the access plate from its chest and pulled out a glowing data core.
Khale limped closer. "That thing knew your designation."
Less studied the core. "And it was waiting for me."
Shelly looked at the wreck. "Helix must've reactivated their sentinels."
Khale frowned. "No. These were decommissioned after the fall. Someone's rebuilding them."
Less pocketed the data core. "Then we find out who."
They took refuge in the upper control room as the storm outside rose to a howl. Shelly tended to Khale's bruises while Less worked on decoding the data core. The flickering monitors filled the space with cold light.
"This tech's old," she muttered. "Pre-collapse Helix architecture. But there's something new spliced in—a second encryption."
"Can you crack it?" Khale asked.
"Eventually."
Shelly leaned over her shoulder. "What happens if you can't?"
Less didn't answer.
After an hour of silence, the console pinged. The data unraveled across the screen, revealing fragmented files—images, maps, names.
At the top: PROJECT VANGUARD: SECOND PHASE.
Less scrolled through them. Each file listed coordinates across the wasteland—Helix sites marked "Reconstruction Zones."
"Helix isn't gone," Shelly whispered. "They're rebuilding."
Khale's jaw tightened. "Sector Theta's the center. Whatever's left of their leadership is there."
Less highlighted one line of code, a subroutine looping endlessly. The screen flickered, and a voice crackled from the speakers—faint, distorted, but unmistakably human.
"L-01… if you're hearing this… run. They're coming."
The room went dead silent.
Shelly's eyes widened. "That voice—"
Less's throat went dry. "Lysandra."
Khale stepped closer. "You sure?"
"She's alive."
Khale hesitated. "Or it's a trap."
Less looked at him sharply. "Then I'll walk into it."
By nightfall, the storm had torn the sky open. Lightning clawed across the horizon, painting the world in violent flashes. They descended from the tower into a wasteland transformed—sand whipped into spirals, wind howling like a dying engine.
Less led them through the storm, following the coordinates burned into her tracker. Her scarf whipped behind her, glowing faintly red in the lightning's glare.
Khale shouted over the wind. "If Helix knows we're coming, they'll have defenses."
"Then we move fast," she called back.
Shelly stumbled over the debris. "You two are insane!"
Khale grinned despite the chaos. "Welcome to the Vanguard."
They reached an overpass where the skeletal remains of vehicles jutted from the sand. Beneath it, they found an abandoned convoy—Helix transport trucks, half-buried but intact.
Less pried open the nearest door. Inside, dozens of storage pods lined the walls. Most were shattered. One still glowed.
She wiped the dust away from the glass.
Inside floated a human figure. A woman.
Her skin was pale as ice, her eyes closed, hair floating like dark smoke. The readout beside the pod flickered:
SUBJECT L-02 – STASIS: ACTIVE. STATUS: STABLE.
Shelly gasped. "Another like you."
Khale's expression hardened. "Vanguard clone."
Less stared at the figure, heart pounding. "She looks… alive."
"Don't," Khale warned. "You don't know what she is."
"She's part of me," Less said quietly. "If I leave her, I'm leaving myself."
She reached for the release.
Khale grabbed her wrist. "Think, Less. Helix built failsafes into every project. You open that, and you could wake up something worse than death."
Shelly looked between them. "He's right. We're not ready."
Less hesitated. The woman in the pod twitched, her fingers brushing the glass from inside.
Khale cursed. "She's awake!"
The pod lights flared, bathing the chamber in white. Sirens erupted from hidden speakers.
"Containment breach detected. Activating security response."
Less yanked her hand back as the pod hissed open. The woman's eyes snapped wide—solid gold, just like hers.
Then everything went dark.
Less woke to the sound of rain. Her head throbbed. The convoy interior was in ruins, the pod shattered, water pouring through the roof. Khale and Shelly were nowhere in sight.
She pushed herself up, gripping her rifle. The air felt wrong—too still, too heavy.
Then a voice spoke behind her, soft and precise.
"You shouldn't have opened it."
Less turned.
The other woman stood among the wreckage, her skin gleaming faintly under the lightning. Same face. Same eyes. But colder.
"Who are you?" Less demanded.
"I'm what you were meant to be," the woman said. "Perfect. Unbroken."
Less steadied her aim. "You're a copy."
"No," the clone said, smiling faintly. "You are."
Lightning flashed between them, illuminating two reflections of the same soul standing in the wreckage of the world.
Less's finger tightened on the trigger.
The clone tilted her head. "Helix called me Vira. I was designed to replace you after you ran."
"Then why aren't you with them?"
"Because even perfection gets lonely," Vira said softly. "And because I wanted to see what my shadow looked like."
The words hung between them, heavy and strange.
Before Less could respond, the horizon erupted with light.
Helix drones—dozens of them—descended from the storm clouds like metallic locusts. Their scanners flared crimson as they locked onto the two identical signatures below.
Vira's smile vanished. "They found us."
Less reloaded, chambering a round. "Then we fight."
The drones descended in waves, plasma fire scorching the sand. Less and Vira moved as one—mirror images, every motion synchronized by instinct or programming. Bullets tore through the storm, explosions painting the world in white and red.
For the first time, Less fought alongside someone who moved like she did, thought like she did. It was terrifying. And exhilarating.
When the last drone fell burning to the ground, the silence that followed felt almost holy.
Vira stood amid the wreckage, smoke curling around her. "You're slower than I expected."
Less smirked faintly. "You talk too much."
They stared at each other for a long, unspoken moment before Vira stepped back into the shadows.
"When you find Lysandra," she said, "tell her the experiment worked."
Then she vanished into the storm.
Less stood alone, heart pounding, the rain washing blood from her hands.
Khale and Shelly appeared moments later, battered but alive.
"What the hell happened?" Khale demanded.
Less looked toward the horizon, where the Helix towers glowed faintly through the rain. "Helix made another me," she said quietly. "And she's already ahead of us."
Khale followed her gaze. "Then we'd better move faster."
Less nodded once, tightening her scarf. "Sector Theta's waiting."
The storm swallowed their footsteps as they disappeared into the night—three ghosts walking toward the heart of creation.