The transition from the cold, sterile lab to his new environment was a disorienting blur of shadows and the smell of expensive cologne. When Vlad finally forced his eyes open, he wasn't met with the damp concrete of a dungeon or the hum of a server room.
He was lying on a plush, king-sized bed with silk sheets. The room was a masterclass in luxury: the walls were paneled in matte black marble, accented by thick veins of gold leaf that caught the soft, warm glow of recessed lighting. Every bruise on his body felt duller, and the throbbing in his head had subsided to a faint hum.
Vlad sat up, his muscles stiff. He looked down to find he was wearing a clean, high-thread-count white shirt. He gingerly touched the gash on his forehead; it had been closed with a precision medical adhesive that left no scar. His tactical suit, his blade, and his pride were gone, replaced by the opulent trappings of a high-value guest. Or a prize.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, his balance still slightly off. He moved to the heavy, double-oak doors. He turned the gold handle. Locked. Not even a click. It was magnetically sealed from the outside.
A soft chime echoed in the room. A wall-mounted screen, hidden behind a panel of smoked glass, flickered to life. It didn't show the General or a guard. It showed a live feed of the Alpha-1.
The clone was in an identical room across the hall, sitting perfectly still on the edge of the bed. It wasn't restrained. It was staring at its own hands, flexed in a rhythmic pattern, as if trying to understand the "emotional vectors" Beatrice had jammed into its brain.
"Comfortable, Vlad?" a voice smoothed over the intercom. It was the General. "We couldn't have our primary donor bleeding out on a cold floor. You are far too valuable for that. You and the Alpha are currently undergoing a 'Restabilization Period.' We need your vitals at peak performance for the final sync."
Vlad walked toward the screen, his reflection in the glass looking tired but dangerous. "Where are Beatrice and Vance?"
"The Agency has them," the General replied, his tone dismissive. "Tom is quite upset. He thinks he's interrogating them for the location of the flash drive. He has no idea that the drive served its purpose the moment you stepped into our vault. You brought the key right to the lock."
Vlad scanned the room, looking for a weakness in the gold and black cage. "You're making a mistake. The Alpha is glitching. Beatrice broke it."
"She didn't break it," the General chuckled. "She gave it a soul. And now, we just need to see which of you is strong enough to keep it."
Vlad paced the perimeter of the gilded cage, his eyes tracking the gold-trim vents near the ceiling. He knew the General was watching, but even the best surveillance has audio dead zones. He dragged a heavy velvet chair toward the wall, climbed up, and pressed his face against the cool metal slats of the ventilation shaft.
"Alpha," Vlad whispered, his voice low and raspy. "I know you can hear me. Your sensors are tuned to my frequency."
In the adjacent room, the Alpha-1's head snapped toward the vent. His violet eyes flickered, the brown of Vlad's original iris bleeding through the edges.
"You have her memories now," Vlad continued, pressing his hand against the wall. "You felt what she felt. That wasn't an attack, Alpha. That was the truth. The General doesn't want to evolve you—he wants to puppet you. He's going to erase the 'soul' she gave you because he's afraid of it. I don't want to be your enemy. You're more than a blueprint. You're the only person in this building who knows exactly who I am."
The Alpha-1 sat in silence for a long heartbeat. Then, a mechanical, yet strangely human voice echoed through the duct: "She... felt warm. The General is cold."
The Breach
Suddenly, the magnetic seal on Vlad's door let out a violent electronic scream and hissed open. Vlad jumped down, expecting a guard, but it was the Alpha-1 standing there. The clone had ripped his own door off its hinges with raw, uncalculated strength.
The Alpha looked at Vlad, his violet eyes glowing with a newfound, turbulent intelligence. He didn't attack. Instead, he handed Vlad a heavy obsidian pulse-rifle he had taken from a guard in the hallway.
"The General is in the Observation Deck," the Alpha-1 said, his voice stabilizing. "He is preparing the purge sequence for 'Delta-4.' For Beatrice."
"Then let's go end this," Vlad said.
They moved through the facility like a twin-headed hydra—the original and the upgrade. Guards didn't stand a chance. Vlad used his tactical experience to flush them out, and the Alpha-1 moved with terrifying speed to neutralize them.
They burst into the Observation Deck just as the General was reaching for a terminal. The General spun around, his face pale as he saw his 'perfect weapon' standing side-by-side with the man he was supposed to replace.
"Alpha! Execute Protocol 9! Kill him!" the General screamed.
The Alpha-1 walked forward. He didn't raise a weapon. He simply reached out, his hand wrapping around the General's throat with the same terrifying grip he had used on Beatrice—but this time, it was guided by a choice.
"Protocol 9... deleted," the Alpha-1 droned. He lifted the General off the floor, pinning him against the glass overlooking the facility.
Vlad stepped forward, blood still smeared on his face but his eyes burning with victory.
Vlad stepped into the General's personal space, the air in the Observation Deck smelling of ozone and expensive cologne. The Alpha-1 tightened its grip on the General's throat, just enough to keep him conscious but desperate for air.
"Why?" Vlad asked, his voice a low, dangerous growl. "Why go through all of this? The pods, the bridging, the 'Advanced' humans. What is the end goal for the Hollow?"
The General let out a wet, raspy chuckle, his eyes bulging. "Evolution isn't a choice, Vlad... it's a requirement. The world is breaking. Resources are thinning. Humans are too... emotional. Too fragile. The Hollow was designed to create a species that can survive what's coming. A world of Alphas who don't start wars over feelings or borders. A perfect, unified hive."
Vlad's jaw tightened. "And who owns the Hollow? Who's the architect behind this 'perfection'?"
The General's expression shifted. The fear vanished, replaced by a haunting, fanatical light. "You think I'm the head of the snake? I'm just a scale. The owner... the one who funded the first pod... you've known him your entire life. He doesn't just own the Hollow. He is the Hollow."
Before Vlad could demand a name, the General's hand moved with a hidden, mechanical speed. He didn't reach for a panic button; he reached into his high-collared tunic and pulled out a small, gold-plated derringer.
"The work is already done," the General whispered, a chilling smile spreading across his face. "The upload has begun. You can't stop the future."
Before the Alpha-1 could crush his wrist, the General pressed the barrel into the soft tissue beneath his own chin and pulled the trigger.
BANG.
The Alpha-1 dropped the General's lifeless body. It slumped against the gold-leafed floor, blood pooling on the white marble. The room went silent, save for the rhythmic pulsing of the facility's alarms.
"He was afraid," the Alpha-1 said, looking down at the body. Its violet eyes scanned the dead man's biometrics. "He died to protect the Architect's identity."
Vlad didn't look at the body. He went straight to the main terminal, his fingers flying across the keys. "We don't have time to mourn. He said the upload started. If I don't stop this, everyone in those pods—including the versions of you—will wake up and take over every Agency hub in the country."
As Vlad hacked into the General's private server, a final encrypted file popped up. It was a video log dated twenty years ago. The thumbnail showed a younger Tom standing in a laboratory, shaking hands with a man whose face was obscured by shadows.
"Vance and Beatrice," Vlad muttered, seeing a GPS ping on the side of the screen. "They aren't at an Agency hub. They're being held at the Hollow's primary offshore rig."