The storm had passed, but the silence it left behind was worse. Ash sat on the edge of a rusted freight container, boots dangling over the side, the crumpled photograph of Project Echo still in his hands.

Dawn was slow. Pale. Hesitant. Even the light seemed unsure whether it wanted to touch the earth again.

Rika approached, her boots crunching over frost-dusted grass. “HQ responded. They’ve picked up residual thermal spikes near the northern arc of the ruins—about thirty klicks from where we escaped. They think Solomon moved the clone.”

Ash didn't look up. “Of course he did. That was never a sleeping prototype… It was bait.”

She narrowed her eyes. “For you?”

He finally glanced at her. “For whoever survived. Doesn’t matter if it was me or one of the others.”

“Others?”

Ash hesitated. “I was the sixth. But there were more. Eight in total.”

Rika froze. “You never told me that.”

He shook his head. “Because six of us were terminated before we reached puberty. I thought I was the only one left. Until now.”

---

They left before sunrise, traveling light. Ash wore a new coat—shorter, matte black with reinforced shoulder plating and a hidden knife sewn into the lining. His eyes scanned every tree, every movement in the distance. Paranoia was no longer a flaw. It was survival.

Their goal: an old contact embedded in the underworld of Espira—a broker known only as Grin.

He was a ghost, hard to find, harder to trust.

But he knew things.

And Ash needed answers.

---

Espira was a city of masks. The upper levels gleamed with mirrored towers and synthetic gardens, while the lower sectors were a tangle of back alleys and old tunnels, still soaked in the oil of forgotten revolutions.

Rika grimaced as they descended an abandoned freight lift into the lower block.

“You sure he’s still down here?”

Ash nodded. “Grin doesn’t leave his shadows.”

They found him in a collapsed museum turned speakeasy. No signs. No guards. Just a thick velvet curtain hanging from rusted steel and a door that opened before they knocked.

Inside, it was warm.

Dimly lit, filled with smoke and old music. The air smelled of burned wires and lemon oil. A dozen patrons sat scattered—some too old to care, others too armed to be ignored.

Grin stood behind the bar.

He was taller than Ash remembered. His white hair was slicked back, revealing a long facial scar that twisted his smile into something permanently ironic. He wore gloves—black, fingerless—and his left arm was entirely synthetic, humming faintly.

“Look what the nightmare dragged in,” Grin chuckled. “Ash. The boy who forgot where he came from.”

Ash didn’t smile. “Then remind me.”

Grin’s gaze flicked to Rika, then back. “Who's the company?”

“She’s the only reason I’m still breathing.”

“Well,” Grin poured three drinks, “then she gets the good whiskey.”

---

Ash showed the photo.

Grin didn’t even flinch. “Thought that would come crawling back one day. Solomon’s little echo project. You were number six, right? The one with the humor glitch?”

Ash stared. “There were more survivors.”

Grin took a sip. “Three, actually. Seven died in a fire years ago. But Eight…” He leaned in. “He lived.”

“Where is he?”

Grin looked genuinely amused. “You’re not gonna like this. Eight’s not a child anymore. He’s a king. Solomon raised him off the grid. Fed him lies. Trained him as a weapon. He believes he’s the original.”

Ash went cold.

“He thinks he’s me?”

“No.” Grin’s voice dropped. “He thinks you’re the defect.”

---

They stayed the night in Espira. Ash barely slept.

Dreams clawed at him.

In one, he stood in a glass corridor filled with copies of himself—some smiling, some screaming. In another, Solomon reached through a mirror and dragged him into it, whispering, “He’s not you. You were just the shell.”

Ash woke drenched in sweat.

He sat by the window, watching city lights flicker like dying stars.

He wasn’t afraid of the clone.

He was afraid of what he’d have to become to stop him.

---

The next morning, they tracked a signal Grin provided—a surveillance drone Solomon had lost control of. It had been hacked by someone using an old Project Echo code sequence. Ash followed it to an abandoned orbital station that crashed a decade ago into the eastern marshlands. The place had been evacuated and left to rot.

As they stepped into the hollow wreckage, Rika whispered, “This feels wrong.”

“It is,” Ash replied. “It’s a message.”

On the wall, scrawled in ash and old blood, was a single sentence:

> “The mirror will break.”

Beneath it, a mark—three intersecting circles.

Rika stepped back. “That’s the Echo mark.”

Ash nodded. “And he wants me to know he remembers.”

---

They returned to their hideout just before dusk, but something was off.

The air was colder. Quiet in a way that felt forced.

Ash entered with his gun drawn.

The lights were out.

He found a single object on the table. A music box. Ornate. Old.

It began to play.

A lullaby.

His mother’s.

Rika’s voice echoed from the hallway. “Ash—come quickly.”

He ran.

There, painted on the wall in blue phosphorescent ink, were the words:

> “Come find me, brother.”

Beneath it, a recording device. Ash pressed play.

A voice, identical to his own, whispered:

> “You were always the shadow. I am the light. Come, 06. Let’s finish what we were made for.”

Ash stood silent.

No anger. No fear.

Just focus.

He turned to Rika. “We’re going after him. No more running.”

She didn’t hesitate. “Then we burn the veil down.”