The cold in the hangar bit through Ash’s gloves.

An hour before dawn, he and Rika loaded their gear onto an unregistered hovercraft, stolen from the Espira black market. Silent engines. No transponder. No backup. Just two people and a trail of encrypted coordinates pointing to a hidden fortress nestled between the fractured cliffs of the Khorad Divide—where Subject Eight waited.

The last piece of the puzzle.

Ash stared into the canyon as the craft approached, watching the clouds smear like oil over a cracked sky.

He spoke without turning. “Rika. If he’s better than me… if he really believes I’m a mistake…”

“You’re not,” she cut in.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” she said, gripping her rifle. “You’re the one who walked away. That makes you stronger than any copy.”

He exhaled, fingers twitching. “Let’s find out.”

---

The Khorad Divide had once been a military research site—scrapped after the war, buried by bureaucracy and landslides. Now, it was hollowed out and reengineered with tech centuries beyond legal design. Drones scanned the cliff sides. Radar towers rotated in perfect silence.

Ash and Rika ditched the hovercraft a mile away and moved on foot through the fog.

The entrance was beneath a false rockslide.

Ash held up the cracked music box again, the one Eight had left him. He pressed a hidden latch, and a small shard slid out—embedded with a pulse code.

He inserted it into the old military panel near the entrance.

The rock shimmered, then split.

Darkness opened like a wound.

---

Inside the base, silence wasn’t empty—it was expectant.

Lights flickered in slow rhythm, casting long, pulsing shadows down the corridor. Ash didn’t speak. He remembered this architecture—like it had been built into his bones. Everything mirrored the labs from his childhood. He could feel them… the ghosts of children, crying behind thick glass. Tests. Electrocutions. Psych conditioning. Control.

Rika whispered, “He rebuilt it.”

Ash’s voice was cold. “No. He preserved it.”

---

The first room they entered was a gallery.

No art. Just monitors.

Each screen displayed a version of Ash—images from security cams, newspaper clippings, mission footage. Some were doctored. Others were real. But they were all him.

Except the ones that weren’t.

One showed a child smiling with Solomon. Another, a teenager leading an army through fire. A man standing over a battlefield, crowned in gold wires and circuitry.

Rika stared. “He’s been documenting you.”

“No,” Ash murmured. “He’s been replacing me.”

At the center of the gallery was a mirror.

Ash stepped in front of it.

The reflection didn’t mimic him.

It smirked.

Then spoke.

> “Hello, brother.”

---

The glass rippled and blinked off, revealing a hidden chamber behind it. Doors opened with a hiss.

Ash entered first.

The room was circular, sterile, and smelled of cold metal. A throne-like chair stood in the middle, surrounded by floating projectors. And sitting there—calm, regal, confident—was Eight.

He looked like Ash.

Same jaw. Same hands. But his eyes…

Dead. Polished. Programmed.

“Welcome,” he said.

Ash didn’t move. “You left breadcrumbs.”

“I wanted you to find me. I needed you to see.”

“To see what?”

“That I’m everything you could’ve been if you hadn’t run.”

Ash’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t run. I escaped.”

Eight stood. His movements were precise, almost rehearsed. “And what did that earn you? Pain? Guilt? You live in shadows, Ash. But I have purpose. Solomon gave me that.”

“He tortured us.”

“He created us.”

Rika stepped forward. “He used you. Just like he tried to use him.”

Eight didn’t even blink. “And I used him back.”

---

Suddenly, lights dimmed.

A projector activated above, showing a simulation: world maps, political data, social algorithms. Eight walked beneath it, gesturing like a conductor.

“This is what I’ve built. Influence through data. Control without violence. Fear without blood. I am everywhere.”

Ash narrowed his eyes. “Then why invite me here?”

Eight smiled faintly. “Because I need your memories.”

Rika raised her gun.

Ash stopped her. “Why?”

Eight stepped closer. “You carry the missing sequences—memories wiped during your final escape. I’ve recreated everything else. But without those memories, I can’t unlock the final command sequence Solomon buried in us both.”

Ash exhaled. “The one that kills him.”

Eight nodded. “He made us the key to his own death. Together, we are the weapon.”

Ash stared into his own eyes—eyes that weren’t his anymore. “And what happens after he’s gone?”

Eight’s smile turned cold. “Then I wear the crown.”

---

Gunfire erupted.

Not from Rika.

From the ceiling.

Turrets dropped like spiders, locking onto Ash.

He dove behind a column as bullets tore through the wall.

Rika fired back, disabling one.

“Plan?” she yelled.

“Stall him,” Ash growled, flipping a grenade behind him.

It went off with a flash. The glass cracked. Systems buzzed.

Eight was gone.

An escape hatch hissed behind the throne.

Ash and Rika followed into a vertical shaft, sliding down cables and vents until they dropped into a long steel tunnel. Lights pulsed red.

Sirens echoed.

Eight’s voice rang from the speakers.

> “You always were good at running. But this time, I’m chasing.”

---

They emerged into a command deck—empty but for hundreds of holographic storage units. Memory banks. Some labeled: Echo 01–Echo 08. Failed. Revised. Stable.

Ash moved to one labeled 06. His name.

Inside it, footage.

Him as a child.

Solomon speaking softly to him, feeding him stories. “Your brother failed. You will not.”

Ash froze.

His throat tightened.

“Solomon raised us to kill each other.”

Rika touched his shoulder. “You don’t have to play his game.”

He nodded. “I’m not.”

He pulled out the memory drive.

Set it aflame with his lighter.

Watched it burn.

---

Explosions rocked the compound.

Eight was trying to bury them alive.

They escaped through an emergency chute, tumbling out into a glacier ridge above the Divide. Drones soared overhead, scanning for survivors.

Ash lay there, panting, watching stars blur into streaks.

“He’ll rebuild,” Rika said quietly.

“I know.”

“But he can’t finish it without your memories.”

Ash shook his head. “I’ll bury them. Or burn them. Whatever it takes.”

She looked at him. “You okay?”

“No,” he said softly. “But I’m still me.”