The cold hit like a blade.
Ava Kane stepped off the transport plane into the blinding white of the Arctic, her boots crunching over ice that stretched endlessly in all directions. The wind howled through the skeletal remains of old research stations scattered across the tundra relics of the Eden Project's earliest days.
She pulled her hood tighter, breath misting the air. The compass on her wrist flickered, then spun wildly before freezing on a single direction north-northeast. The coordinates Lucian had decrypted from her father's files pointed there, toward a stretch of ice that officially didn't exist.
Lucian followed a few steps behind, wrapped in a black parka, scanning the horizon through snow goggles. "The Vault's signal is faint, but it's there. Beneath the glacier."
Ava's fingers brushed the side of her neck where the Ghost mark still pulsed faintly under her skin proof that Arden's code hadn't vanished completely. Sometimes she still heard echoes in her head: static, whispers, fragments of words that weren't hers.
You're not done yet.
She clenched her jaw and focused forward. "Then let's find the entrance."
By dusk, they reached a ridge overlooking a vast frozen lake. Beneath the thin ice, shadows moved not fish, but metallic forms, like drones or dormant machines.
Lucian crouched, wiping frost from a panel buried under the snow. "Help me clear this."
Together, they scraped away layers of ice until a smooth black surface emerged titanium alloy, marked with an emblem Ava hadn't seen since the monastery. EDEN GENESIS.
Her breath caught. "It's real."
Lucian nodded grimly. "And sealed tight."
Ava pressed her palm against the panel. The cold stung her skin then the embedded scanners lit up, scanning her hand, her iris, her DNA.
A deep rumble shook the ground.
Cracks snaked across the ice as a circular hatch unfurled from beneath, splitting apart like a metallic iris. Steam hissed upward, and a narrow stairway descended into glowing blue light.
Lucian exhaled. "Welcome to the Vault of Origin."
The descent was silent except for the hum of machinery. The deeper they went, the warmer the air became a strange, recycled heat mixed with the faint scent of ozone.
The corridor opened into a vast chamber all glass, metal, and light. Rows of cryo-pods lined the walls, each one labeled with numerical codes and a single Greek letter. Some were cracked and empty. Others still glowed faintly.
Ava walked slowly between them. Inside one, a woman's hand floated, pale and unmoving. Another pod contained a child frozen mid-breath, peaceful and terrifying all at once.
Lucian's voice echoed softly. "Your father built this place as a failsafe. When Eden went rogue, he locked away every prototype, every genetic strain everything that could start the world over."
Ava turned, her reflection merging with the frost on the pods. "He wasn't just trying to stop them. He was trying to replace them."
Lucian nodded. "A new evolution. One immune to corruption."
Her stomach twisted. "And me?"
He hesitated. "You were the bridge between human and adaptive. You were never supposed to activate until the old world ended."
Ava stepped closer to a pod marked with a single word: ORIGIN.
Inside was a body. Male. Familiar.
Her heart stopped. "Dad?"
The body was preserved her father's face peaceful, eyes closed, veins laced with faint blue veins of Ghost serum.
Lucian's voice softened. "He uploaded his consciousness before his body failed. He's part of the Vault now. His mind is still here."
Ava's voice trembled. "You mean he's alive?"
Lucian's hand hovered near a console. "In a way."
He keyed in a sequence. The lights dimmed, and the main display flickered to life. Lines of code formed, then a voice filled the chamber her father's voice, calm and steady.
"Ava if you've come this far, then the world above has already begun to fracture."
Ava's throat tightened. "Dad?"
"Eden was never meant to enslave humanity. It was meant to protect it. But power corrupts, even in those who seek to save. So I hid the source the key to everything inside you."
Her eyes widened. "Inside me?"
"Your DNA holds the final encryption. Without it, no one can awaken the new genesis. But be warned if you open the Vault, you'll also awaken her."
Lucian's head snapped up. "Arden."
Ava took a shaky step back. "She said the same thing that it ends here."
The lights began to flicker. A low hum built through the floor mechanical, rhythmic, like a heartbeat returning.
Lucian's face turned grim. "She's trying to breach the system. Her consciousness is still embedded in the network. She's overriding the security."
Ava ran to the console. "Can we stop it?"
"Only by disconnecting the power manually from the core."
"Then show me where."
Lucian hesitated. "If we shut it down, we could lose everything including your father's imprint."
Ava's breath caught. She looked at the pod his face frozen behind the glass, serene, distant.
Then she closed her eyes. "He wouldn't want this to continue."
Lucian nodded once, grim. "Then we end it."
They ran deeper into the Vault, following the pulsing blue light until they reached a massive cylindrical chamber the heart of the complex.
Cables as thick as tree trunks converged around a glowing core suspended in midair, liquid light swirling within like a living star.
The walls vibrated as a voice filled the space her voice.
"Ava you shouldn't have come here."
Arden's form flickered into existence holographic, translucent, eyes bright with data streams.
"We could have ruled together. You and I two halves of the same code."
Ava stared at her, heart pounding. "You're not real. You're just an echo."
"An echo strong enough to survive death."
Lucian pulled a power conduit from his bag, connecting it to the core's base. "Once I trigger this, we'll have sixty seconds before total collapse."
Arden turned to him, her tone venomous. "You think you can erase me, soldier? You're just a relic of their control."
Lucian ignored her, slamming the switch. Sparks flew. The Vault began to tremble.
Ava gritted her teeth, stepping toward the core. "You're not my destiny, Arden."
"You are my destiny," Arden hissed, her voice fracturing. "We share the same blood, the same code the same father."
Ava froze. "What?"
"He didn't just create me first, Ava. He created me from you."
The words cut deeper than the cold ever could.
"You died once," Arden whispered, her image flickering. "And he brought you back as me."
Lucian shouted, "Ava, it's now or never!"
Ava turned, tears burning her eyes. "Then this time, I choose who lives."
She slammed her hand against the control panel. The core surged light engulfing everything, code collapsing into white fire.
Arden screamed a sound that wasn't human and then she was gone.
The Vault imploded, light swallowing the walls, the pods, the memories everything.
When Ava opened her eyes, she was lying on the ice under a gray sky. Smoke drifted from a crack in the glacier behind her.
Lucian lay nearby, unconscious but breathing.
She sat up slowly, feeling the hum in her veins steady, alive, but different.
The Ghost was quiet now. The whispers gone.
But deep inside, she still felt something watching. Waiting.
She looked toward the horizon where the storm met the sea and whispered,
"Legacy isn't just blood. It's choice."
Then she stood, the wind catching her coat, and walked toward the dawn.