As they sprinted toward the Central Core, the pulsing floor lights turned a deep, warning crimson. The vibration of the facility's cooling fans felt like a heartbeat under their boots. Vlad suddenly skidded to a halt, his vibro-blade lowering as he stared at a row of high-priority stasis pods near the core's entrance.
"Vlad, we don't have time!" Vance hissed, checking his proximity sensor as more signatures began to converge on their location.
"Wait," Vlad said, his voice unusually strained.
He stepped toward a pod labeled Unit 734. Inside, suspended in a shimmering, emerald-tinted gel, was a man in his mid-30s. His face was calm, an oxygen mask obscuring his mouth, but his skin was etched with glowing silver lines—the same pattern as the encryption on the flash drive.
But it was the next pod that made Vlad's blood run cold.
Inside Unit 735 sat a woman who was a near-perfect mirror image of the woman he had just left in Nashville. She had the same vanilla skin, the same curve of the jaw, and the same delicate features. However, where Beatrice's hair was dark and wavy, this woman's hair was a shocking, ethereal white, fanning out in the gel like a halo. She, too, breathed through a sleek oxygen mask, her eyes closed in a deep, artificial sleep.
"Is that... Beatrice?" Vance whispered, his bow lowering in shock.
"No," Vlad muttered, his grip tightening on his blade until the knuckles of his gauntlet creaked. "It's a blueprint."
He realized then why Beatrice knew so much, and why Tom had been so casual about sending Vlad to Nashville. This wasn't just a mission; it was a harvest. The "Beatrice" he knew was likely a field-tested iteration of whatever was being grown here in the dark.
"Vlad, the door!" Vance yelled, snapping him out of the trance.
The massive blast doors to the Central Core began to groan open. Beyond them lay a forest of server towers and a massive, glowing sphere of liquid data—the heart of the Aegis Protocol. Standing in front of the sphere was a figure in gold-trimmed obsidian armor, wielding a staff that crackled with the same energy as the facility's sirens.
Vlad forced his eyes away from the hauntingly familiar face of the white-haired woman. The red emergency lights were flashing in a frantic, strobe-like rhythm, and a deep, mechanical voice began to count down: "Self-destruct sequence initiated. T-minus 120 seconds."
"She can wait!" Vlad roared over the sirens. He stepped over a fallen guard and slammed his palms onto the secondary override console next to Vance. "Tell me what you need!"
"The encryption is cycling too fast!" Vance's fingers were a blur against the holographic keys. "I need you to manually vent the coolant from the data sphere. If the core overheats before the sequence finishes, the whole plateau becomes a crater!"
Vlad sprinted to the base of the massive glowing sphere. He grabbed the manual release valves, his kinetic-strike suit whining as he applied superhuman force. With a metallic groan, he wrenched the levers down. Thick, white frost sprayed across his armor as the liquid nitrogen vented, slowing the core's meltdown just enough to buy them seconds.
"Almost... there..." Vance gritted his teeth, his quantum-decryptor sparking against the terminal. "I'm purging the biometric logs. If Tom wants these clones, he's going to have to start from scratch."
As they worked frantically, the white-haired woman stood perfectly still in the center of the room. She was a silent, naked statue of ivory, the vibro-blade still humming in her hand. She didn't help, and she didn't hinder; she simply watched Vlad with those luminous silver eyes, her head tilted slightly as if she were studying a curious insect. There was no fear in her expression, only a chilling, vacant observation.
"Done!" Vance yelled, slamming his fist onto the final prompt.
The crimson lights died, replaced by a low, amber standby glow. The self-destruct countdown cut off mid-syllable. The heavy hum of the facility dropped into a low, mournful moan as the Aegis Protocol went dark.
The silence that followed was heavy. Vlad stood panting, his armor covered in frost, looking from the deactivated core to the woman.
"We need to go," Vance said, his voice shaking with adrenaline as he grabbed his bow. "The Agency is going to have eyes on this place in minutes, and I don't think we want to be here when Tom's cleanup crew arrives."
Vlad walked toward the woman. He took off his tactical cloak and draped it over her shoulders, covering her. She didn't resist.
"Can you walk?" Vlad asked, his voice low.
She didn't speak. She simply handed the vibro-blade back to him, hilt-first, and stepped toward the exit, following them like a shadow.