The coordinates led to a black-site lab under Lake Geneva.
I arrived with three things with me: Julian Carter's severed access card (ripped from his unconscious body)
A stolen neurotoxin injector (courtesy of Bianca's shattered lab)
The screams of my dying clones still ringing in my skull
The elevator descended 700 meters into the earth.
System Alert:Warning. Biological signature detected: Lillian Voss. 98.6% match to Host's DNA. Recommend extreme caution.
The doors opened.
Into a childhood memory.
My mother's old study, down to the lavender-scented candles and the fucking porcelain doll collection, recreated in a glass prison.
And there she was.
Lillian Voss.
Alive.
Young.
Not a single wrinkle since her "death."
She turned from her microscope, smiling. "Ariella. You came back home."
I shot her in the knee.
Three Truths About Lillian Voss: She didn't just create the System, she was the first host of the System.
She'd been body-hopping for 40 years.
And I was meant to be her next vessel.
Lillian gasped, clutching her bleeding leg. "Aggressive. Just like Version 46."
"I love it"
I kicked her microscope over. "Where's the stabilization serum?"
She laughed. "Oh darling, there is none. The clones were always meant to die."
The System shrieked in my mind—
EMERGENCY OVERRIDE:Primary Directive Corrupted. Host must—
I ripped out my neural implant.
Silence.
Lillian's eyes widened. "You idiot. Without the System, you'll—"
"Burn out?" I grabbed her throat. "Guess we'll find out."
Behind me, glass shattered.
The clones.
My sisters.
My failures.
They crawled from their pods, with their skin cracking, eyes bleeding, and lunged at Lillian with a single thought:
"MOTHER MUST PAY."
Lillian screamed as they tore into her.
Not just with teeth.
But also with their code.
Every clone was a fragment of the System, and they were rewriting her now.
One grabbed my wrist. "Run. She's almost in you."
I froze.
Lillian's laughter turned gurgling. "Too late... I'm already in your bones..."
The clone shoved me toward the elevator. "Go!"
As the doors closed, I saw it—
Lillian's body convulsing as the clones forced her own System to execute one final command:
TERMINATE CREATOR.
The last thing I heard was her wail—
Cut off by the sound of every clone detonating at once.
The Aftermath
I woke up in Kai's arms.
Again.
Always.
He was bleeding from a dozen wounds, but his grip didn't shake. "Told you I'd find you."
I coughed blood. "You lied to me."
"About being assigned to watch you? Yes." His thumb brushed my cheek. "Not about choosing you anyway."
The ruins of the lab smoldered below us.
Julian emerged from the smoke, Bianca's broken body in his arms.
He looked at me. Really looked.
"She's gone?"
I nodded.
For the very first time, Julian Carter wept.
New Mission:Survive the Aftermath. Reward: Freedom.
But as Kai carried me away, I realized—
Lillian's last words weren't a threat.
They were a confession.
And then and there I knew the war wasn't over.
It had just changed hands.