Rain fell in silver threads across the skyline of Zurich, washing the neon reflections into rippling colors. Ava Kane sat in the back of a black sedan, her fingers pressed against the faint pulse in her wrist the rhythm no longer entirely her own.
Every beat echoed. Every breath whispered with someone else's shadow.
She could feel Arden again.
Lucian's voice broke through the silence. "The scans show fluctuations in your neural frequency. You're syncing with something someone."
Ava's gaze stayed fixed on the window. "You mean her."
He hesitated. "Arden's neural lattice was incomplete when we froze her. You're linked through the Ghost strain the serum your father engineered to stabilize her DNA. When she reactivated, the connection reawakened too."
Ava turned to face him, her eyes cold and burning all at once. "You knew this could happen."
Lucian didn't deny it. "I hoped it wouldn't. But the Ghost doesn't forget its host. And you're the only vessel it ever accepted."
Ava looked down at her trembling hand. For a moment, her skin flickered like static under her veins. Blue light, faint and alive.
"She's trying to take control," she whispered.
"No." Lucian leaned forward. "She's trying to communicate."
Ava's lips parted to answer, but a sound filled her mind a low hum, then a voice like wind through broken glass.
They lied to you, Ava.
She stiffened. "Did you hear that?"
Lucian frowned. "Hear what?"
He'll use you the same way he used me.
The voice was soft, inside her skull. Arden's tone calm, eerily measured.
Ava gritted her teeth. Get out of my head.
You can't separate what was made one.
Her pulse spiked. Lucian's readings on the tablet began to flash red. "Your brainwave coherence is dropping Ava, focus!"
She clutched the side of her head. "She's talking to me!"
"Then talk back," he said urgently. "But on your terms."
Ava forced a deep breath, eyes closing. Why are you doing this? she thought.
Arden's reply was instant.
Because they're still running the Echo Protocol.
Ava's eyes snapped open. "Echo what?"
Lucian froze. "That's classified."
Ava's voice turned sharp. "Not anymore."
Lucian exhaled. "The Echo Protocol was a contingency. A digital consciousness network cloning not just DNA, but memory. Your father feared death could erase his work, so he built a bridge between organic and synthetic minds. Arden was the first test subject. You… were the perfect iteration."
Ava stared at him in disbelief. "You're saying I'm what half human, half memory?"
He didn't answer fast enough.
The car jolted suddenly as something exploded in the street ahead. Lucian cursed, slamming the brakes. Black SUVs boxed them in.
Ava's instincts screamed. "They found us."
The doors burst open armed soldiers in matte armor, no insignias.
Lucian shoved her toward the other side. "Run!"
Bullets shattered glass. Ava dove out the opposite door, rolling onto wet pavement. She sprinted down an alley, lungs burning, rain blurring everything until she saw movement ahead.
A figure stepped from the shadows.
A woman. Barefoot. Dripping with rain. Eyes glowing blue.
Arden.
Ava froze. "You're real."
Arden's smile was thin. "Real enough."
Behind them, the soldiers shouted orders, lights sweeping the alley.
Arden tilted her head. "They're not after me anymore. They want you."
Ava's hand tightened around the flash drive hidden in her pocket the last data from the monastery. "Then help me stop them."
Arden studied her, expression unreadable. "You don't stop a system like Eden. You become what it fears."
She stepped closer, and Ava felt the same pulse hum through her blood. The same wavelength.
"You can't win without me," Arden said softly. "Because you are me."
Ava shook her head, rain streaking her face. "No. I'm what comes after you."
Their gazes locked identical, fierce, and burning with two different versions of the same pain.
Then Arden reached out, pressed two fingers against Ava's temple and the world fractured.
Memories not her own surged through her mind laboratories, restraints, her father shouting "Shut it down!" The Ghost serum glowing violet. A heartbeat slowing. Then nothing.
Ava staggered back, gasping. Arden's image flickered, fading into mist.
Find the Vault of Origin, her voice whispered. That's where it ends.
The alley fell silent again. Only rain.
Lucian's voice echoed from her comm. "Ava! Do you copy?"
She wiped the rain from her face, her heartbeat uneven but steady. "I'm here."
"Where are you?"
She looked up at the dark skyline. "On my way to finish what my father started."
Her reflection in a puddle shimmered two faces overlapping for a moment before becoming one.
Ava Kane was no longer running.
She was evolving.