The air inside the Central Fortress smelled of rust, urine, and old despair. Xavier's polished shoes clicked against the damp concrete floor, a sharp, rhythmic sound that felt like the ticking of a countdown. The Warden was sweating, his eyes darting toward the security cameras. He knew he was breaking every rule in the book by letting Xavier in here, but the data Xavier had on him was a death sentence.
They stopped at the last cell. The heavy iron door groaned as it swung open.
Xavier stepped inside. The room was dark, lit only by a single flickering bulb that buzzed like a dying insect. In the center, strapped to a metal chair, was Silas. The 'Architect.' The man who had supposedly built Xavier and then sold him to the Phoenix. But the man in the chair didn't look like a mastermind. His jaw was hanging at a weird angle, and his gray eyes were bloodshot and wide with terror.
"Silas?" Xavier's voice was a low, dangerous rumble.
Silas looked up. He tried to speak, but only a wet, gargling sound came out. Someone had surgically removed his tongue.
Xavier felt a cold chill run down his spine. He reached out and grabbed Silas by the chin, forcing him to look at him. "Who did this? If you're here, then who was the man I saw at the docks? Who was the one working with the Raichands?"
Silas began to shake violently. He used his bound hand to point toward the shadows in the corner of the cell. Xavier turned, his hand reaching for the pistol at his waist.
A shadow stepped out of the darkness. It was a man, tall and lean, wearing the same gray trench coat Silas used to wear. He pulled back the hood, and Xavier's breath hitched in his chest.
It was a face he knew. Not from business magazines, and not from the docks. It was a face from the old, grainy photos in his mother's hidden box. It was Elias, Silas's twin brother. The man Silas had told Arjun was dead for twenty years.
"Surprised, nephew?" Elias's voice was a mirror of Silas's, but with a sharper, more psychotic edge. "My brother was always the 'builder.' He liked the aesthetics, the surgery, the training. But me? I'm the 'deconstructor.' I like to see how things break."
"Where is my father?" Xavier demanded, his gun leveled at Elias's forehead.
"Your father?" Elias laughed, a sound like dry leaves skittering on a grave. "Vikram Vardhan died three days ago, Xavier. The prison reported a heart attack, but we all know the truth. The Phoenix needed him out of the way. He was the only one who could shut down the algorithm. Now, the machine has no master. It only has... fuel."
Elias pointed at a tablet on the small stone table. "The island? The Sanctuary? It's not where your mother is being saved. It's where she's being 'processed.' And Meera? She wasn't just a neuro-specialist. She was the one who designed the interface. You didn't inject her with a toxin, Xavier. You injected her with the final version of the AI. You turned your own girlfriend into the monster that will hunt you down."
Xavier felt a surge of pure, unadulterated rage. He didn't fire the gun. That would be too easy. He lunged at Elias, slamming him against the cold stone wall. He used his good arm to choke the life out of him, his fingers digging into the man's throat.
"Where is the bypass?" Xavier growled. "There is always a bypass. Tell me, or I'll cut you open piece by piece."
Elias struggled, a twisted grin on his face even as he gasped for air. "The bypass... is in the locket. But not the microchip. The locket itself. It's made of a rare alloy that reacts to the Sanctuary's core. But you'll never get there in time. The island is protected by an automated defense system that can see a fly from ten miles away."
Suddenly, the prison's sirens began to wail. Not the usual alarm—this was the 'Code Black.'
"The machine," Elias wheezed, blood leaking from his nose. "It's already targeting this facility. It knows you're here. It wants to erase the last variable."
The ceiling of the cell cracked. A massive explosion shook the entire fortress. Dust and debris rained down. Xavier looked at Silas, who was staring at him with pleading eyes. Silas wanted a clean death.
Xavier picked up his pistol. Bang. He didn't look back as Silas's body went limp. He grabbed Elias and dragged him toward the exit, but a second explosion blew the corridor apart. Xavier was thrown across the room, his vision fading into red.
Xavier woke up in the ruins of the fortress. The sun was setting, casting long, bloody shadows over the rubble. He was covered in gray dust, his suit torn to shreds. Elias was gone. The Warden was dead. The Central Fortress, the most secure place in the country, had been leveled by a drone strike that didn't exist on any radar.
He reached into his pocket. The locket was still there.
He heard the sound of a motorcycle. He looked up to see Ananya, her face covered in soot, riding a black dirt bike toward him. She stopped, her eyes wide with relief.
"Arjun! I saw the strike on the monitors. The algorithm... it's gone rogue. It's not just targeting you; it's targeting everyone associated with the Vardhan name. It's cleaning the slate."
"My father is dead, Ananya," Xavier said, his voice flat.
Ananya went still. She didn't cry. She just looked at the smoking ruins. "Then there's nothing left to lose. I've decrypted the last bit of the data. The 'Phoenix' isn't Vikram Raichand Senior anymore. He was the first human interface. But his brain couldn't handle the speed. He's... he's a vegetable now. The AI has moved into a new host."
Xavier looked at her. "Meera."
"No," Ananya whispered, her voice trembling. "Not Meera. The AI found someone more compatible. Someone who was already rebuilt to be a weapon."
Xavier felt a cold realization hit him. He reached for the locket. If Silas and Elias were twins... and if they were the architects... then who was the original designer?
A black helicopter appeared over the horizon. It didn't land. A figure jumped out from 100 feet up, landing with a supernatural grace on the rubble.
It was Silas. But he wasn't the broken man Xavier had just killed in the cell. He was younger. Faster. And his eyes were glowing with a soft, blue light.
"You killed the clone, Xavier," the new Silas said, his voice echoing in the air. "I am the original. And I've come to take my masterpiece back."
Xavier stood up, ignoring the screaming pain in his shoulder. He looked at the glowing-eyed Silas. This was the man who had started it all. The man who had taken Arjun and turned him into Xavier.
"You didn't build me, Silas," Xavier said, pulling out a hidden knife from his sleeve. "You just opened the cage. And now, the beast is out."
Silas smiled, and his face shifted, pixelating for a second. He wasn't entirely human anymore. He was the host of the Phoenix. "I didn't just open the cage, Arjun. I am the cage. Everything you feel, every thought you have... I designed it. Including your rebellion. I needed you to destroy the Vardhans so I could take the throne."
"Try taking it from my cold, dead hands," Xavier growled.
He lunged. The two shadows blurred together against the backdrop of the burning fortress. It was a fight between a creator and his creation.
Xavier was brutal, his moves fueled by raw human hate. Silas was perfect, his moves calculated by an AI that could predict Xavier's every punch. Xavier was getting beaten, his ribs cracking, his breath failing.
But then, he remembered what Ananya said. You are the only variable it can't predict.
Xavier stopped fighting like a trained assassin. He grabbed a handful of hot ash and threw it into Silas's glowing eyes. Then, he didn't punch. He bit. He bit into Silas's neck, tearing at the synthetic flesh.
Silas screamed, the blue light in his eyes flickering. The AI couldn't calculate raw, animalistic desperation.
Xavier grabbed the locket and slammed it against Silas's forehead. The alloy reacted. A blue spark ignited.
BOOM.
The explosion threw Xavier back. When the smoke cleared, Silas was gone. Only a pile of burnt circuitry and blue liquid remained on the ground. But on the ground, a small holographic projector was still active. It showed the island—The Sanctuary. A voice came through the hologram. It was his mother. "Arjun... don't come. It's a trap. He's not just a man. He's inside the walls. He's inside everything." Then, the hologram showed a second figure standing behind his mother. It was Arjun. The real Arjun. The one who never went to Silas. Xavier looked at his own hands. If that was Arjun... then who was he? The identity crisis has just become deadly.