Chapter Seven: The Replacement Protocol

They didn’t stop running until the city swallowed them.

Luca led Ava down two alleys, through the back of a locked loading dock, then into a tunnel that opened beneath an old private garage. One of Hart & Co.’s forgotten safe routes was built for executive extraction. Now, it was saving her life.

Inside the garage, a sleek black vehicle sat parked beneath flickering fluorescent lights. Luca unlocked it with a biometric scan. The engine came alive without a sound.

Ava leaned against the car door, catching her breath.

“We should’ve stayed and downloaded more,” she said.

“We stayed as long as we could,” Luca replied, pulling onto a service road. “They were already there before we left.”

“Which means they knew we’d come.”

Luca nodded once. “We’ve tripped something. The Program’s no longer watching. They’re acting.”

Ava looked out the window as the city lights blurred past. “That girl”

“She’s not just part of it,” Luca said. “She’s their solution. Their insurance policy.”

“The replacement.”

He looked at her. “She said you don’t belong to me. But that’s not what she meant.”

Ava turned slowly. “Then what?”

“She meant you don’t belong to yourself.”

A long silence filled the car.

It felt like drowning in a truth too big to grasp.

They drove for another twenty minutes before pulling into an underground vault beneath a private Hart propertylong since decommissioned, off the books, and untouched by current corporate security systems.

Inside, Luca flipped on the lights. It was cold, industrial, but clean. Safe for now.

He pulled out the drive they’d managed to recover and hooked it into a standalone computer.

“We’ve got one shot,” he said. “Once they realize we grabbed this, they’ll try to shut it down remotely.”

Ava sat beside him. Her hands trembled, but her eyes stayed locked on the screen.

“Whatever’s on here,” she said, “I need to see it.”

The screen came alive.

A hidden file blinked: TEST SUBJ. 01  NEURAL EVENTS LOG.

Ava’s breath caught.

Luca clicked.

A stream of images, voice logs, flashes of memory datarecorded, tagged, and labeled. Like someone had been watching her mind like security footage.

The first one loaded.

Avaage seventeensitting in a medical room. Monitors around her. Blank expression. Eyes moving side to side slowly.

Voiceover log:

“Subject remains unaware of duplication efforts. Memory manipulation shows stable results.”

Another clip.

She’s in a hallway. Speaking to someone behind the camera.

“You said this wasn’t real. That she’s not me.”

Voice (unseen):

“She’s not. She’s what we needed when you failed.”

The file cut abruptly.

Ava pulled away from the screen like it had burned her.

“They split us,” she whispered. “They used me as a base and her as the control. I wasn’t broken, just didn’t comply.”

Luca’s jaw was tight, his hands clenched.

“They turned you into a variable,” he said. “And she into the weapon.”

Ava looked at him.

“She’s not going to stop.”

“No,” Luca said. “She’s been trained to finish what they started.”

“And what is that, exactly?”

He turned the monitor toward her, one final decrypted file flashing open.

PROJECT OBJECTIVE:

“Replace Subject 01. Assimilate all active relationships. Discredit original. Secure control.”

Ava’s heart dropped.

“She’s not just here to scare me.”

“No,” Luca said, stepping closer. “She’s here to be you.”

At that exact moment, across the city, a woman sat in a luxury hotel suite.

She wore a black coat. Curls perfectly styled. Makeup flawless.

In front of her, a phone displayed an open email draft.

TO: Harper Lee

SUBJECT: Resignation from Sinclair Creative

BODY: Effective immediately, I’m stepping away. Thank you for everything. – Ava

She clicked send.

Smiled.

And whispered, “Time to clean up the mess.”

Ava stared at the screen, the words digging into her chest like needles.

Replace Subject 01. Assimilate all active relationships. Discredit original. Secure control.

“They want my life,” she said, barely above a whisper.

Luca stayed silent for a beat before replying, “They don’t just want it. They’ve already started taking it.”

Ava’s head dropped into her hands. “She sent that resignation email to Harper. From my email. With my voice.”

Luca reached for his phone and pulled up a secure terminal. He typed fast, eyes locked on the screen.

“They’re rewriting your presencedigitally first. That’s how they’ll do it. Change the records. Change the perception. And once enough people believe she’s you” He trailed off.

“I disappear,” Ava finished.

“No.” He looked at her. “Not if we stay ahead of it.”

Ava stood up and began pacing the narrow room.

“She’s not just mimicking me,” she said. “She knows me. She knows who I talked to. Who I trust. How I speak.”

“That’s how deep the Program went,” Luca said. “They didn’t just copy your face. They studied your psyche. They conditioned her with your patterns, speech, instincts until she could walk through your life like it was hers.”

Ava turned sharply to him. “Why didn’t they just kill me back then? Why go through all this?”

Luca’s expression darkened. “Because you were a failed variable, not a threat. Until now.”

Ava leaned against the table, her voice quiet. “So what happens when she takes everything? My name. My company. My history?”

Luca met her eyes. “Then we take it back. But we don’t just expose her. We expose everything. We burn the Program down.”

She nodded slowly, holding his gaze.

“I’m done running,” she said.

Luca’s eyes didn’t waver. “Then we fight.”

They left the vault an hour later, files backed up, drives secured.

Outside, the city was darker than usual.

Or maybe Ava just saw it differently now.

Everything had changed. Nothing was safenot even her name. Her memories weren’t hers. Her face had been copied. Her mother had been silent. And now, the people in her life were being fed a version of her that wasn’t even real.

But she was real.

She was Ava Sinclair.

And someone was going to learn the hard way that she couldn’t be replaced.

As they stepped out into the cold, Luca’s phone buzzed again.

A video file. No sender. No trace.

He tapped it.

The screen showed Harper Lee. Sitting in the Sinclair Creative office. Alone. Confused.

Then “Ava” walked in. The wrong Ava. Calm. Smiling. Voice perfect.

“Harper,” she said sweetly. “I need your help.”

Harper frowned. “Are you okay?”

The fake Ava leaned in and whispered something too low to hear.

Harper’s face fell.

She looked betrayed. Shocked. Then angry.

The video cut out.

Ava stared at the black screen, jaw clenched.

“They’re not just taking my life,” she said.

“They’re turning my people against me.”

Luca looked at her. “Then we take her first. “

Ava’s fingers hovered over Luca’s phone screen.

“Rewind it,” she said, voice flat.

Luca did.

The fake Ava walked into the frame again. Confident. Composed. Ava’s smile was weaponized now. Polished to perfection. Even the way she tilted her head was identical.

Harper leaned back in her chair, clearly uncertain.

Then the imposter leaned in and whispered something.

Harper’s face shifted instantly.

From confusion to disbelief to something Ava couldn’t name.

“She said something about me,” Ava murmured. “Something that made Harper pull away. That’s how it starts.”

Luca watched the screen in silence. “This version of you was trained to dismantle your identity one relationship at a time. She knows what to say to flip the people closest to you.”

“I built everything I have,” Ava said, stepping back. “I made my agency from nothing. Earned Harper’s trust. Fought my way into rooms full of men like your father.”

“And now someone’s trying to erase all of that,” Luca said.

“No.” She turned to him. “Not erase. Rewrite. And if I don’t stop her soon, I’ll be the ghost.”

Luca stepped toward her.

“You won’t be,” he said. “Because I still know the difference.”

That stopped her.

Not because of what he saidbut how he said it. Quiet. Measured. Like it wasn’t just a fact, but a promise.

She swallowed hard. “How?”

He didn’t blink. “Because the other you plays it safe. She’s been programmed to please.”

A pause.

“But you challenge. You question. You set fires. You don’t fold.”

She felt the words hit low in her chest.

Then something flickered behind her eyes.

“Let her take the surface,” Ava whispered. “Let her think she’s winning.”

Luca tilted his head. “What are you planning?”

Ava’s voice sharpened. “If she’s trying to be me, then she’ll make one mistake.”

“Which is?”

“She’ll forget who I am.”

That night, as Luca secured the vault, Ava sent one message from an encrypted line

Not to Harper.

Not to her team.

But to the imposter.

It read:

“If you’re so sure you’re me, prove it. Meet me. No cameras. No guards. Just us.”

And two minutes later, the reply came:

“Thought you’d never ask.”

Ava stared at the message glowing on Luca’s burner phone:

“Thought you’d never ask.”

Her heart beat once. Hard.

She looked up at Luca, who was already watching her.

“You know this is a trap,” he said.

“Good,” she replied. “Because I’m tired of being hunted. It’s time she sees me for real.”

Luca crossed his arms, the tension rising across his shoulders. “She has every advantagesurveillance, security, my father’s network. You go in alone, you might not come back.”

Ava took a step toward him. “You think I don’t know that?”

“I think you’re not scared enough.”

“And I think,” she said evenly, “you’re forgetting who taught you how to lose control.”

That stopped him cold.

Luca didn’t say anything, but something shifted in his expression. A trace of something raw. Something real.

He stepped closer. “Then we do this my way. You meet her. But you’re not alone. I’m watching from a block away, signal-locked and ready. One wrong move, I pull you out.”

Ava held his gaze. “She’ll know if you’re close.”

“She won’t know I’m there until I want her to.”

They stood there for a second too long. Like the world might break again before either of them blinked.

Then Ava nodded.

“Set the time,” she said. “We finish this.”

Later that night, as she stood in front of the mirror inside Luca’s safe house, Ava tied her curls back in a loose, defiant knot. No makeup. No mask. Just her. Raw. Real. Battle-ready.

“You’re not her,” she whispered to her reflection.

“She’s trying to wear your skin. But she doesn’t have your fire. She doesn’t know what it costs you to build yourself.”

Her hands trembled once.

Then stilled.

Outside the door, Luca’s voice cut through.

“She’s confirmed. Rooftop of the old Lexwell building. Ten p.m. No eyes on backup. No chatter.”

Ava opened the door. “Then it’s showtime.”

Luca looked at hernot the way he had before. Not like a partner. Not even like a protector.

This time, he looked at her like he knew exactly who she was.

“Come back in one piece,” he said.

Ava gave him a half-smile. “That depends on how good she is at being me.”

Ten minutes later, Ava stood on the rooftop under a dead sky.

Wind curled around her. Silence stretched long.

Then

Footsteps.

She turned.

There she was.

The copy.

Same face. Same voice. Same stance.

Only this time, the mask cracked.

“I always wondered what it would feel like,” the fake Ava said softly, stepping forward.

“To stand in front of myself and know I’m the better version.”

Ava didn’t flinch.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said. “You’re not a version. You’re a shadow.”

And she took the first step closer