AVA I have encountered foes that sought to kill me. Dominic? He hoped to outlive me. That is what this was about. He created this child to indicate that he was more than simply a preserved object. "I can outshine you." The embryo gleamed with a throbbing rhythm, like a small heartbeat that had not yet acquired a soul. Damian stood alongside me, silent and unreadable. But I sensed a shift in him. The struggle between fatherhood and rage. DAMIAN He did not flinch as the countdown on the panel behind him progressed. 71:21:00 71:20:59"You can still stop this," I explained. Dominic turned, serene as always. "No, you can. You can turn it off. Stop it. "Erase her.""I won't," I said. "Why?," he inquired. "Because that would make me one of them." His stillness was more audible than shouting. Then he said, "Do not stop me." AVA I took a big breath before stepping between them. I did not come here to win. I came here to remind him that just because y
AVA Dominic? I read the name three times on Julian's screen, hoping to blink and it would disappear. It was not. Julian's voice lowered to a whisper. "He got past three biometric locks." Used Damian's old encryption key. "I logged out five minutes before the camera loop reset.""He knows better," I whispered quietly, wrath rising in my breast. But he also knew us. We knew we would not expect him to do this. And that is precisely why he pulled it off.DAMIAN I did not want to believe it. I taught him how to defend, lead, and think like a Cross but feel like a human. I told him I trusted him. But maybe that was the problem. Part of Dominic still belonged to the shadows that raised him. Part of him still asked what if I was never meant to be good? He stole the embryo, the last Vale asset, and disappeared. AVAWe cornered his trail in Prague burner transactions, hacked security logs, timeJulian's team received one message from a ghost number. A sound file. Dominic's vo
AVA I discovered her sitting at the kitchen table the next morning. I am drinking my tea now. wearing one of my sweatshirts. And humming a lullaby I would only ever sing to Liam when he was too ill to sleep. I did not speak. I just stared. She looked up slowly, smiled, and said, "It is comfortable. I can see why he enjoys this." I stepped past her to the sink, got a glass, and filled it, my hands shaking slightly. I said, "You were never meant to live my life.""But I was destined to learn from it," she explained. DAMIAN Julian detected a file that I had not seen previously. A buried data pocket in the clone's cryolog.He got it encrypted late last night. It was actually a journal. Genesis and Camille collaborated on creating a log of all her imprinted thoughts, sensations, and triggers. Page after page of myself. What I did when I was angry. How my eyes moved when I was resting down. I kissed Ava. How I carried Liam. Every moment of our lives together is repro
AVA I could not help but stare at the report. not the embryo. Not the cryosignature. But what about the words? Ava Reynolds is the mother (proxy copy). She was not only attempting to imitate me anymore. She was trying to give birth through me. Or, through my stolen body, my likeness. Genesis left behind a clone.They did not recognize me by name. I was a blueprint. And they had found someone to complete the scheme. Camille began with blood and lies. DAMIAN I had seen terror before. But never this personal. Julian located the lab to a remote hillside in Moldova. Privately owned. Unlisted. However, the funding comes from old CrossTech companies. "Knox is preparing for transfer," he informed us. "He plans to implant the embryo within 48 hours. "He is utilizing your clone, Ava." Ava clinched her jaw but did not flinch. "This time," she continued softly, "we burn the entire program down." AVA Later, Liam caught me crying in the hallway. It is not loud. I di
AVA "Go!" Damian said nothing else as the countdown shouted through the bunker like an enraged god. 00:01:27 00:01:26 My legs did not require convincing. I ran. The chilly steel creaked around us. Every hallway felt longer than the last, and each turn presented a choice between life and fire. Dominic's voice cut through the communication. "Extraction point established at the north cliff edge. "Thirty seconds distant.""I will make it," I said, panting. "You are not alone," Damian muttered behind me. DAMIAN I lingered behind long enough to get the flash drive. Cassian's final failsafe.Genesis' initial root data includes everything he was and could have been. I did not accept it as science. I stole it so no one could reconstruct him ever again. Not even us. Then I ran. AVA I climbed the last ladder and burst into snow and moonlight, my lungs burning. Julian's shadow motioned us ahead toward the helicopter, its blades already churning in terror. "Where i
AVA The air in Finland did more than just freeze; it bit. Isolation feels cold. Cold memory. I walked out of the plane into a silent landscape of white. There are no guards. There are no drones. Only snow-covered concrete and a hatch carved into the side of a glacier. The Womb. Genesis' final stronghold. Mine, too. When I neared, the metal door hissed open. There is no code. There is no key. He had expected me. I went inside. Alone. Every step echoed against the steel walls, like a heartbeat I did not want to hear.DAMIAN I was not keeping an eye on the jet. I was following along. Julian redirected a tracker into Ava's wristwatch, making it micro-embedded and invisible. We saw the coordinates light up as she landed. "Two kilometers from the old DNA forge," Julian mumbled. "Underground, insulated, and self-sustaining." Genesis had made his own planet. This is a new one. With Ava at the center. But he would underestimated something. She was not stepping int