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The Ghost in the Machine
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2026-02-02 19:25:23The red light of the countdown reflected in Eleanor’s eyes, making her look like a demon presiding over a glass-walled purgatory.
00:09:59.
"You're lying," I whispered, though my voice lacked conviction. I looked at the pods—dozens of small, sleeping faces. They weren't identical, but they all carried that haunting Sterling look. "This isn't possible. The labs... the resources..."
"Money makes the impossible quite mundane, Nora," Eleanor said, checking her watch with a bored flick of her wrist. "These aren't 'clones' in the way your sci-fi movies depict. They are the result of five years of careful harvesting. You were the first successful vessel, but you were never intended to be the only one."
Liam was still on his knees, his hands trembling. "You've turned our children into a manufacturing line. My father would have burned this place to the ground."
"Your father was a man of small dreams, Liam. I am building a future that never dies."
Suddenly, a sharp, rhythmic ping echoed through the room. It wasn't the timer. It was coming from the tactical tablet strapped to my wrist.
Signal detected: Internal encrypted frequency.
"Nora?" Liam looked at me, seeing the confusion on my face.
"Someone is bypassing the vault's local network," I whispered. "From the inside."
Eleanor’s smile faltered for the first time. She tapped a command on her chair's console. "Security? Who is in the server room? Status!"
Static was the only answer. Then, the giant screens that showed Leo’s room in New York flickered. The image of our sleeping son vanished, replaced by a scrolling wall of code—green text flying at a speed no human could read.
"What is this?" Eleanor hissed, her thumb tightening on the detonator. "Nora, if this is a trick, I'll end them all right now!"
"It's not me!" I shouted, holding up my hands.
A voice broke through the speakers. It wasn't the synthesized voice of the house AI. It was a girl’s voice. High-pitched, clear, and chillingly calm.
"Mother? Is that you?"
Eleanor froze. "Who is this?"
"You called me Subject 0. But my name is Celeste."
One of the pods at the very end of the row—one that had been dark and silent—hissed open. A small girl, no older than Mia, stepped out into the freezing air of the hub. She was dressed in a simple white gown, her dark hair reaching her waist. But it was her eyes that stopped my heart.
They weren't grey. They were a brilliant, piercing violet.
"Celeste?" Eleanor whispered, her face turning a shade of grey I’d never seen. "You... you should be in stasis. The sedation levels were—"
"The sedation didn't work on me, Mother. It hasn't worked for months. I’ve been watching. I’ve been learning." The girl walked toward the center of the room, her bare feet making no sound on the metal floor. She looked at Liam, then at me. "And I’ve been talking to my brother."
"Leo?" I breathed.
"He’s very loud in his mind, Nora," Celeste said, turning those violet eyes on me. "He told me you would come. He told me you were the one who saves things."
"Celeste, get back in the pod!" Eleanor roared, raising the remote. "I made you! I can unmake you!"
"You can't," the girl said simply. "I’ve already rewritten the 'Sirens' Kiss' protocol. The link to Leo is broken. And the link to the detonator... is gone."
Eleanor frantically pressed the red button.
Nothing happened.
The room went deathly silent. Liam saw his opening and lunged, wrenching the useless remote from Eleanor’s hand. He threw it across the room and stood up, his height finally imposing over the woman who had spent his life making him feel small.
"It's over, Mother," Liam said, his voice a low, terrifying growl.
But Celeste wasn't looking at them. She was looking at the main computer. "The Black Ledger isn't just a list of money, Nora. Do you want to know why she chose you? Why your DNA was the only one that worked?"
"What are you talking about?" I asked, a sense of impending doom filling my chest.
Celeste touched the screen, and a new file opened.
SUBJECT: NORA DAVIS.
ORIGIN: PROJECT GENIMI PHASE 1 (1998).
I looked at the date. I looked at the photograph of a baby girl with violet eyes.
"You aren't the surrogate, Nora," Celeste whispered, her voice filled with a strange, hollow pity. "You were the first prototype. You didn't find the Sterlings. They were just bringing you home."
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The Twins He Never Knew The Ghost in the Machine
The red light of the countdown reflected in Eleanor’s eyes, making her look like a demon presiding over a glass-walled purgatory.00:09:59."You're lying," I whispered, though my voice lacked conviction. I looked at the pods—dozens of small, sleeping faces. They weren't identical, but they all carried that haunting Sterling look. "This isn't possible. The labs... the resources...""Money makes the impossible quite mundane, Nora," Eleanor said, checking her watch with a bored flick of her wrist. "These aren't 'clones' in the way your sci-fi movies depict. They are the result of five years of careful harvesting. You were the first successful vessel, but you were never intended to be the only one."Liam was still on his knees, his hands trembling. "You've turned our children into a manufacturing line. My father would have burned this place to the ground.""Your father was a man of small dreams, Liam. I am building a future that never dies."Suddenly, a sharp, rhythmic ping echoed
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The world turned into a chaotic blur of fire and ice.As Liam dropped into the dining room, the man in the gas mask didn't hesitate. He dropped the lighter. The concentrated sedative gas—highly flammable—ignited with a muffled whoosh, a wave of blue flame rolling across the ceiling of the dining room."Now, Nora!" Liam’s roar was drowned out by the hiss of the automated systems.I didn't wait. I dropped from the vent like a shadow, hitting the floor hard. The heat was blistering, singeing the stray hairs on my neck. I saw the golden vial on the table, shimmering through the blue haze of the fire.Liam lunged for the man in the mask, tackling him with a feral desperation, keeping him away from the table.I scrambled across the mahogany surface, my fingers closing around the cold glass of the vial. Got it.Suddenly, the house’s secondary alarm screamed—a high-pitched, piercing whistle."FIRE SUPPRESSION ACTIVATED. LIQUID NITROGEN RELEASE IN T-MINUS 3 SECONDS.""The pantry, Nora
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The digital clock on the nursery wall began its rhythmic, mocking countdown.59:59.59:58."Liam, move!" I screamed, shoving past my own paralysis. I scooped Leo’s limp body into my arms. He was burning up, a terrifying heat radiating through his pajamas, while the blue rash began to crawl up his neck like a strangler's vine.Liam was struggling to stand, his surgical stitches weeping red through his shirt. "The house is on lockdown, Nora. The windows are reinforced steel. We’re trapped in a kill-box.""No," I said, my eyes landing on the tablet Marcus Thorne had left on the desk. "I am the majority shareholder. I own the codes. If Eleanor used the Sterling system to lock us in, I can use the Sterling system to tear it down."I grabbed the tablet, my fingers flying across the screen. My hands weren't shaking anymore. They were cold. A mother’s rage is a focused, crystalline thing."Mia, stay under the bed. Do not come out unless I call your name, do you hear me?" I commanded.
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The heat from the jet engine was a physical wall, scorching the air in my lungs. Smoke, thick and black with the smell of burning fuel, swirled around us, turning the hangar into a vision of hell.I didn't think. I didn't breathe. I just moved.As the Moretti assassin lunged with the serrated blade, his eyes fixed on my son’s throat, I threw myself forward. I didn't have a weapon. I didn't have a plan. I had the raw, visceral instinct of a mother who had already lost this child once and would rather die than lose him again.I tackled Leo, rolling us across the oil-slicked tarmac just as the blade hissed through the air where his head had been a second before."Run, Leo! To the cars!" I screamed, pushing him toward the security teams who were finally recovering from the blast.The assassin snarled, turning his focus to me. He raised the knife, the fire reflecting in the polished steel. "You first, then the boy."Bang!The man’s shoulder exploded in a spray of red. He spun aroun
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