Julian didn’t flinch. Instead, he pressed his fingers harder against the small metallic nodule beneath Victoria’s jawline, his knuckles turning white. A sharp, searing heat flooded her throat, spreading up into her skull until her vision bloomed with fractured violet light.

«Do it, Julian!» the woman in the center shouted, her voice echoing in precise, uncanny unison with the four identical figures standing beside her. «She’s unstable! Her sequence was corrupted in Geneva—you know what happens when the baseline fails!»

Victoria tried to scream, but her vocal cords locked into place. Her muscles rigidified, leaving her trapped in her own skin, staring at her own face multiplied five times over in the dark woods. Beneath her paralyzed chest, she could feel Leo squirming, his muffled cries vibration against her ribs through the rebreather mask.

«I’m not letting you recycle another one, Charlotte,» Julian growled, his jaw set as he grabbed the heavy brass key and drove it straight into the custom socket beneath the transport’s dashboard.

The vehicle didn’t start—it wasn’t meant to. Instead, the floorboards beneath Victoria’s feet swung downward with a heavy mechanical clunk.

«Down!» Julian shoved Victoria violently backward.

Paralyzed yet moving by force of gravity, she plummeted three feet through the hidden trapdoor into the muddy runoff ditch beneath the chassis, landing hard on her back with Leo clutched tight against her chest. The instant she cleared the opening, the metal hatch slammed shut above her, locking with a definitive steel snap.

170 words.

Above her, gunfire erupted.

Suppressed rounds chewed through the floorboards of the transport, spitting wood splinters and hot metal sparks through the narrow gaps into the mud. Victoria lay frozen in the icy slush, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. The burning sensation in her neck began to recede, replacing the sharp paralysis with a cold, terrifying clarity.

She could hear boots crunching through the pine needles overhead, surrounding the transport.

«Where is she?» a woman’s voice demanded—her voice, but shorn of all human warmth.

«She’s already down the line,» Julian’s voice bled through the bullet-riddled steel, strained and bubbling with fluid. «You’re too late, Charlotte. The key activated the dampener. You can’t track her biological ping anymore.»

A single, suppressed gunshot cut Julian off.

A heavy body slumped against the cabin floor directly above Victoria’s head. Blood began to drip through the narrow seam of the steel hatch, pattering onto the waterproof fabric of Leo’s swaddling clothes in slow, rhythmic thuds.

Victoria bit the inside of her lip until she tasted copper, forcing back a sob that threatened to tear through her throat. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t scream. She could only listen as the boots approached the rear of the chassis.

345 words.

«Check beneath the carriage,» the lead voice ordered.

Victoria squeezed her eyes shut, pulling Leo beneath the shadow of a fallen pine log as flashlight beams swept through the gap under the tires. The harsh white light illuminated the dark water around her knees, hovering mere inches from her muddy boots.

«Clear,» a second voice called out from the right. «No tracks leaving the ditch. She must have taken the drainage culvert south.»

«She couldn’t have survived the sequence trigger without an antidote,» the lead Charlotte replied, her footsteps pacing back and forth above the metallic ceiling. «Find her body. I want the child’s genetic key before the Geneva vault resets at midnight.»

The sound of footsteps faded into the rustling pine branches as the five women fanned out into the surrounding woods, their search lights cutting through the thick mountain fog.

Victoria waited until the forest grew dead quiet, save for the wind howling through the shattered guardrail above. Whispering a silent plea, she forced her trembling limbs to move, crawling forward through the freezing mud of the drainage culvert, dragging herself and the baby away from the wreckage.

520 words.

Ten minutes later, she pulled herself out of the culvert into a small, abandoned stone maintenance hut built into the side of the mountain. Her lungs burned, her clothes were soaked with icy water, but Leo was still warm inside his protective wrap.

She collapsed against the rough stone wall, pulling the rebreather from the child’s face. Leo blinked up at her with big, solemn eyes, remarkably silent in the dim ambient moonlight streaming through the shattered window.

Victoria reached up with shaking fingers to touch the small bump behind her ear.

The skin was raised, hot, and distinctly square. A synthetic transponder. She wasn’t just a survivor running from a syndicate—she was a product. A manufactured husk carrying someone else’s memories, holding a key to a vault she couldn’t remember building.

Suddenly, her phone in her coat pocket began to vibrate against her hip.

She froze. The EMP should have fried all local electronics within a half-mile radius.

660 words.

With a trembling hand, she pulled the phone from her pocket. The screen was cracked, but the glass was glowing with a harsh, neon green light.

There was no phone number. No caller ID. Just a single, high-definition video feed buffering on the screen.

Victoria pressed the center button.

The screen flickered, revealing an pristine, sterile white room. In the center of the frame, tied to an iron chair, sat Julian. His face was covered in fresh blood, but his eyes were open, staring directly into the lens.

Beside him stood Arthur Vance—her father. But Arthur looked fifty years younger, completely untouched by time, wearing a crisp dark suit.

«Hello, Victoria,» Arthur’s voice came through the tiny speaker, impossibly clear. «Or should I say, Subject 06? If you are watching this, Charlotte failed to collect your sequence.»

Arthur stepped toward the camera, holding up a glass tray containing three glowing blue vials.

«Julian thought he was saving you,» Arthur continued with a cold smile, reaching down and pressing a syringe directly into Julian’s neck. Julian shuddered violently, his eyes rolling back as his veins turned a deep, unnatural black. «He didn’t realize that the key he used didn’t hide your location. It initiated the gestation cycle. Look at your child, Victoria. Look at his wrist.»

Victoria dropped the phone into the dirt and snatched Leo’s small hand out of the blanket.

Under the soft moonlight, beneath the thin, translucent skin of the infant’s tiny wrist, a small, black digital timer had just appeared under his flesh, pulsing in bright crimson numbers as it began counting down.

00:59:59… 00:59:58…