The facility loomed beneath the Swiss earth, sealed behind reinforced steel and biometric locks. But even high-security systems had blind spots—and Mo Zeyan was trained to find them.
Ruoxi crouched beside him, heart racing as they waited behind a stack of steel crates in the underground delivery bay. Their fake ID scan had tripped a silent alert, but Zeyan's contacts in the Mo Corporation had provided a thirty-second override window.
"Now," Zeyan whispered.
They slipped through the automatic door as it hissed open.
Inside, the corridor stretched long and lifeless. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead. A low hum filled the space—too clean, too controlled.
"This place feels like it was never meant to be found," Ruoxi murmured.
Zeyan nodded. "Because it wasn't. This is where they clean their sins."
Deeper inside the facility, Lin Qian screamed as pain flooded her mind like liquid fire.
She was strapped into a surgical chair, the Synaptic Merge module pulsing around her skull, each electric whisper stealing another memory, another fragment of her soul.
"Synaptic Merge – 48%."
Prototype 2—The Reclaimer—watched from behind a transparent barrier, her arms crossed.
"Let go," she said into the mic. "The pain stops when you stop resisting."
Lin Qian's body trembled, but her mind fought harder.
Faces flashed behind her eyes:Ruoxi's laugh.Zeyan's warm hand on her shoulder.The faint scent of jasmine in a childhood room.
"Synaptic Merge – 62%."
A trickle of blood ran down her nose.
But Lin Qian's lips moved.
"No," she whispered. "I'm not yours."
Ruoxi and Zeyan reached the main lab entrance—and froze.
It was open.
Zeyan held a hand up, gesturing for silence. They crept inside, weapons ready.
But the lab… was empty.
Screens still glowed. Monitors beeped. Chairs were turned over.
"What happened here?" Ruoxi whispered.
Zeyan tapped a terminal. "Looks like emergency evac was initiated an hour ago. Someone pulled the plug mid-procedure."
"Then Lin Qian—"
A distorted voice crackled from a half-smashed console nearby. Ruoxi ran to it.
It was audio-only. Fragmented.
"Merge unstable… Subject resisting… initiate protocol abort—"
Another voice, clearer, cut in:
"No abort. Increase voltage. I said she must forget."
Ruoxi's hands clenched.
Prototype 2. She was forcing the merge—beyond protocol.
Far below, in a locked cryo-lab, Lin Qian's body convulsed.
"Synaptic Merge – 79%."
She was losing herself—memories of her brother replaced with cold logic. Laughter overwritten by sterile silence.
But suddenly—
"ERROR."
The lights flickered.
An old file had surfaced from her subconscious. A childhood memory, long buried.
Two girls.
One with tangled hair, covered in soot.
The other… wearing white gloves, looking down through a glass chamber.
Lin Qian gasped. She'd seen this before.
She had been in the chamber. But it wasn't fire that came next—
It was Ruoxi, breaking the seal from the outside.
She'd saved her.
Not the doctors. Not the system.
It had been Ruoxi, crying, screaming, banging on the glass to free her.
Tears mixed with blood on Lin Qian's face. "You were always there…"
"Merge aborted – Identity stabilizing."
She blacked out.
Back in the upper lab, Ruoxi suddenly dropped to her knees.
Zeyan caught her. "Ruoxi—?"
"My head—" she gasped. "It's her. I felt her. She's not gone."
Zeyan checked the monitors. "Merge data halted. Neural relay offline. They shut it down."
"She fought it off," Ruoxi whispered. "She remembered me."
Zeyan pulled her to her feet. "Then we still have time."
They searched deeper, finally locating the cryo-chamber control room.
Zeyan hacked in. The lights powered on with a whine.
Rows of pods lined the walls—each marked with a subject number.
Ruoxi ran ahead, searching the glass faces.
"Prototype 1… Prototype 3… where is she…"
Finally, in the last pod—Subject Class B: L.Q.Her real name beneath it: Lin Qian
Eyes shut. Face bruised. But alive.
Ruoxi hit the emergency unlock.
Steam hissed from the pod as it opened, and Lin Qian collapsed forward—
Into Ruoxi's arms.
"I've got you," she whispered, voice shaking. "You're safe."
Lin Qian's eyelids fluttered. "They wanted to make me forget you…"
"But you didn't."
"I never could."
Ten floors above, in a private helipad bay, Prototype 2 stared down at the data tablet in her hand.
"Merge failed," a tech reported. "She rejected the override."
Prototype 2's expression didn't waver.
"Then it's time to burn the past."
She pressed a single button.
In the lab below, red lights flashed.
Self-Destruct Sequence – 15 Minutes.
Zeyan's voice echoed through the intercom. "We've got incoming. Security's back."
Ruoxi grabbed Lin Qian's arm, steadying her. "Can you run?"
Lin Qian nodded weakly. "If it's away from here, yes."
They sprinted through the corridors, alarms blaring.
Zeyan cleared the path, gunning down locks and smashing override panels.
They reached the upper level as explosions rocked the lower chambers.
Smoke filled the stairwells.
But just before they escaped—
A door opened across the hall.
And Prototype 2 stepped through.
She looked at Ruoxi—and smiled.
"Looks like we're finally face to face."
Ruoxi raised her weapon. "Stay back."
Prototype 2 didn't flinch. "You still don't understand, do you? You're not their success. You were mine."
She tapped her chest. "They built you from my DNA."
Ruoxi froze.
"What?"
"But I'll let you live," Prototype 2 said. "After all… you're just the warm-up."
Then she stepped backward into the fire.
Gone.
Outside, the trio stumbled into the mountain night as the facility imploded behind them.
The sky was quiet. Cold.
But Ruoxi's heart burned.
She looked at Zeyan, then at Lin Qian—alive, breathing.
"We stop running now," she said.
Zeyan nodded.
"Now… we fight back."