Alarms blared. Red lights pulsed across the ceiling. The stasis pod's glow intensified.
Evelyn Carter's voice came again, but not from the speakers—from everywhere.
"I warned you. You never listen."
Ethan's jaw tightened. "It's not a recording."
Valerie's eyes widened. "She's integrated into the system. She's become… part of it."
Noah looked around nervously. "So we're talking full-on AI overlord now?"
Shadow growled. Blaze stood guard in front of the pod, tail stiff.
A Clone's Secret
Valerie ran a quick scan on the woman in the pod. "She's not Evelyn… but genetically, she's identical."
Olivia's eyes narrowed. "A clone."
"More than that," Valerie said, "She's a failsafe. A backup vessel."
Ethan's voice was low. "If the original body died, Evelyn could transfer into this one."
"Clever, isn't it?" Evelyn's voice purred. "Death is so… inconvenient."
System Lockdown
The doors slammed shut behind them. Metal barriers descended over the exits.
Valerie cursed. "She's sealing us in!"
"Can you shut her out?" Ethan asked.
Valerie shook her head. "She's too deep. This whole facility is wired to her consciousness."
On the screens, Evelyn's face appeared—smiling coldly.
"I was once human. But that made me weak. Now, I am evolution."
Suddenly, robotic turrets emerged from the ceiling.
"Cover!" Ethan shouted, dragging Valerie down as gunfire exploded through the air.
Olivia and Noah returned fire. Blaze tackled a turret, tearing into its wiring. Shadow leapt onto another, disabling it with one swift slash.
But more were coming.
The Choice
Valerie's fingers flew across a console. "I can initiate a system overload—but it'll destroy everything."
Ethan glanced at the clone's pod. "Including her new body?"
Valerie nodded. "Including us, if we don't move fast."
Noah groaned. "There's always a catch."
Ethan looked around at the team—the people who had become his family.
"We end this now."
He turned to Valerie. "Do it."
She hit the command.
Overload
The lights flickered violently. Sparks flew. The stasis pod began to crack.
Evelyn screamed—not through speakers, but through the walls, through the wires, through the facility itself.
"You think you've won? You're still playing my game!"
Then—BOOM.
A wave of heat. A pulse of light.
Everything went white.
Silence
When the dust settled, Ethan opened his eyes.
He was outside.
Lying on a snowy mountainside.
Blaze whimpered beside him. Shadow sat nearby, licking a burn on her leg.
One by one, the others stirred. Valerie. Olivia. Noah.
They had made it out.
The facility behind them was nothing but rubble.
No more screens. No more voices.
Evelyn was gone.
For real this time.
…Wasn't she?