The child who should not exist
Sael didn't speak much.
Since being rescued from the Replacement Vault pod, his demeanor had been serene, almost hypnotic.
He had the gaze of a child who had lived, but his eyes held no time.
As if every emotion in him had been freshly unpacked.
Akihiko watched him from a distance.
He didn't know how to look at him. Not as an enemy...but not as a son either. Because deep down, he knew that part of Sael was himself .
Not because of genetics. But because of the memories Ysin and his network had stolen from him years ago, and now they formed the boy's emotional foundation.
Riva kept them hidden in a safe house in the suburbs of Elytrum, a forgotten city where the Shadow had yet to openly establish a presence.
Juno didn't speak. Neither did Marek. Everyone knew that what they had brought wasn't just a child...
it was a bomb of uncertainty.
The record of active duplicates
Since the destruction of the Vault, Riva worked day and night tracking the network that managed the duplicates already active in the world.
—"There are 312 subjects. Activated.
Distributed across 26 regions."
Akihiko looked at the map. Many of them lived among real people , with no one noticing anything strange.
They had passports, professions, partners, children.
—"And how many of those know they're not real?"
—"Only 12.
The rest… fully believe in his story."
Juno interrupted: "So what do we do? Do we eliminate them?"
Akihiko looked at Sael, asleep in the corner. "No.
First… we understand them."
III. The first encounter – the duplicate with its own name
The first contact operation took place in Bexar, a port city dominated by a minor criminal network.
Ilan Tress , an elementary school teacher, father of two, and husband of eight years,
lived there . But according to the records… he was only activated six months ago.
Akihiko and Marek approached him unarmed in a park. The man was cordial. Polite.
He seemed human in every way. Until Akihiko looked him in the eye and asked:
—"Do you have any memories from before the age of 25?"
Ilan hesitated. "Of course. My parents lived in…"
And he stopped.
The silence disarmed him.
"My father… was a carpenter? No, he was… wait…"
And in seconds, his eyes changed. "What did you do to me?"
Akihiko reassured him. But the man got up and ran.
Hours later, he took his own life.
Riva found her last search on mobile:
"How do you know if your memories are real?"
The moral dilemma
—"We can't keep contacting them like this." —"So, we wait for them to explode emotionally when something doesn't fit?"
Akihiko gathered his team. "Let's form a hidden support network.
A sanctuary of sorts. A place where active duplicates can come… and discover the truth at their own pace."
Thus was born The House of the Second Name , a clandestine structure in Elytrum, guarded by former agents and maintained by disabled networks.
Duplicates who were beginning to notice cracks in their reality…
were guided there by subtle signs.
—"What if the Shadow uses it to track them?" Juno asked.
—"Then we'll turn it into an emotional battlefield.
Where we win not by killing…
but by restoring identity. "
The Return of Lirea
Lirea had disappeared after the collapse of the Refuge. Many believed she couldn't withstand the weight of her artificial origins.
But weeks later, it reappeared…
with seven more duplicates.
—"I found them. They were on the verge of collapse.
But they still believed their lives were worthwhile."
Akihiko looked at her differently this time. She no longer looked like a product. She looked like a bridge.
—"If they hate us for being born from the memory of others,
then help us not to repeat that mistake."
And Lirea accepted.
Thus was born the first duplicate leadership within the real world.
The Seventh Lethal is activated
In the bowels of Vorlenn, a city dominated by clandestine trade, the Lethal Malith awoke.
Silent.
Faceless. Voiceless.
He was the last active member of the Shadow's elite circle. His specialty:
Extracting profound truths without speaking.
And making others say what they don't yet know they feel.
Malith began visiting political leaders…
And soon, laws began to emerge prohibiting certain types of emotions.
—"It's not censorship.
It's emotional hygiene," read an ad in Vorlenn.
Akihiko knew the next front wouldn't be memory. It would be emotion itself.
VII. The child speaks
One night, as the city slept and the House of the Second Name remained silent, Sael sat across from Akihiko.
-"Dad?"
Akihiko looked at him.
—"What do you know about me?"
—"I know I shouldn't exist.
But when I dream about you, you're the only one who doesn't change."
Akihiko hugged him. For the first time. Not out of compassion.
But because in that instant, he understood that memories can also be born after their origin.
END OF CHAPTER 149