Chapter 9: Truth in the Fire
"Welcome to the future," Crane said, his voice smooth like poisoned silk.
Behind him, the glass tank continued to drain. Wires detached. Fluid gurgled out. A humanoid figure floated forward—part human, part machine. Its skin was pale and translucent, its eyes glowing faint blue. Muscles twitched unnaturally under the synthetic flesh.
Elira couldn't move. She could barely breathe.
"That's…" she whispered, "Delgado's prototype."
Crane nodded. "Not just his prototype. The perfected version."
Ares stepped in front of her. "You're insane."
"No," Crane replied, still smiling. "I'm a visionary. And I needed her DNA to finish it."
Crane looked directly at Elira.
"You were never just Delgado's assistant. You were his experiment."
Elira froze.
"What?" Ares turned to her. "That's not true."
Crane tapped his watch, and a screen hovered in the air. Footage played—an old lab, a girl strapped to a chair. Scientists surrounded her. Delgado stood at the front.
"She was born with the rare genetic code we needed," Crane explained. "Enhanced neural pathways. Memory absorption. Empathic override. Delgado cloned and engineered the perfect subject. And he named her—"
"Elira."
Elira backed away, her legs shaking. "No. That's not… That's not who I am."
"You are exactly what I made you," Crane said softly.
Ares pointed his gun at him. "She's not your creation. She's mine."
In that moment, the tank shattered.
The prototype dropped from the chamber like a shadow born of nightmare. Its movements were too smooth, too fast. It opened its mouth—and screamed.
High-pitched. Inhuman. Deadly.
Glass cracked across the vault.
"MOVE!" Luka shouted.
---
The Fight for Survival
The lights blew out.
Everything became chaos.
The prototype lunged toward Elira, but Ares intercepted it mid-air, slamming it into the wall. Sparks flew. The thing didn't bleed—it hissed.
Luka shot at it from behind, aiming for the back of its skull. "There's a chip! Upper spine! That's the control node!"
"Cover her!" Ares shouted as the creature knocked him across the room.
Elira ducked behind a console. Her hands trembled, not from fear—but from the voices rising inside her. Memories not hers. Screams from the lab. Flashes of cold steel. Delgado whispering:
> "You're the key. You'll either save them all—or destroy them."
No. She couldn't be a weapon.
She had to be more.
With a deep breath, Elira crawled to a panel and began hacking into the security system. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, overriding locks, redirecting power.
"Buy me thirty seconds!" she shouted.
The prototype turned toward her.
But before it could charge, Luka slid across the floor, kicking it off balance. "You owe me for this!" he growled to Ares.
"Shut up and shoot!" Ares fired at the chip Luka had mentioned, finally cracking the back plate.
The prototype screamed again—this time in pain. Its systems began to glitch. Limbs convulsed.
"NOW, ELIRA!" Ares roared.
Elira hit ENTER.
Electricity surged through the room. The prototype lit up like a beacon, its circuits frying. Then—
Boom.
It exploded into sparks and smoke.
---
After the Dust Settles
The silence afterward was deafening.
Smoke drifted through the shattered vault. Crane was gone—escaped through a hidden tunnel. But the files were intact. The data. The blueprints. Everything.
Luka picked up one of the drives. "We burn these, or the world becomes hell."
Ares helped Elira stand. She was pale, shaking.
"Is it true?" he asked quietly. "What he said about Delgado… about you?"
Elira looked at him with broken eyes. "I don't know anymore. I remember flashes—pain, voices—but it all feels like someone else's life."
"You're still you," Ares said. "You're not a project. You're not a machine. You're mine."
Luka raised a brow. "That possessiveness getting worse."
"Try me, Zorin."
Elira stepped between them. "Enough. We have bigger things to worry about."
Noah's voice came through their comms. "Guys, Crane's broadcasted a message. The whole world just saw what happened. And there's more—he's putting a bounty on Elira's head."
---
Outside – Queens Rooftop
They stood on the roof under a grey sky. Rain fell again, soft this time, almost gentle.
Elira looked out over the city. Her voice was soft but sure. "They're going to come for me."
"They'll have to go through us first," Ares replied, stepping beside her.
She turned to Luka. "Why did you really come back?"
Luka hesitated, then said, "Because you're the only unfinished chapter in my life."
Her breath caught.
But Ares slid his hand around her waist. "She's already spoken for."
Elira smirked slightly, eyes still wet. "I'll decide that."
Then, turning back to the horizon, she whispered, "This isn't over."
And somewhere, deep in the shadows of Manhattan, Crane watched from his monitors—smiling.
"Let the hunt begin."