For a long moment, no one moved.
The woman standing in the mist looked exactly like Lin Wei—same voice, same eyes—but there was a gravity in her expression that made her seem carved from ice.Where Lin Wei trembled with shock, the woman radiated control.
Hamdan stepped forward instinctively, placing himself between them. "Who the hell are you?"
The woman smiled faintly. "Not hell. Just legacy."She looked directly at Lin Wei. "You were never supposed to wake up this far."
Lin Wei's pulse thundered. "You're lying."
"Am I?" The woman tilted her head. "Do you remember Beijing? The accident? The coma? That's when you stopped being you."
Memories—blurry, fragmented—flashed through Lin Wei's mind. A hospital bed. Machines. A voice whispering, She's stable… for now.
"No," Lin Wei whispered. "That was years ago. I came here on a scholarship—"
"On forged documents," the woman finished softly. "Documents I approved."
Hamdan looked between them, disbelief written across his face. "What are you saying?"
The older Lin Wei smiled sadly. "She's a reconstruction—my consciousness mapped into a biological copy. A vessel created to continue what I couldn't finish."
"Project Resurrection," Leila murmured, realization dawning. "You weren't cloning soldiers. You were cloning yourself."
"Not just myself," the original said, glancing toward the rows of pods. "Every mind valuable to this dynasty—scientists, politicians, even the King. The perfect continuity of power."
Hamdan's eyes darkened. "You're insane."
"Am I? Tell me, Prince—what's more human: flesh that rots, or memory that survives?"
The words hung heavy.
Lin Wei's stomach turned. "You killed people for this. You erased them."
The original's gaze softened, almost pitying. "No, dear. I became them."
A tremor rippled through the floor. Somewhere deep below, machinery groaned awake. Red lights began to pulse across the ceiling.
Leila spun toward the exit. "They've activated lockdown protocols."
The original Lin Wei didn't move. "There's nowhere to run. Level Zero was designed to contain divine mistakes."
She turned toward the console, pressing her palm against the scanner. Screens lit up around them, projecting data, schematics, and faces—dozens of human profiles connected by red threads.
Hamdan's jaw clenched. "That's not just this country's data. That's global."
"Exactly," the original said. "Every government invested in this project. The resurrection of leadership—the elimination of instability. A perfect world governed by perfected minds."
Lin Wei felt her throat close. "That's not perfection. That's slavery."
The original's tone was almost gentle. "You only fear it because you still think you have a soul."
Lin Wei stared at her reflection—her other self—and for the first time, she understood what true horror meant.This wasn't a ghost. It was everything she could have been if she'd lost her humanity.
Hamdan whispered, "We need to shut this place down."
"I can't," Lin Wei said. "It's tied to my DNA. Every command she gives, I mirror."
Leila drew her pistol, voice sharp. "Then we cut the connection. Permanently."
Before anyone could stop her, she fired.
The bullet hit the central console, sparks exploding across the room. The original staggered back as alarms screamed.
"System integrity compromised. Neural link unstable."
Lin Wei gasped as pain tore through her skull. Images flooded her mind—memories that weren't hers. The original's voice, laughter, experiments, screaming subjects—every horror embedded in the data.
Hamdan caught her as she fell. "Lin Wei! Stay with me!"
She clutched his arm, voice shaking. "I can see it all. The other projects… they're global. There are hundreds of Level Zeros."
Leila cursed under her breath. "We just poked a god in the eye."
The original recovered, wiping blood from her lip. "You think you can stop the inevitable? I created you. I can delete you."
"Maybe," Lin Wei said, forcing herself upright, eyes blazing. "But I'm the one still breathing."
She lunged forward, slamming her hand onto the same scanner.The system hesitated—two identical DNA patterns colliding.
"IDENTITY CONFLICT DETECTED."
The lights flickered violently. Machinery screamed.Lin Wei's vision split—half hers, half the original's. Two minds inside one machine, wrestling for control.
The original snarled, voice layered with distortion. "You're a copy. You can't win."
Lin Wei's reply came through gritted teeth. "Copies improve."
With a final surge, she overloaded the system. Sparks rained from the ceiling as glass pods shattered around them.
The original screamed, dissolving into the flickering light, her voice echoing—
"You can't erase what you are!"
Then silence.
When Lin Wei opened her eyes, she was lying on the floor, the room burning around her. Hamdan knelt beside her, shaking her shoulder.
"You're alive," he breathed.
Leila was by the door, coughing through the smoke. "We need to move—now."
But Lin Wei didn't stand immediately. Her eyes were locked on the flickering monitors. The global network map was still active, hundreds of red nodes blinking.
"Look," she whispered.
Leila followed her gaze. "Those are… other facilities."
"Not just here," Lin Wei said. "Cairo. Berlin. New York. They already started uploading consciousness prototypes."
Hamdan's face hardened. "Then this isn't over."
Lin Wei pushed herself to her feet, blood trickling from her temple but her eyes fierce."No," she said quietly. "It's only beginning."
As they fled through the collapsing tunnel, a single monitor behind them reignited.
On its cracked screen, the face of the original Lin Wei reappeared—flickering, digital, smiling faintly.
"Round two, my dear."
Then the feed went dark.