The city above was still sleeping when they burst into the night.
Ava stumbled through the narrow service tunnel, one arm locked around Adrian's waist. His body trembled with every step not from weakness, but from energy he couldn't contain. Sparks of gold flickered beneath his skin like lightning trapped in flesh.
"Almost there," she whispered, voice raw from smoke and exhaustion.
The rumble of collapsing tunnels followed behind them. The ground shook, lights sparking and dying as alarms wailed through the underground maze.
Adrian's voice rasped beside her. "She, she's not going to let us go."
"I don't care," Ava said through clenched teeth. "We're not dying in her lab."
They burst into a side chamber half-collapsed, walls slick with condensation. A single maintenance ladder stretched upward toward faint daylight. Ava shoved Adrian forward.
"Climb."
He hesitated, looking down at her. "You first."
She met his eyes those molten gold eyes that once had been calm, human, blue. "Adrian, please."
He clenched his jaw and began climbing. Ava followed close behind. The tunnel roared behind them, the last of the containment systems detonating as Lysandra purged her facility.
By the time they emerged, dawn was breaking over Vienna the sky pale gray, the streets slick with rain. Sirens echoed far away. Somewhere, power grids flickered as if the city itself was catching its breath.
They ran.
The Hideout
Hours later, they found refuge in an abandoned textile mill at the edge of the city a relic from another century. Dust hung in the air like fog, shafts of sunlight cutting through the broken windows.
Ava dragged a metal table across the floor and laid out what little gear they had: her pistol, two field injectors, and the stolen flash drive from her father's files.
Adrian sat nearby, hunched forward, his breathing heavy. His bare arms were streaked with faint glowing veins that pulsed every few seconds. He looked both alive and haunted like someone who'd been reborn against his will.
Ava tossed him a jacket from a supply crate. "Put that on before you light up half of Vienna."
He managed a weak smirk. "You still bossy as ever."
"Someone has to keep you alive."
He slid the jacket on, fingers trembling slightly. "What happened in there, Ava? I remember the pain. The machines. And then you."
She hesitated. "Lysandra said she was accelerating your neural evolution. Using our link to fuse the serum's stages."
He stared at her. "Our link. You mean"
"We're connected," she interrupted. "Permanently. When she triggered the containment system, the serum reacted to us it bonded us. Our pulses, our brainwaveeven our pain."
Adrian flexed his hand, staring at the faint shimmer beneath his skin. "So when you touch me"
"It stabilizes us," Ava said. "But if one of us dies"
Her voice cracked. "The other follows."
Silence filled the room. Only the soft hum of old machinery broke it.
Adrian's jaw tightened. "Then we don't die."
Ava almost laughed tired, hollow. "Simple as that?"
He looked up at her. "It's enough for me."
Their eyes met, and for a heartbeat, the chaos quieted. The gold flicker in their veins synced faintly pulsing together like twin heartbeats.
The File
Ava turned back to the table, slipping the flash drive into a dusty laptop. The screen blinked, showing a familiar logo EDEN PROJECT ARCHIVES LEVEL OMEGA.
Lines of encrypted code scrolled fast. Then a folder appeared, labeled ECHO PROTOCOL.
Ava frowned. "What is this?"
Adrian moved beside her, his hand brushing her shoulder unconsciously. "Try opening it."
She clicked. The screen shifted to a video feed her father's face, pale and weary, speaking into the camera.
"If you're seeing this, it means Lysandra's gone too far. The serum wasn't meant to be weaponized. It was meant to heal genetic decay to restore the human code, not rewrite it. But the board wanted soldiers, not saviors."
Ava's breath caught. "Dad"
"Ava, the Echo Protocol isn't a cure it's a failsafe. It copies your consciousness into a digital framework every time your genetic signal spikes. If Lysandra activates it, she can replicate you or erase you."
The video glitched.
"Whatever happens, trust no one inside Eden. Not even those who say they were with me. The serum learns. It remembers."
The file ended.
Adrian swore softly. "She's turning people into living blueprints."
Ava stared at the frozen screen. "Then we destroy it."
Before she could eject the drive, the laptop flickered the logo on-screen shifting into a stylized ouroboros symbol, a snake eating its tail.
Then a voice filled the room.
"Hello, Ava."
Ava froze. "Lysandra."
"You're difficult to track, but not impossible. You didn't think I'd let you run with half my project still inside you, did you?"
Ava gritted her teeth. "You've lost control, Vale."
"On the contrary," Lysandra replied smoothly. "You've just entered the next phase. Echo Protocol has already begun. The moment your vitals synced with Adrian's, I began receiving every neural echo you transmit. I see what you see. I feel what you feel."
Adrian's fists clenched. "Cut the connection."
"Impossible," Lysandra said. "You're both living nodes of the network. Wherever you run, Eden will find you. But take comfort you are humanity's next step."
The screen went dark.
The Fracture
Adrian slammed his fist into the wall, the metal groaning under the force.
Ava flinched but didn't back away.
"She's inside us," he said, his voice shaking. "Every thought, every breath she's watching."
Ava took a deep breath. "Then we make her regret it."
"How?"
Ava opened the drive's secondary file a list of encrypted coordinates scattered across Europe. "My father hid something. Backup data for the serum the original formula, before she corrupted it."
Adrian's eyes narrowed. "You think it can break the link?"
"I think it can kill it."
He nodded slowly. "Then we go after it."
For a moment, silence again heavy with something unspoken. Fear. Hope. The weight of what they were becoming.
Ava reached out, her fingers brushing his wrist. "We're not losing each other again."
Adrian caught her hand, holding it tight. "Not a chance."
And just like that, their pulses steadied the glow beneath their skin syncing again.
But this time, it wasn't pain binding them. It was purpose.
The Ambush
They didn't get far.
By nightfall, as they crossed the outskirts of the city in a stolen car, the road ahead burst into chaos black SUVs blocking both lanes. Figures in armored suits stepped out, rifles raised, visors glowing faintly red.
Ava hit the brakes. "She found us."
Adrian gritted his teeth. "Let me handle this."
He stepped out before she could stop him and the air shifted.
The men opened fire. Bullets streaked toward him and stopped midair.
Ava's eyes widened.
The air around Adrian shimmered, vibrating like liquid glass. Every projectile dissolved into golden dust before reaching him.
When he looked back at her, his pupils burned molten.
"I'm done running."
He raised his hand, and a wave of force exploded outward hurling the soldiers and their vehicles backward. The road cracked. Smoke and debris filled the air.
Ava ran toward him. "Adrian, stop! You'll burn yourself out!"
But his voice wasn't quite his own anymore.
"She wants evolution?" he said hoarsely. "Let's show her what it looks like."
She grabbed him, forcing his hands down. The glow flickered, dimmed. His chest heaved, and for a second he looked human again.
Ava pressed her forehead to his. "You're not her weapon. You're mine."
That broke through the haze.
He exhaled sharply, tension draining from his body. "You always know how to bring me back."
She smiled faintly, eyes glistening. "Somebody has to."
Behind them, the wreckage smoldered the symbol of Eden painted across the shattered SUVs.
They both looked toward the horizon to the mountains, where the first coordinate awaited.
Epilogue Scene
Far away, deep beneath Eden's primary facility, Lysandra watched the footage stream in from her private monitor.
Adrian's energy signature. Ava's genetic sync. The devastation left behind.
Her reflection shimmered in the glass as she whispered,
"Phase Two confirmed. The evolution is accelerating."
A pause.
"Prepare Unit Twelve. Activate the clones."