The city was still asleep when Ethan reached the northern side of Istanbul.
The call to prayer echoed faintly across the rooftops, mingling with the distant hum of the sea. Ethan kept his hood low, his pace steady, his eyes scanning for tails.
He'd changed routes four times, doubled back twice, and still couldn't shake the feeling that he was being followed.
Old instincts never lied.
He slipped through a narrow alley and ducked into a forgotten cybercafé — a relic from another decade. The smell of burnt dust and stale coffee filled the air. A single old man dozed behind the counter, snoring softly to the rhythm of the flickering neon light.
Ethan sat at the far end, back to the wall, laptop open within seconds.
The encrypted drive pulsed faintly when he connected it — like a heartbeat syncing with his own.
He launched a cracked Division decryption suite, one he'd coded years ago. It was illegal, dangerous, and full of ghosts. Perfect.
Lines of code flooded the screen. Encryption keys clashed, broke apart, and reassembled.
Then — a single directory appeared.
> Project: STRAY – Phase II
Access Level: Black Clearance Only
His pulse quickened.
Phase II. The same phrase from the mysterious voice in the lab.
He hesitated for a moment, then typed the override code only a handful of agents ever knew.
E7-Delta-Stray-001.
The folder opened.
Inside were hundreds of files — medical data, neural mapping logs, mission profiles. But one file stood out:
> "Origin Protocol – Subject Ward, Ethan."
He opened it.
A string of photos appeared. Childhood shots. Military training. Black ops missions. Each stamped with a date — and a Division mark.
But then the images shifted.
Hospital corridors. MRI scans. Genetic data.
At the top of one document, in clean, sterile font, was a line that made his breath stop:
> "Project STRAY: Behavioral Conditioning & Cognitive Imprint Model – Subject 001."
He scrolled further — his hands trembling slightly.
The file claimed that Ethan Ward had not been recruited. He had been constructed.
A neural imprint. Memory fragments. Emotional scaffolds built from a real soldier's psyche — the original Ethan Ward.
He leaned back, eyes wide, heartbeat pounding in his ears.
"Fake memories," he whispered. "They built me."
Then a quiet click echoed behind him.
He froze.
In the laptop screen's reflection, he saw the faint outline of a figure — gloved hands, silenced pistol.
He dove sideways just as the first shot shattered the monitor.
The old man at the counter woke up screaming as Ethan rolled, flipped a table, and fired back. The gunman fell behind cover, glass exploding around them.
A second attacker came from the stairwell — Ethan dropped him with two clean shots, then vaulted over the counter.
The old man stumbled backward, shouting in Turkish. Ethan grabbed him and pushed him down gently. "Stay quiet. Stay alive."
Another burst of gunfire tore through the café.
Ethan ducked, slid across the floor, and caught the first shooter trying to reload. One sharp strike to the throat, a knee to the jaw, and silence returned.
He pulled the man's mask off — Syndicate emblem, red serpent insignia.
Not Division. Not freelance. This was personal.
Ethan checked the man's comms unit. It was still active — one channel open.
He lifted it to his ear.
"This is Stray," he said coldly. "You missed."
Static. Then a voice responded — low, smooth, familiar.
> "So the prototype still remembers how to fight."
Ethan froze. "Who is this?"
> "You shouldn't dig, Ethan. The past isn't yours to own. It's ours."
"Come get it, then."
> "Oh, we will. But first, we need you operational. Don't you understand? You're not running from the program. You're still in it. Phase II has already begun."
The line went dead.
Ethan's hand tightened around the earpiece until it cracked.
He grabbed the encrypted drive, stuffed it into his pocket, and disappeared out the back before the first sirens approached.
---
Three hours later, he was across the border in Bulgaria, riding the back of a freight truck toward Plovdiv.
The roads were narrow, slick with rain, but it was the safest way out — no digital footprint, no checkpoints.
He sat in silence, replaying the voice in his head.
Phase II has already begun.
What did that mean? What did they do to him?
He closed his eyes, and flashes hit him — quick, violent.
A sterile room. Bright lights. Screams muffled by breathing tubes. A woman's voice whispering, "You're not ready yet."
He gasped awake, clutching his head. Sweat dripped down his temple.
The truck driver gave him a curious glance in the rear mirror. "You okay, friend?"
Ethan forced a smile. "Just bad dreams."
The driver nodded slowly. "Dreams mean you're alive."
Ethan looked out into the rain and muttered, "Not always."
---
Meanwhile, in the underground facility beneath the Carpathians, the woman in the lab coat watched his movement across multiple feeds.
Her silver hair glowed faintly under the monitors' light.
"Target has crossed into Bulgaria," an analyst reported.
She nodded. "Good. Let him run."
"Ma'am, what if he remembers—"
"He will," she interrupted softly. "That's the point."
She turned toward a containment pod in the center of the room. Inside floated a half-finished synthetic body — the same facial structure as Ethan's, its eyes open but blank.
"Phase II is synchronization," she said. "If he reconnects with his origin imprint, the others will activate."
"Others?" the analyst asked.
The woman smiled faintly. "You think we built only one?"
Her gaze lingered on the frozen figure inside the pod. "He was the first success. The only one who thought he was human."
---
By dawn, Ethan reached an abandoned train yard outside Plovdiv. Rusted engines slept under broken roofs, tracks overgrown with weeds.
He found shelter inside a derelict carriage, wiped the condensation from a cracked window, and set up the drive again using a portable interface.
The data had changed.
New files had appeared — live updates syncing automatically.
They're still connected to me.
He scrolled until one video caught his eye.
Timestamp: 11 minutes ago.
Location: Carpathian Sector 4.
He pressed play.
The feed was grainy — a surveillance camera inside a lab.
Dozens of pods lined the room, each containing a human figure. Men and women. All with his face.
Ethan's stomach turned. "No…"
Then, on the far wall, a monitor flickered on. A woman appeared — the same one from his fragmented memories. Cold eyes. Surgical voice.
> "Hello, Ethan."
He stared at the screen, pulse racing.
> "You've done well to survive this long. Most of your versions didn't. But you…" She smiled faintly. "You were always my favorite."
"Who are you?" he demanded.
> "You called me Director Hale, once. Before Berlin. Before you started to believe you were real."
Her image leaned closer to the camera.
> "Now, be a good soldier and come home. Phase II is incomplete without you."
The feed cut off.
Ethan sat still for a long moment, breath heavy, mind spinning.
If she was alive, then everything — Berlin, Reed's death, Division's collapse — had been orchestrated. Every move he'd made, predicted.
He looked down at the drive again, its faint pulse matching his heartbeat.
"Phase II, huh?" he said softly. "Then let's finish what you started."
He reloaded his pistol, strapped his bag tight, and stepped out into the cold morning. The first rays of sunlight cut through the fog, slicing across the rows of dead trains like ghosts waking up.
And somewhere far above, a satellite camera followed his every move.