The Alpha-1 didn't hesitate. He stepped over the wreckage of the desk, his boots heavy against the tile, and hoisted Beatrice up by her collar. His violet eyes pulsed with a rhythmic, scanning light.
"Data sync required," the Alpha-1 droned, his voice a distorted, bass-heavy version of Vlad's. "Host body identified. Beginning neural extraction."
Beatrice began clawing at the Alpha's synthetic, unyielding skin. She looked over at Vlad, who was struggling to push himself up, his face covered in blood. She knew they couldn't win a physical fight against something that could regrow its limbs in seconds.
"Vlad... Vance... get ready," she choked out.
She closed her eyes and reached deep into the back of her mind, tapping into the "bridge" the Hollow had installed in her. She didn't fight the connection this time; she threw the doors open. She forced her consciousness into the Alpha's wireless receiver, flooding his cold, logical programming with every raw, chaotic human emotion she possessed.
Neural Overload initiated
The Alpha-1 froze. His grip on her collar loosened just enough for her toes to touch the ground.
Suddenly, the Alpha's violet eyes began to flicker erratically between purple, white, and a human brown. His head snapped back at an unnatural angle as Beatrice's memories slammed into his processors:
* The smell of rain in Berlin.
* The searing pain of the scar on her back.
* The overwhelming, irrational love she felt for the man the Alpha was designed to replace.
"ERROR," the Alpha-1 shrieked, his voice cracking. "UNRECOGNIZED INPUT. EMOTIONAL VECTORS DETECTED. PURGE... PUR—"
The clone began to stumble, his movements becoming jerky and uncoordinated. The rapid regeneration stalled; the silver gel at his shoulder began to bubble and hiss as his internal computer struggled to manage both the fight and the sensory napalm Beatrice was pouring into his head.
"Now!" Beatrice screamed, her nose beginning to bleed from the sheer mental strain of holding the link. "He's open! End it!"
Vlad lunged through the haze of his concussion, his hand finding the hilt of the vibro-blade. As the Alpha-1 shrieked from Beatrice's mental assault, Vlad drove the humming blue edge straight into the center of the clone's chest.
There was a shower of sparks, but the blade hit something denser than steel—the core processor housing. The Alpha's hand snapped up, catching the vibrating blade. With a terrifying display of raw strength, he squeezed. The high-frequency steel shattered like glass, shards of blue light scattering across the floor.
"Vance! Get her out of here! Now!" Vlad roared.
Vance dived forward, catching Beatrice as she broke the link. Her eyes rolled back, her body going limp from the neural strain. Vance hoisted her over his shoulder, looking back at Vlad with desperation. "We can't leave you!"
"GO! That's an order!"
As Vance and Beatrice disappeared into the vault's service exit, Vlad turned to face his double. He didn't have a weapon, but he had twenty years of survival instinct.
Hand-to-Hand: Original vs. Advanced
The Alpha-1 lunged. Vlad stepped into the strike, parrying a blow that would have shattered his ribs. He countered with a brutal elbow to the Alpha's jaw, followed by a liver shot that would have folded a normal man. The Alpha didn't feel pain, but the physics of the impact sent him stumbling.
Vlad pivoted, catching the Alpha in a clinch. He delivered three rapid-fire knees to the clone's midsection, each strike landing with a wet thud against the synthetic skin. The Alpha recovered instantly, slamming a palm into Vlad's chest that sent him skidding across the floor. Vlad rolled, coming up into a low stance just as the Alpha delivered a roundhouse kick. Vlad caught the leg, used the momentum to trip the clone, and followed up with a heavy downward punch to the Alpha's throat.
It was a masterclass in desperation—man against machine. But the exhaustion was setting in. Vlad's movements were slowing, his blood loss catching up to him.
The Ambush
Just as Vlad prepared a final strike, the lab's reinforced side doors exploded inward.
"Don't move!" a voice boomed.
Vlad looked up to see a sea of obsidian armor. The Hollow had arrived, led by the General—a man in a high-collared black uniform with eyes as cold as the void. At the same time, his HUD flickered with a tragic update: Vance and Beatrice had cleared the building, only to be surrounded by Tom's Agency tactical teams on the street above. They were captured.
As Vlad turned to face the new threat, an operative stepped from the shadows behind him. A high-voltage rod slammed into Vlad's back.
Thousands of volts surged through his nervous system. Vlad's vision went black, his muscles locking as his heart skipped a beat. His body collapsed, but before his head could hit the cold floor, two guards caught him by the shoulders, dragging his dead weight upright.
The Alpha-1 stood up, its violet eyes resetting to a calm, predatory glow. It looked at the General and gave a single, mechanical nod.
"Excellent," the General said, his voice smooth and devoid of mercy. "The blueprint and the finished product. Take them both. The harvest is finally ready for the next phase."
The guards dragged Vlad and the Alpha-1 toward the loading bay, where two unmarked black vans waited with their engines idling. The doors hissed shut, plunging Vlad into a darkness deeper than sleep.