Prototype Nine's scream tore through the corridor like metal ripping in half.
Daniel slammed the door shut behind them, shoving a steel bar through the handle just as something massive crashed against the other side. The impact made dust fall from the ceiling.
Mara stumbled backward, heart hammering, breath shaking.
"What is that?"
Her voice cracked.
Daniel didn't answer immediately. He stared at the door-no, through it-like he was seeing a nightmare he'd once survived.
"It wasn't supposed to live," he finally said, voice raw.
"Nine failed every stability test. Its brain-if you can call it that-never synchronized. They kept it sedated. Always sedated. This shouldn't be possible."
Another blow hit the door, bending the steel inward.
Mara backed away.
"Daniel...?"
He grabbed her arm. "Move. We can't stop it. We can only outrun it."
They sprinted deeper into the facility.
Lights flickered.
Alarms wailed.
Somewhere above them, pipes hissed and cracked.
Prototype Nine screamed again-a sound like rage mixed with agony.
It wanted her.
Only her.
THE LABYRINTH OF EXPERIMENTS
They burst into a long hallway filled with broken equipment and overturned surgical carts. The walls were lined with observation windows, each one looking into a different testing chamber.
Some rooms were burned.
Some frozen.
Some smashed apart, claw marks gouged deep into concrete.
Mara slowed, trembling.
"Did we do all this?"
Daniel shook his head.
"No. It did."
Prototype Nine slammed into the far end of the hall, metal crunching under the weight of its entrance.
It crawled out of the shadows-
limbs too long
spine arched
skin torn at the joints
blue-lit veins pulsing beneath sickly pale skin.
Its head twitched violently, like something inside was fighting its way out.
"Mara, don't look at it," Daniel whispered.
She couldn't help it.
Nine took one jerky step forward-
-then sprinted at them, blistering fast.
"RUN!"
They tore down the hallway, turning blindly into another corridor. Daniel shoved open a side door, dragging Mara inside.
The room beyond was pitch black.
He flicked on a switch.
Cold fluorescent lights hummed on, revealing a massive archive room. Rows and rows of metal drawers lined the walls, each labeled with codes.
A-series. B-series. C-series.
Mara's chest tightened.
"This is..." she whispered.
"The data core," Daniel said. "Everything about us-our history, our scans, our neural tests-the original files are stored here."
Mara stepped toward a large terminal at the end of the room.
Something inside her stirred.
A pulse of recognition.
"Daniel... I know this place."
He frowned.
"You've never-"
"Yes." She clutched her head as static filled her vision.
"Yes, I have-"
FLASHBACK - THE FIRST TRUTH
A white room.
Mara-young, terrified-strapped to a vertical board.
Someone speaking behind her.
"Subject Alpha neural synapse mapping: complete."
Cold gloves touched her temples.
Her eyes forced open.
"Begin emotional rewrite."
She screamed-
but the machine swallowed the sound, absorbing it like fuel.
Her mind dissolved into white.
Then-
A woman's voice.
Soft. Breaking.
Evelyn.
"No... not again... please not again..."
Mara collapsed to her knees.
Daniel grabbed her shoulders.
"What did you see?"
Tears blurred her vision.
"They wiped me. Over and over. Evelyn tried to stop them. She-she fought them."
Daniel's jaw clenched.
"She did more than that. She risked everything."
Before Mara could ask anything else-
A massive crash echoed from the hall.
Prototype Nine was inside the archive.
Searching.
Sniffing the air.
Tracking her.
Daniel pushed Mara behind a metal console.
"Stay down."
But Nine wasn't wandering blindly.
It moved directly toward the terminal.
Mara froze.
"Daniel," she whispered. "It knows. It knows I'm here-"
Daniel pulled a shock baton from a drawer and flipped it on.
"That won't kill it," she hissed.
"No. But it'll slow it."
Nine's shadow stretched across the room as it stepped through the doorway, head twitching in sharp, unnatural snaps.
Its mouth opened in a silent scream.
Then it lunged.
Daniel rammed the shock baton into Nine's throat. Electricity shot down its veins-but instead of falling, Nine convulsed violently and screamed louder, swinging a clawed hand.
It threw Daniel across the room like a doll.
"Daniel!" Mara cried.
He hit the wall and slumped, dazed but moving.
Nine turned toward Mara again.
She backed away-
tripping into a cabinet labeled:
A-PRIME: MASTER FILE
Her breath caught.
Her name wasn't written, but she felt it.
She swung open the drawer.
Inside lay a thick binder sealed with a locking clasp.
On the cover:
ALPHA PRIME - GENETIC & PSYCHOLOGICAL DESIGN SPECIFICATION
CONFIDENTIAL - DO NOT DUPLICATE
Mara's fingers trembled as she tore open the seal.
The first page showed a photo of her as a child-
only slightly younger than the girl in her memories.
Underneath:
blood type
neural patterns
training schedule
emotional suppression charts
Then a line that made her vision spin:
Original Template: Evelyn Holt
Mara's heart stopped.
She was made from-
No.
She wasn't Evelyn's daughter.
She was Evelyn's copy.
Prototype Nine stalked closer, twitching, drooling blue fluid.
Her shock and horror shifted into something sharper.
Rage.
"Daniel!" she yelled. "It's coming!"
Daniel staggered up, blood on his mouth, grabbing a metal pipe from the floor.
Nine leaped-
Daniel slammed the pipe across its skull with a crack that echoed through the room.
Nine spun, hissing, then lunged again.
Daniel barely managed to avoid its claws.
Mara shoved the master file into her jacket and grabbed a fallen scalpel from the ground.
Nine noticed her movement and turned toward her with murderous speed.
"Mara, MOVE!" Daniel yelled.
Nine pounced.
Mara dove under a metal table, rolling out the other side.
She grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall and slammed it into Nine's ribs.
The creature staggered-
for the first time.
Daniel took his chance.
He wrapped an electric cable around Nine's throat and plugged the other end into an open power socket.
The electricity hit Nine in a violent surge.
The creature convulsed-
shrieking-
the blue light in its veins flashing wildly.
Then-
It tore free.
Burned, twitching, but still alive.
Mara stared in horror.
"We can't kill it," she whispered.
Daniel grabbed her hand.
"No. But we can trap it."
He dragged her toward the far exit-
-but Nine wasn't done.
With a screech like tearing metal, it slammed into the archive shelves.
Rows of drawers crashed down around them.
Mara barely dodged a falling cabinet. Daniel shielded her as metal slammed onto his back.
"Mara-go!" he gasped. "Run!"
She couldn't leave him.
But Nine was already forcing its way through the debris.
Its bright blue eyes locked on her.
On its target.
On Alpha Prime.
Mara grabbed Daniel and yanked him through the exit as Nine lunged.
The door slammed shut behind them.
Nine hit it instantly, claws scraping metal.
The entire door frame shuddered-but held.
For now.
Daniel leaned against the wall, coughing.
Mara trembled beside him, clutching the master file.
"Mara..." Daniel rasped.
"What did you find?"
Mara opened the file, voice cracking.
"The truth," she whispered.
"And it's worse than I imagined."
Prototype Nine screamed behind the door-
a sound promising it would never stop hunting her.