They didn't move. They didn't emit heat or signal. But they didn't decay either — as if the body
of the twin had never been organic in the first place.
Timi scanned the samples for the seventh time. The results were the same."This wasn't a person," he whispered. "It was a shell."
Obi 9 stood beside him, arms folded, silent.
"No cortex," Timi said. "No spinal trace. Just code bonded into artificial protein — like a synthetic
body piloted from somewhere else."
"She was being remote-controlled," Obi replied.
"No," Ikenna said from behind them. He stepped into the lab, face sharp with exhaustion and
something darker. "She was the control."
Briggs followed him, carrying a new data core. "And this confirms it."
He dropped the disk onto the steel tray.
"We picked this off her shoulder node before she disintegrated. It didn't match any known
Lazarus tech. Not Syndicate, not Architect…"
Obi frowned. "Then what?"
Briggs connected the disk.
A hologram burst to life.
Not a face. Not a map.
A structure.
It floated in space — curved like a lotus flower made of mirrors and scaffolding, suspended
above an endless pit.
At the base of the image were two words: CRADLE_09.EXE.
Timi leaned in. "Is that a model or…?"
"It's real," Ikenna said. "Ghost once spoke of a fallback site. A place even he wasn't cleared to
enter. He called it The Cradle."Obi stepped closer, watching the image rotate. "Where is it?"
Briggs punched the projection.
It zoomed out — and revealed the answer.
Obi stiffened.
"It's under the Lagos Lagoon."
---
PREPARATION FOR THE DIVE
The hum of the sub's engine was barely audible. They were six floors deep inside a retrofitted
military dive unit — silent, armored, and modified for stealth.
Ikenna, Obi 9, Timi, and Briggs reviewed the schematics.
Briggs pointed to the northern corridor. "Entry gate sealed. Only way in is a pressure-fused
docking ring. Once we breach it, we'll have ninety seconds before internal defenses activate."
Timi handed Obi a shock-suppressor bracelet. "This'll regulate your neural emissions. If they're
watching for Lazarus-based signals, we don't want you pinging like a beacon."
She nodded, strapping it on. Her eyes never left the rotating image of the Cradle.
"I feel like I've seen this place," she whispered. "Not in memory. In dreams."
Ikenna locked his weapon chamber. "Then we'll turn your dream into a nightmare."
---
THE DESCENT – Into the Cradle of Glass
The sub breached the docking chamber with a silent magnetic grip. Plasma torches cut through
the hull.
The Cradle's outer wall folded back like petals.
Inside, there's silence.The air was thick. The architecture is alien. Not quite human, not quite machine.
Glass panels lined the walls — all transparent, all filled with liquid and shaped like coffins.
Obi 9 walked beside one of them.
Her face froze.
Inside was a half-formed figure — herself, or something close.
Skin unfinished. Brain exposed.
But still… watching her.
"They were growing back up," she muttered. "Version after version."
Briggs stepped to a control panel. "If this is a resurrection hub, it's not just cloning. They were
downloading whole personalities into these."
Timi examined one panel. His voice trembled.
"These aren't just Lazarus subjects. These are failed prototypes."
He turned.
"Obi… there are hundreds of you."
---
CENTRALl COMMAND CORE – "Ghost's Echo"
They reached the inner chamber.
A terminal. No buttons. Just a central podium with a curved interface.
Obi stepped forward, placing her hand on the reader.
It lit up.
Data streamed across the walls like blood through veins.
Then — a flicker.A voice.
"Welcome back… Protocol Nine."
The voice was Ghost's.
But different. Slower. Older.
"Playback archive initiated," it said.
Then the walls shifted — and suddenly they weren't in a room.
They were inside a memory.
---
MEMORY PLAYBACK – Ghost and the Architects (Years Ago)
A young Ghost stood in the middle of a lab — angry, defiant, surrounded by three masked
figures.
"You said Obi was a one-time run," he snapped. "You said she wouldn't be replicated."
One of the figures responded — voice warped. "We lied."
Ghost slammed a drive into the terminal. "You're turning her into a weapon. A puppet."
"No," another voice said. "We're turning her into a mirror."
Ghost's voice trembled. "Of what?"
"Of you."
Suddenly, lights flared — sirens in the background.
Ghost turned. Soldiers stormed in.
"Destroy the Cradle," he shouted. "Burn everything!"
Then the memory ended.
—BACK TO PRESENT – Cradle of Glass Control Room
The light dimmed.
Obi stepped back, her hand shaking.
"They made me in his image," she whispered.
Briggs exhaled slowly. "He didn't just train you. He tried to replace himself through you."
Timi looked around, then at the sleeping bodies in the pods.
"Then what's the real purpose of the Cradle?"
Obi turned — eyes cold.
"To resurrect the Ghost, if he ever failed."
Silence fell.
Ikenna's voice broke it. "Then he's not dead."
Obi looked at him.
"I think he never was."
---
ESCAPE – The Cradle Turns on Them
As they moved back toward the sub, the walls began to pulse.
A voice filled the Cradle — no longer Ghost, but something deeper.
"Unauthorized extraction. Protocol override. Executing defense layer."
The air shimmered.
Then the bodies in the pods began to twitch.
One by one, they woke up.Briggs pulled out his plasma rifle. "Fall back!"
Timi ran to the access terminal. "I can delay the lock! Thirty seconds!"
Figures rose from the tanks — naked, hairless, with flickering neural ports. All shaped like Obi.
Obi stared in horror.
"They're… all me."
Ikenna grabbed her wrist. "Not anymore."
They ran.
Glass shattered behind them.
Screams — human, but not alive — filled the corridor.
Briggs gunned down three as they dropped from the ceiling.
Timi finished the hack. "Door's open! Go!"
They dove through the breach and launched the sub — just as the Cradle sealed itself behind a
plasma curtain.
They didn't speak for a long time.
---
DEBRIEF – Safehouse, Lagos
The team gathered around a projection of the Cradle — now buried again under ocean and
firewalls.
Briggs poured a glass of black gin.
"No way that place is just a lab," he said. "It's a memory vault. An echo chamber."
Timi added, "We didn't destroy it. We just made it aware of us."
Obi stood at the window, watching the rain."They were building something in me. Not just obedience. Not just memory."
Ikenna joined her.
"They were building the future."
She looked up. "So what happens now?"
He lit a cigarette.
"Now we bury the past."
But even as he said it — in a bunker hundreds of
kilometers away — a pair of hands touched a
stasis pod.
Inside: a figure stirred.
It looked like Ghost.
But it wasn't him.
Not fully.