The rain hammered against the rooftop of the abandoned transit hub as Ethan Vale pulled on his gloves, sealed his tactical jacket, and stared at the skyline shimmering under the storm. Genesis Tower blinked in the distance, its dead antenna still pulsing that same haunting signal.
Transmission received.
Subject 01: Active.
It wasn't calling him.
It was tracking him.
Iris's voice crackled in his earpiece. "Ethan, I've triangulated the source. The signal isn't just a beacon—it's a handshake protocol. Something inside the tower is trying to connect to you."
"It won't," Ethan muttered, tightening the straps on his gauntlets. "We're cutting this off before it goes any further."
"You don't have to do this alone," she said quietly. "You've been avoiding Specter for a reason, but he's still willing to—"
"No." Ethan's tone cut sharp through the comms. "Specter doesn't set foot near Genesis Tower. If the Syndicate catches even his shadow, they'll detonate half the district to get him back."
Iris hesitated. "Then I'm coming with you."
"You're staying," Ethan said firmly. "If anything happens to me, I need someone outside who can burn the files, destroy the evidence, and erase every trace of Project Genesis. I can't have you in there."
There was silence. Then a quiet sigh.
"…Fine. But I'm guiding you the whole way."
Ethan smirked faintly. "Wouldn't have it any other way."
He stepped toward the ledge. Rain dripped from his hood.
And then he jumped.
The wind roared past him as he dove between towers, activating the magnetic grappler on his wrist. The cable snapped out with a crack, latching onto the steel frame of the old monorail bridge. He swung forward, momentum carrying him toward Genesis Tower like a bullet cutting through the night.
Every flash of lightning illuminated the tower's shattered windows, like jagged teeth waiting to swallow him whole.
"Approaching the west breach," Ethan murmured.
Iris typed furiously in the background. "Sensors are dormant on that side. The Syndicate hasn't powered anything external since the incident fifteen years ago."
"Anything alive inside?"
"…One heat signature."
Ethan's eyebrows lowered. "Human?"
"No. It's colder than human."
His grip tightened. "Then it's a machine."
Lightning cracked again, and he launched upward, landing silently on the forty-second-floor ledge. Glass crunched under his boots as he stepped through a broken window frame and into the darkness of the tower.
The moment he entered, a shiver ran up his spine.
Not fear.
Recognition.
The air tasted like metal and old electricity—just as he remembered from flashes of his childhood inside the lab.
Iris turned the volume down, her voice barely above a whisper. "I can patch you to the old security grid, but the systems here are ancient. Some of them aren't human-coded."
Ethan walked forward. "And some of them were coded for me."
The hallway lights stuttered weakly to life, flickering like dying candles. Dust floated in the air, disturbed for the first time in years. The walls were lined with shattered screens, broken glass, and dried stains he couldn't identify.
But the deeper he went, the clearer the memories became.
The isolation chamber.
The tests.
The hours of neural calibration.
The first moment he opened his eyes in the tank.
He stopped.
His fingers brushed the wall.
"This place…" he whispered. "I lived here longer than anywhere else."
"Ethan…" Iris said gently. "You weren't living. You were imprisoned."
He didn't argue. She was right.
But the ghosts didn't care.
---
Deeper Inside
He reached the central lab corridor, where the air grew colder. His breath fogged slightly. The humming sound he heard in Chapter 26—the one that haunted his earliest memories—returned.
A low, vibrating pulse.
A heartbeat that wasn't human.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Iris's voice sharpened. "The heat signature is moving. It's heading toward—Ethan, get down!"
He dove behind a collapsed console just as something sharp sliced through the air where his head had been. A metallic spike embedded itself into the wall, sparking.
Ethan rolled to his feet instantly.
From the shadows, something emerged—four-legged, sleek, silver, and silent. A mechanical hound. Its eyes glowed red, scanning.
Iris gasped. "That's a Garm-Unit Prototype. Genesis used them to track unstable subjects. It shouldn't still be active!"
The hound hissed, joints whirring. Its claws extended, dripping with neurotoxin-serum.
Ethan cracked his neck. "So they left one dog to guard the house."
The hound leapt.
He dodged sideways, its jaws snapping inches from his throat. Metal teeth clashed with a sound like shearing steel. Ethan slammed his elbow into its side, but the machine barely budged.
"Armor density: Class 7," Iris warned. "You can't brute-force it!"
"Wasn't planning to."
The hound spun, tail whipping like a blade. Ethan ducked and grabbed the tail mid-swing, using the momentum to hurl himself upward and plant a kick under the machine's jaw. It staggered, but recovered instantly.
It was fast. Faster than most men could see.
But Ethan Vale was faster than most men. He moved with superhuman reflexes—born in that very tower.
The hound lunged again, fangs aiming for his throat.
Ethan thrust his hand forward and grabbed its entire skull.
Metal screeched.
The hound malfunctioned, its limbs flailing as Ethan crushed its jaw and slammed its head into the floor. Sparks exploded. The machine convulsed once… twice…
Then fell silent.
Iris exhaled harshly. "Remind me never to annoy you."
Ethan wiped metal dust from his gloves. "You'd survive longer than this mutt."
But the moment of quiet didn't last.
The lights flickered again.
Then a screen on the far wall sputtered to life, glowing with static.
Ethan froze.
A silhouette appeared—distorted, blurry, but unmistakably human. A tall figure with sharp shoulders and a tilted head.
Iris whispered, "Ethan… who is that?"
The figure leaned closer to the camera.
And spoke.
"Hello, 01."
Ethan's pulse stopped for a full second.
That voice.
Quiet.
Measured.
Cold.
"…Dr. Rivas."
The man who created him.
His shadow smiled faintly through the static.
"You finally came home."
Ethan's eyes narrowed with pure hatred. "You're dead."
"So they wanted you to believe," Rivas murmured. "But Genesis doesn't allow its architects to die so easily."
The screens around the room flickered, each showing different camera angles of the tower—hallways, labs, stairwells. All alive again.
Rivas continued, "You survived because you were meant to. You were the only success. And now that your systems are… awakening again…"
Ethan's fist clenched.
But Rivas wasn't done.
"…it's time for you to reclaim your place."
Ethan stepped closer to the screen, voice low and lethal. "I'm not your weapon."
"Oh, Ethan." Rivas chuckled darkly. "You've always been more than a weapon."
The static surged, and every screen in the lab lit up with a single phrase, repeating endlessly:
GENESIS PROTOCOL: REINITIALIZING.
SUBJECT 01: SYNCHRONIZE.
SUBJECT 01: SYNCHRONIZE.
SUBJECT 01: SYNCHRONIZE.
Ethan staggered backward as a sharp pain stabbed behind his eyes.
"Ethan? ETHAN?!" Iris shouted.
He dropped to one knee, gripping his head.
The pulsing signal grew deafening.
The heartbeat thrummed through the walls.
The whisper from Chapter 26 returned, clearer than ever.
"You can't escape what you are."
Ethan forced himself to look up at Rivas's shadow.
"You're trying to activate the neural bond," he growled through clenched teeth. "You think I'll let you control me again?"
Rivas smiled calmly.
"Not control. Complete."
The screens flashed white—
—then went black.
The tower went silent.
The heartbeat stopped.
And Ethan realized something horrifying:
The tower wasn't sending a signal to him.
It was receiving the signal he gave off.
Ethan Vale's own body had activated Genesis Tower.
---
The lights came back on—red this time, bathing the entire lab in warning crimson.
Iris screamed into the comms, "ETHAN, RUN! They have your location!"
He didn't hesitate.
Ethan sprinted toward the south exit, boots slamming into the floor as alarms blared throughout the building.
But as he reached the stairwell—
A steel door slammed shut.
Then another.
Then all of them.
He was trapped.
Rivas's voice echoed through the speaker system:
"The world isn't ready for what you are, Ethan."
Ethan turned slowly, eyes burning silver.
"Then it's a good thing I'm not here to ask."
He slammed his fist into the wall.
Concrete cracked.
Metal bent.
And with one more furious strike—
The wall burst open.
Ethan tore through steel and stone like paper, leaping into the next hallway as alarms wailed behind him.
Iris's voice returned, frantic. "Exit is three floors down, 40 meters east! Move!"
He sprinted.
Past broken labs.
Past shattered memories.
Past the ghosts of who he was.
As he ran, the whisper returned one last time:
"You can destroy the tower…
…but you can't destroy what was born in it."
Ethan didn't slow.
"Watch me," he snarled, vaulting over a collapsed beam.
He didn't know how many Syndicate forces were already coming.
He didn't know where Rivas really was.
He didn't care.
Tonight, Genesis would fall—
—or he would.