The facility hummed with its usual sterile energy, untouched by the chaos of the battlefield. White-masked technicians moved through corridors with practiced efficiency, their footsteps silent on the polished floors. The grey masks had returned—some walking, some carried—but the routine never changed. The Architects were nothing if not consistent.
Superior-1 stood in the debriefing room, his mask giving nothing away as he watched Prime 10 review the mission data on a floating holographic display. The battle had been... inconclusive. Losses had been suffered. Superior-5 was dead—confirmed by the silence of his bio-signs and the absence of his return.
Prime 10 closed the display and looked up.
"Your observations?" Superior-1 asked, his voice flat.
"Mildly interesting." Prime 10's tone matched his—clinical, detached. "I want their files. All of them. Backgrounds, origins, known associates. Everything."
Superior-1 nodded, turning to the corner where 328 stood at attention. "My assistant will show you to your quarters and provide the requested materials."
328 stepped forward, her white mask betraying nothing. "This way, Prime."
---
The room assigned to Prime 10 was sparse but comfortable—a bed, a desk, a terminal. Standard quarters for visiting Architects of her rank. 328 deposited a stack of physical files on the desk, relics of a pre-digital age that the Architects still maintained for security purposes.
"The digital copies have been loaded to your terminal as well," 328 said. "Will there be anything else?"
"No. Dismissed."
328 left. The door sealed.
Prime 10 settled into the chair and began to read.
---
Eva Katerina
The file was thin. Alarmingly thin.
Subject: Eva Katerina
Designation: Prime Clone-9 (Replacement Unit)
Background: No records prior to activation.
Notes: Escaped containment during initial integration. Displayed unexpected agency. Recommend termination or recapture for analysis.
Nothing about childhood. Nothing about family. Nothing about the person she might have been before the Architects got their hands on her template. It was as if she'd been created fully formed, dropped into existence without history or context.
Which, Prime 10 reflected, was essentially true.
---
Derek Storm
Subject: Derek Storm
Designation: Hybrid-Class D-7 (Enhanced Durability)
Background: Lived with maternal grandparents in rural settlement prior to Cleansing Event. Parents deceased in early outbreak. Grandparents' fate unknown.
Notes: Displays unexpected emotional resilience. Attachment to primary group is strong. Recommend isolation tactics to exploit this vulnerability.
Grandparents. A rural settlement. A normal childhood, or as normal as things got before the world ended. Derek Storm had been a person before he became a weapon.
Prime 10 filed that information away.
---
Maya Valerious
Subject: Maya Valerious
Designation: Omega-Class M-1 (Entropic Transformation)
Background: Lived with father and mother in suburban settlement. Father employed as chemist prior to Cleansing Event. Mother's occupation unknown. Both parents deceased during early Architect purges.
Notes: Dual consciousness detected. Primary personality exhibits emotional instability. Secondary personality (designation: Omega) displays tactical superiority. Recommend separation or suppression of primary personality for optimal weaponization.
A chemist father. A suburban childhood. Parents who had been purged by the very organization that now owned her file.
Prime 10's finger traced the entry, her expression unreadable behind her mask.
---
Jordan Lee
Subject: Jordan Lee
Designation: Hybrid-Class J-2 (Enhanced Cognition/Tactical Analysis)
Background: Born to the Lee Clan, a pre-Cleansing organized crime syndicate operating primarily in East Asia. Early education in tactical analysis and strategic planning. Relocated to Canada approximately two years before Cleansing Event under circumstances not documented.
Notes: The Lee Clan has been informed of Jordan Lee's continued existence and activities. Their response is pending. Recommend monitoring for potential asset retrieval or neutralization by clan operatives.
A crime syndicate. A mysterious relocation. A family—if you could call it that—that still existed somewhere, watching, waiting.
Prime 10 set the file aside and picked up the next.
---
Leo Cross
Subject: Leo Cross
Designation: Hybrid-Class L-4 (Enhanced Strength/Electrical Generation)
Background: Lived with father and mother in suburban settlement. Father: retired military colonel. Mother: homemaker. Both parents deceased during early Architect purges.
Notes: Displays significant emotional residue from paternal relationship. Father's military background appears to have influenced combat style. Recommend exploitation of authority figure dynamics for psychological manipulation.
A military father. A mother who stayed home. A childhood of discipline and expectation, cut short by the same purges that had taken Maya's parents.
Prime 10 added this to her growing mental file.
---
Wolfen Welfric
The file was different.
Where the others had pages—histories, observations, notes—Wolfen's file was almost empty. A single sheet, mostly blank, with a notation at the bottom:
Subject: Wolfen Welfric
Designation: Anomaly (Metahuman)
Background: [DATA EXPUNGED]
Notes: All records prior to activation have been erased by order of Absolute Architect 5. No known origins. No known associates prior to emergence. Recommend extreme caution in all engagements.
Prime 10 stared at the page.
Wolfen Welfric. The anomaly. The fire user. The one who had caused them so much trouble, who had killed her Superiors, who had fought her to a standstill in the burning ruins.
She hadn't known. She'd read the mission briefs, reviewed the tactical data, but the name had never registered as significant. It was just a designation—the Anomaly, the target.
But Wolfen Welfric was not just a designation. He was a person. A person whose entire history had been erased by an Absolute Architect who had wanted him to be a weapon, a ghost, a thing without past or context.
And that Absolute Architect—Absolute 5—was still alive. Somewhere. Hidden. Waiting.
Prime 10 set the file down slowly, her mind racing through implications.
A ghost with no past. A weapon designed by a rogue Absolute. A man who had gathered a family of broken hybrids and taught them to fight back.
He couldn't be.
But he was.
The anomaly was Wolfen Welfric. And Wolfen Welfric was the anomaly.
A beep interrupted her thoughts. She pressed the button on her terminal.
"What?"
The voice on the other end was hesitant—a low-ranking technician, nervous at addressing a Prime directly.
"Mam, you have an order. To capture Lily Rostova alive."
Prime 10's eyes narrowed. "By whom?"
A pause. Then: "By Absolute Architect 2, mam."
Absolute 2. The original Eva. The template from which the clones were made.
Prime 10 was silent for a long moment. Then, quietly:
"Understood."
She ended the call and looked at the files spread across her desk. Eva's empty history. Derek's grandparents. Maya's chemist father. Jordan's crime family. Leo's military upbringing. And Wolfen—Wolfen, the ghost with no past, created by a rogue Absolute to destroy the Architects.
And now Absolute 2 wanted Lily. Eva's sister. The one person in this world that the Prime clone truly loved.
Interesting, Prime 10 thought. Very interesting.
She began to plan.