Vlad's heart hammered against his ribs, a sensation more violent than any combat he'd seen today. He stepped closer to the woman, his voice cracking with a rare flicker of desperation. "Where is she? Where is the real Beatrice?"
The woman didn't answer with words. She raised a trembling hand and pointed slowly toward her own chest. As she did, the cold, silver light in her eyes began to fracture, replaced by a deep, liquid sorrow. Tears welled up, spilling over her vanilla skin.
As the tears fell, a transformation rippled through her. The ethereal white of her hair bled into a rich, dark brown, flowing down her shoulders in familiar waves. The luminescent silver of her eyes dissolved into the warm, dark brown Vlad had looked into just hours before. Her lips took on that soft, rosy pink hue, though her face remained pale, stripped of her usual cheerful blush.
"Ask me anything from your past, Vlad," she whispered, her voice no longer a mechanical echo, but the soft, melodic tone he knew.
Vlad stared, his mind racing. He threw out five questions in rapid succession—details no file could contain.
"What did I give you after our first mission in Prague?"
"What is the name of the stray dog we found in the rain in Berlin?"
"What was the last thing you said to me before I left for the Nashville mansion?"
"Where is the scar on my body that I never told Tom about?"
"What did we drink on the balcony the night we decided to trust each other?"
She answered every single one without a second of hesitation, detailing the small blue ribbon from Prague, the dog named 'Bones', and the exact vintage of the wine.
Vlad's grip on his vibro-blade loosened, the weapon clattering onto the wooden floor. He lunged forward, pulling Beatrice into a fierce, protective embrace. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, her body shaking with sobs.
"What have the Hollow done to you, Beatrice?" Vance asked, his usual cocky expression replaced by one of pure horror. "You were in that pod... you looked like a prototype."
Beatrice pulled back slightly, wiping her eyes, though her hands were still shaking. She looked toward the small kitchen area, her gaze landing on an old, humming orange fridge. "Can I please get a T-shirt? I'll explain everything," she said, her voice small but steady.
Vance quickly dug through a storage trunk, tossing her a plain grey oversized tee. She slipped it on over the cloak, her movements weary as she sat down at the wooden table.
"The Beatrice you saw in Nashville... that was me, but I wasn't 'human' then either," she began, her dark eyes reflecting the flickering firelight. "The Hollow didn't just clone me. They found a way to bridge consciousness. I was being used as a remote biological interface. My body was in that pod in the Ozarks, but my mind was being projected into a 'Shell' in Nashville to monitor you. When you broke the glass, you didn't wake a clone—you snapped my soul back into my original body."
Beatrice leaned in, her voice barely a whisper as she answered the question that had finally broken Vlad's skepticism. "The scar you never told Tom about... it's the small, jagged one on your left hip, from the time you fell through the glass roof in Istanbul. You told me you stitched it yourself so it wouldn't go on your official medical record."
Vlad's silence was all the confirmation Vance needed. He lowered his head, rubbing his neck in disbelief.
"Tom doesn't know," Beatrice continued, her dark brown eyes urgent. "He thinks the Hollow is just a group of rogue contractors and data thieves. He has no idea about the pods or the biological bridging. He thinks he's running a war against humans, but he's actually being used to clear the path for something much worse."
She gripped the edge of the wooden table, her knuckles white. "The Hollow isn't trying to destroy the world, Vlad. They're trying to replace it. They want to create Advanced Human Beings—vessels like the 'Alpha' state I was just in. Biological shells that don't feel pain, don't need sleep, and have a collective consciousness. They used me because my DNA was compatible with the bridge, but they were using my feelings for you as a 'tether' to keep the Shell stable."
Vance paced the small cabin, his drones hovering low and erratic. "So, we're talking about a forced evolution. A world of drones that look like us but act like... well, like you did when you first stepped out of that glass."
"Exactly," Beatrice said, looking at her hands. "The Aegis Protocol wasn't just a blackout switch. It's the frequency needed to 'upload' the consciousness from the pods into the shells they've already hidden in major cities. Nashville was just the test run."
She looked up at Vlad, her expression a mix of fear and a newfound, raw humanity. "Tom is going to come looking for the drive and his top operative. When he finds out I'm not a 'Shell' anymore, he'll see me as a corrupted file. He'll kill us both to protect the Agency's secrecy."
Vance guided Beatrice into the small, back bedroom of the safehouse, his touch unusually gentle. "Get some sleep, B. We've got the perimeter covered," he said softly, closing the door to give her some much-needed privacy.
He walked back into the living room, where the only light came from the dying embers in the fireplace. Vlad was already waiting by the wooden table, his face a mask of cold stone. Vance pulled his black MacBook from his tactical pack, the sleek metal casing reflecting the orange glow of the fire. He slotted the silver flash drive into the side and bypassed the secondary encryption with a few frantic keystrokes.
The screen flickered, then flooded with data.
"Okay, let's see what the Hollow was really hiding," Vance muttered.
Dozens of folders appeared, labeled with the Greek alphabet. He clicked the first one—Delta. Immediately, the screen was filled with hundreds of high-resolution images and biometric scans of Beatrice. There were photos of her in Nashville, shots of her in the pod, and complex graphs mapping her neural responses during her time with Vlad.
"It's a complete psychological profile," Vlad said, his voice dropping to a dangerous register. "They weren't just cloning her; they were perfecting her."
Vance's mouse hovered over a folder labeled Epsilon. He clicked it, and his breath hitched. A 3D render of himself appeared on the screen, but the eyes were a piercing, robotic blue. The file header read: Subject Epsilon-9 (Vance) – Progress: 72%.
"They've got me," Vance whispered, his hands trembling slightly on the trackpad. "They've been mapping my drone flight patterns and my decryption logic."
Vlad leaned over Vance's shoulder, his eyes fixed on the final folder at the bottom of the list: Alpha. Vance clicked it, and the room seemed to grow colder.
A massive file opened, showing a towering, muscular figure that was an exact physical match for Vlad. The "Advanced" version of him was terrifying—his skin was reinforced with sub-dermal mesh, and his tactical HUD was integrated directly into his retinas.
Subject Alpha-1 (Vlad) – Progress: 75%
The notes in the margin were written in a cold, analytical shorthand: "High-frequency combat capability verified. Emotional suppression nearly complete. Requires final biometric sync from original source for 100% stabilization."
"They aren't just replacing us, Vlad," Vance said, looking up at his partner with wide, shocked eyes. "They're upgrading us. We aren't the heroes of this story anymore. We're just the blueprints for the things that are going to replace us."
Vlad stared at his own digital double, the realization hitting him like a physical blow. The Agency hadn't been protecting the world; they had been providing the Hollow with the perfect specimens to build an army of advanced humans.