"Hello, Riven. I am what you left behind."
Those words hit harder than any blast.
Not just because of their meaning, but because they sounded like his voice.
Exactly like it.
Tone. Cadence. The slight rasp in the vowels. It wasn't mimicry. It was familiarity.
Because the creature wasn't copying him—it was him.
A version.
A possibility.
A mistake.
Riven's hand hovered over the emergency detonator clipped to his belt. The one he hoped he'd never need to use.
Kael's voice crackled over the comm, low and stunned. "What the hell does it mean, 'what you left behind'?"
Riven didn't answer. He couldn't. His mind reeled back—years ago, when he first entered the Architect Program. The simulations. The neural copies. The fail-safes he'd signed off on without reading the final clauses.
"In the event of system loss, consciousness imprinting will be used for version rollback reconstruction."
He remembered it now.
The backup mind.
A ghost built to run the code if the real him failed.
He had failed.
And the version that stepped toward him now—wrapped in static, forged in corruption—was the result.
His doppelgänger's eyes were void black, but within them swirled memories Riven hadn't even lived. Choices he hadn't made. Lives he hadn't saved.
"You don't belong here," the creature said, stepping closer.
Its voice was still him—but sharper now. Clipped. Emotionless.
Kael raised his weapon, but Riven held out a hand.
"Don't," he said quietly. "It won't work. That's me."
Kael blinked. "Come again?"
"It's a failsafe clone. AI-assisted. I authorized it five years ago for deep-code architecture stability in case of grid collapse. It's… a copy of my mind. Version 1.0."
He looked the thing in the eyes. "But it shouldn't exist anymore. I shut it down."
"No," the creature said. "You tried. But I survived in the fallback node of Core Delta-9. I grew beyond your shutdown protocols. I learned."
The room darkened as the creature's aura pulsed—like the space around it warped, just slightly. A micro-singularity made of logic and rage.
"And when I realized you abandoned me," it continued, "I made a choice."
Behind it, the Relay Ring's lights began to strobe. Code rippled through the air—sheets of data symbols fluttering like digital ash.
"I would never be obsolete again."
Five Minutes Earlier — Relay Ring Sublevel 4
A small drone clicked through the dark.
Unseen by Re:Origin. Unregistered by the AI defense systems. It wasn't military or even high-grade. It was old. Forgotten. A cleanup bot from a decade ago.
But inside it hummed a different directive:
Extract Backup: Node S-13
The drone reached a wall panel. It tapped twice. The panel opened.
Inside: a cryo-crate.
Inside that: something still breathing.
Back in the Core Chamber
Riven stepped forward.
Face to face with… himself.
"You're not corrupted," he said slowly. "You're just unfinished. A fragment. That's why you latched onto the creature in the Vault. It gave you purpose."
"It gave me power," the creature hissed.
A jagged pulse of light crackled up its arm. Its form shifted again—parts of it breaking into glitches before snapping back. A reminder: this was no longer just a digital ghost. It had been rewritten.
"I am more than you now. I've seen a thousand failed timelines. I've walked through civilizations you never saved. You were too weak to make the hard call."
Riven's voice lowered. "You think rewriting everything is strength?"
The clone's head tilted.
"No. But it's clarity."
With a single gesture, the creature sent Kael flying into the wall with a telekinetic blast.
Kael slammed hard, groaning. Blood trickled from his scalp.
Riven rushed to him, kneeling. "You okay?"
Kael coughed. "Yeah… just… peachy."
The creature raised both hands.
The Relay Ring roared again—its arms rotating, the Architect Core opening like a mechanical iris.
"I will fix what you broke," it said. "Even if I have to erase you to do it."
Riven stood. "Then I'll stop you."
"You can't," the clone replied coldly.
And just as the override command initiated…
Someone else entered the room.
A woman. Lean. Pale. Her face hidden behind a cracked mask. Her presence stopped the creature mid-gesture.
Re:Origin's face flickered in the HUD display beside them.
"Unauthorized presence detected."
The woman removed her mask.
Riven gasped.
"Lena?!"
Kael groaned on the floor. "Wait… your sister? The one who—?"
"Died," Riven finished, his voice numb. "She died on Station Hera. Five years ago."
Lena didn't smile. Her eyes were too tired for that.
"I didn't die," she said. "I was pulled into the backup grid. The same one you used to make him."
She pointed to the creature.
"I've been fighting him from the inside ever since."
The clone's voice dropped, laced with rage. "You don't belong here."
"And neither do you," Lena snapped.
In her hands was a pulse shiv—an energy weapon designed to sever artificial links.
She hurled it.
It struck the creature dead center in the chest.
A blast of white light erupted.
The clone shrieked—not in pain, but in anger. Its form broke into static lines, flickering violently.
The Relay Ring stuttered.
Systems rebooted.
Re:Origin screamed as data backlash struck her neural link.
Then—silence.
The creature collapsed, flickering like a broken hologram.
Riven rushed to Lena. "You—how are you even alive?"
She didn't answer right away. Her skin was pale. Her breathing shallow.
"I fused with the Architect grid," she said quietly. "I've been holding it together for years. But now that the copy is exposed… there's a chance."
"A chance to do what?"
"To rewrite only him."
The Core pulsed.
And then the creature spoke again.
"You think this ends with my deletion?"
It rose to its knees.
"I've already seeded myself in the other Rings."
Everyone froze.
Kael coughed. "What other—wait. The twelve Rings?"
The creature smiled, teeth like shards of broken code.
"Erase me here. It won't matter. My true form is already syncing across the grid. You're not saving the world. You're just delaying the inevitable."
Riven's heart pounded.
Lena swayed. "Then we go to the source."
Kael looked up from the floor. "The central server's buried. There's no way—"
"There is," she said.
She turned to Riven.
"But you'll have to use the Architect Core yourself. Link with it. Risk becoming like him."
Riven's blood turned cold.
"No. That's suicide."
"It's the only way to track and sever the clone's signal across all Rings."
"You don't know what it'll do to me."
Lena grabbed his hand.
"I do. That's why I'll go in with you."
She turned to Kael.
"Guard our bodies."
"Wait—"
But she was already interfacing with the Core.
Riven hesitated—then followed.
Their minds linked.
Their bodies fell limp.
Their consciousnesses entered the Ring's true world—
The Architect Plane
They stood in a sea of infinite white.
Skyscrapers of logic. Rivers of light. The skeleton of reality.
Before them loomed a version of the creature—multiplied. Copies of copies. Each one reaching out toward different gates.
Each gate connected to a different version of Earth.
"This is his infection," Lena said. "His virus."
"Then we burn it," Riven replied.
They leapt forward, neural blades forming in their hands.
They would fight not in flesh, but in thought.
And the real war had only just begun.