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Chapter Six: Shadows in Geneva
The jet descended silently into Geneva under a shroud of clouds, the lights of the city glimmering like the eyes of watchful ghosts. Sierra stepped off the aircraft clad in charcoal-gray—business sleek, assassin sharp. No entourage. No traces. Just the burner phone in her coat and the code Vornin had given her: VX-087.
That code used to be a ghost file—one no one could trace. But if Crestwell had revived it, the Viper Program wasn't just back—it was evolving.
A man stood waiting at the end of the tarmac. Thin, olive-skinned, wearing priest's robes. An old contact. Yuto. Mute, scarred, and smarter than most black-market analysts combined. He bowed when she approached and handed her a small envelope and a hotel key card.
Inside the envelope was a photograph: Crestwell, stepping into a restricted tower on the outskirts of Lake Geneva. No guards. No staff. Just a biometric door and cameras too modern for any legal biotech firm.
The back of the photo bore coordinates and a single word: "Mirador."
Sierra's eyes narrowed. Mirador wasn't listed on any government or corporate registry. That meant off-grid. Likely underground. Possibly militarized.
Perfect.
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At midnight, she approached the tower under the cover of rain. The building itself was a mirror—glass from ground to roof. Unmarked vans idled out front. No logos. No humans.
Sierra disabled the outer alarms, slid through the side service entrance, and moved like vapor—silent, untraceable. Her gloves clung tightly to her fingers. Her blade was already in her palm.
Inside, the place was sterile, humming. White floors. Blue lights. Retina scanners, motion sensors, facial recognition. But none of it mattered to someone who had built her life cracking codes meant to be unbreakable.
She reached the secured elevator near the east wing. No buttons. Just a retina scanner and a sealed panel. She pulled a mirror shard from her jacket and reflected the dead iris of a previous handler she had harvested weeks ago. The system blinked, whirred, and accepted her as one of their own.
The elevator sank deep.
Into silence.
Into blackness.
Into memory.
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The lower level was a lab—or something worse.
Glass chambers lined both walls. Some held bodies, some held machines. Others, young women—sedated, monitored, breathing under tubes. Sierra's heart clenched as she moved past them.
The girl in chamber 19 looked sixteen. Blonde. Pale. Strapped to a surgical table. Monitored by blinking red lights.
Another—a boy with violet eyes—sat rigid in a chair, reciting assassination commands in a dull, monotone voice. He couldn't have been more than twelve.
Sierra swallowed hard.
Crestwell wasn't just copying Viper. He was rebuilding her into something colder. Younger. Faster.
Then she saw it.
The last chamber at the far end was dim. A faint light illuminated a woman's silhouette—identical to Sierra. Same face. Same height. Same bone structure. Only… younger. Harsher. Still. Lifeless for now, but breathing.
Sierra didn't move. She couldn't.
She was staring at her own ghost.
"What do you think?" came a voice behind her.
She turned slowly.
Arlo Crestwell stepped out from the shadows, dressed in a pristine lab coat, his face untouched by time. His smile was calm. Calculated.
"You look good, Sierra," he said, as if greeting an old colleague.
"I buried you," she said quietly.
He smiled. "No, you buried the idea of me. Not the architect."
Sierra raised her blade, stepping forward. "Why me? Why now?"
"Because you were never a failure," he said. "You were a prototype. You had everything we wanted—except loyalty. Love made you defective. So I improved you."
He gestured to the chamber. "She's not just a clone. She's cleaner. She doesn't feel. She obeys."
"Where's the girl?" Sierra asked coldly. "The one in chamber 19. The boy?"
"Training stock," Crestwell said casually. "We're preparing them for political targets. Some already fielded. Others still being conditioned."
"You're experimenting on children."
"I'm saving the world from emotion," he said. "Emotion is chaos. You were proof."
She took a step closer, her voice ice. "You're trying to play God."
Crestwell's smile widened. "No, Sierra. I'm trying to replace Him."
Without another word, Sierra hurled the blade. It sliced through the air—but a sudden wall of bulletproof glass slid down, sealing Crestwell behind it. He didn't flinch.
Security alarms screamed.
"You're too late," he said behind the glass. "She'll be awake soon. And when she is—she'll be you, without the heart."
Guards poured in from hidden doors. Sierra turned and ran, ducking beneath taser beams, slicing a path through two agents, and slipping through a vent panel she'd clocked earlier.
As she escaped into the icy Geneva night, her thoughts burned.
They didn't just clone her face.
They cloned her legacy.
And this time, they were ready to erase her for good.
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