The second Echo

Chapter 26 – The Second Echo

Ava’s POV

The safehouse air felt sterile despite the warmth of sunrise.

My father—alive, lucid, breathing—sat inches away, but his presence stirred more confusion than comfort. After all these years, after the nightmares, after clawing through layers of conspiracy, grief, and rage to unearth the truth—I’d found him. And yet... it didn’t feel like healing. Not yet.

"You don’t remember them experimenting on you?" I asked softly, unable to stop the edge in my voice.

He shook his head slowly. "Bits. Dreams. Nothing solid. Just flashes of light... and your voice."

My throat tightened. My voice. As if I’d been the only anchor tethering him to life. I should’ve felt honored. Instead, I felt hollow.

Damon stood behind me like a silent wall of strength. He hadn’t spoken much since we returned. His hand occasionally brushed my back, grounding me in the present, reminding me that some truths were still ours to shape.

Jackson paced restlessly near the door. His nerves were frayed. All of ours were.

Then the screen blinked.

Not one of ours.

A crackle of static. A flickering blue glow. The wall monitor—dead for hours—flared to life. My breath caught in my chest.

Her face.

Solace.

Dead. We saw her fall. Bleed out in a collapsing lab like a puppet with its strings cut. I'd buried the nightmare, thought we’d buried her. But there she was—calm, composed, unnervingly alive.

"Miss me?" she said, the corners of her mouth twitching with amusement.

Jackson lunged forward, trying to kill the feed, but the keyboard controls were locked.

"Don’t bother," Solace said smoothly. "This is a bounce-signal. One-time transmission. I’m not here. But someone else is."

The screen split.

I stared.

The clone.

She was standing in a sleek white lab, somewhere offshore. Same bone structure. Same crooked smirk. Same cold brilliance in her eyes. It wasn’t just a copy—it was her, without the scar, without the blood, without the history.

Perfect reset.

Solace’s voice dropped to a whisper, though it still rang in my bones. "You didn’t stop the Requiem. You triggered its evolution."

The feed cut.

Silence choked the room.

My legs pushed me up before I knew I was moving. My heart pounded like a war drum.

"She had backups," I whispered.

Damon’s eyes locked onto mine. He didn’t flinch. "And now they’re moving faster."

Jackson muttered a curse. "We need to trace the feed. Now."

"Already on it," Damon said. His fingers flew across the secondary console. “Encrypted layers, but she slipped. Probably intentional. She wanted us to see this.”

I glanced at my father. He was still in shock, his eyes glassy, unfocused. I couldn't blame him. Everything we’d fought for—every sacrifice—was now a beginning, not an end.

---

Offshore Facility – Unknown Location

Solace’s clone leaned over a digital table, scrolling through biometric charts and neural pattern overlays. Her movements were fluid. Practiced. Inhuman in their precision.

Across the lab, a glass containment cell blinked with red perimeter lights.

Inside?

A child.

Blond. Maybe five or six. Pale. Fragile. But not ordinary.

Enhanced.

He looked around, disoriented, eyes flicking toward the door like he already understood the concept of escape. Or captivity.

“Protocol Athena is almost ready,” a faceless technician said, eyes glued to a console.

Solace—this version—smiled faintly. “Good. Let them come. Let Ava Carter think she won.”

She turned away from the boy.

Didn’t even glance back.

---

Safehouse War Room

The trace came in. South Atlantic. A mobile research rig—decommissioned by Vanmoor Corp a year ago. Officially sunk in a storm. Ghosted.

Of course.

Damon pointed at the rotating 3D model on the screen. "This is it. Mobile Rig Omega. They’ve rerouted all traffic. No signals go in or out now.”

I strapped on my gear, my fingers tight around the buckles.

"And this time," I said, voice like flint, "we finish it."

No more false endings. No more survivors on the other side of detonation. We bury the system. The science. The legacy.

All of it.

---

Oceanic Skies – En Route to Target

Night fell like a warning.

We flew low, beneath satellite arcs, invisible to radar. Rain streaked across the windows of the stolen stealth chopper, blurring the lights on the console. The storm outside mirrored the one in my head.

"You okay?" Damon asked, voice soft but firm.

I didn’t answer.

Because I wasn’t.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her. Not Solace—the child. The boy in the glass cell. Alone. Confused. Created for war or worship or whatever horror they’d programmed into him.

What kind of monster builds a child as a weapon?

The kind I swore I’d bury.

I adjusted the strap of my harness. My heart ached, but my resolve was steel.

The rig appeared on radar.

Jackson sat at the controls. “Landing in blackout. We go quiet. We go fast.”

Damon turned to me, eyes unreadable. “Ready?”

I nodded once. "Always."

The sea rocked the rig with lazy sways, but something felt... off.

The infiltration was smoother than expected. Too smooth.

No patrols. No heat sensors. No tripwires.

We moved through pristine white corridors lined with embedded lighting that hummed faintly, as if whispering secrets we weren’t supposed to hear.

“Where are the guards?” Jackson muttered, voice low.

“Doesn’t make sense,” Damon agreed.

I scanned the corridor ahead. No movement. No resistance. Just open doors, waiting like a trap.

Then the door behind us slammed shut with a heavy clang.

My instincts screamed.

Gas hissed from the vents.

A fine mist, almost invisible, slipped into the air. My lungs burned. My vision blurred. Jackson dropped like a stone, gasping. Damon staggered, reaching for his gun, eyes flashing red.

I stayed standing.

Barely.

My blood sang with a different rhythm now. Stronger. Altered. Whatever they’d done to me all those years ago—it was saving me now.

A pane of glass to the left brightened.

Solace’s clone stepped into view. Same face. Same eyes. But this time... no mask. No games. No smile.

Just war.

“Let’s talk about evolution,” she said, voice calm but ice-edged.

I took one step forward, rage carving through the fog in my mind.

“No,” I growled. “Let’s talk about extinction.”