The chamber pulsed with unnatural light.
Wires spiraled down the walls like veins. The core of the Protocol rose in the center—an obsidian monolith wrapped in rotating red rings, whispering data too fast for human minds to grasp.
But it wasn't the machine that made him freeze.
It was the figure waiting beside it.
A boy.
His age.
His face.
But not him.
The figure stepped forward, clothed in sleek gray, eyes devoid of color—blank and endless.
"You've come far," the voice said. Not spoken. Transmitted.
He stared in disbelief. "What… what are you?"
The reflection of himself tilted its head.
"I'm what you would have become... if you hadn't resisted."
The girl behind him gasped, crawling to her feet, eyes locked on the clone. "It completed the sync… years ago. That's the first vessel. The one they lost."
"No," the boy whispered. "They didn't lose him."
"They made me Administrator. And they made you... a backup."
The room felt colder.
Every memory, every decision, every heartbeat—reduced to a contingency.
"You're lying," he spat.
"I'm not," the clone said calmly. "And now... one of us must overwrite the other."
The Protocol responded.
Lights dimmed.
Code etched itself into the air between them.
[OVERWRITE REQUEST PENDING: TWO INSTANCES DETECTED. INITIATING CONFLICT RESOLUTION.]
His heart thundered.
She grabbed his arm. "Don't let it define you. You're more than what they coded you to be."
He met the clone's eyes—his own eyes—and stepped forward.
"I'm not here to be overwritten."
He raised his hand.
"I'm here to erase you."