BLOODCAPE
Chapter 139: Zero-B

Chapter 139: Chapter 139: Zero-B

The corridor narrowed behind them like the throat of some living machine. It felt intentional — as if the vault had exhaled to admit them, then decided to hold its breath. The air was sterile but heavy, scrubbed of scent but dense with static tension, like a clean room designed to preserve memory instead of life.

Bioluminescent strands webbed across the ceiling and floor, pulsing in a cold, rhythmic pattern — veins beneath frostbitten skin. The light wasn’t illumination. It was reaction. Each flickered to life only as they passed, and faded just as quickly behind them, swallowing their trail back into shadow.

Aya moved slightly behind Hernan, her steps cautious but quiet. She checked her weapon’s seals twice, not because she expected resistance — but because the stillness made her feel like she was the anomaly. Iro flanked the rear, his rifle held at a half-lowered angle, scanning each curve of the corridor with narrowed eyes. He hadn’t spoken in ten minutes.

Their footfalls weren’t loud. But in this place, everything echoed as if the sound had to travel through someone else’s mind first.

Hernan slowed.

To the left, the wall shimmered — a ripple of air over something unseen. Then an image stuttered into life: a younger Hernan sprinting through a Zodiac gauntlet course. Grit in his teeth. Blood in one eye. Controlled aggression in every muscle. He pivoted around a crash-bar, drew a training blade, and dropped an opponent with precise, efficient force.

Aya recognized the footage. She’d seen similar clips in the archive — not often, and only from within clearance levels she hadn’t technically been allowed to access. Hernan didn’t acknowledge it.

Then three paces later, another flicker.

The same course. The same moment.

But not.

The Hernan in this version was slightly faster. His motions, half a second tighter. He didn’t breathe heavy. He didn’t sweat. And the kill was cleaner — inhumanly so. A training simulation, perfected beyond human margin.

Aya said nothing. But the thought bit down hard.

Two shadows walking in parallel.

They moved deeper, and the wall’s memory grew more fractured — less about recognizable events, and more like warped reflections from a life almost lived. A street in Sector Three lit by blue riot gas. Hernan’s silhouette moving through fog. Except he’d never patrolled there. A briefing room with bodies — none of whom Aya had ever seen — lit by a single overhead projector. Hernan sat among them. Watching. Silent.

But he’d never been in that room.

"Too many footprints in one skull," Iro said lowly.

"They’re not all mine," Hernan murmured.

"You sure?"

He didn’t answer.

Aya tracked his posture. The way his head tilted, breath slowed, hand twitched. And then it hit her.

He was anticipating them.

He was moving half a breath before the flickers began. Every memory that played across the wall — he already felt it coming.

Like a tide lapping at a beach he hadn’t realized he’d walked to.

Then a new scene stuttered to life — a torn command room. Gunfire holes spiderwebbed the wall. A handler — face frozen mid-warning — slumped to the floor, reaching out with one blood-slicked hand.

The shooter stepped into view.

Hernan.

Aya froze.

She hadn’t seen this kill before.

And Hernan had stopped walking seconds before it even appeared.

"You knew that one was coming," she said.

"I didn’t."

"Then why’d you stop?"

Hernan looked ahead, not at the wall, but through it. "Because I felt it."

Aya stepped closer. "You’re syncing to him."

"No," he said too quickly.

She stared. "Yes. You are. This corridor doesn’t show you memories. It shows the ones it wants you to claim. It’s recognizing Zero-B. And you’re letting it."

Iro raised his visor. His eyes were unreadable. "You’re not being tested anymore. You’re being... folded in."

Aya turned back to Hernan. "You think you’re tracking him. But the vault thinks you’re joining him."

Still, Hernan didn’t answer.

They moved on.

The corridor curved, once, then again — and finally opened.

A surgical platform stretched before them like a forgotten stage. Clean. Wide. Reverently quiet. At the center, beneath a beam of cold halogen light, sat a chair — high-backed, designed for stillness. Restraints unfurled like dead fingers.

And draped neatly over the back was a Zodiac coat.

Not folded. Not discarded. Presented.

Aya’s breath caught. "That’s your coat."

Hernan stepped forward, but didn’t touch it. The nameplate was stitched in clean thread:

ECHO ZERO — V.REG/AB7

Not his coat.

His identity.

One step forward. And then another door hissed open at the far end of the room.

The true interface chamber waited.

Spherical. Surgical. Cold.

The walls here bore no memory. No ghosts. Just curved, seamless plates of metal and logic. A recessed stasis chair at the center, bolts etched into the floor like vertebrae. On the far side — a containment pod.

Glass ribbed in coiled dark alloy, its shape both medical and monastic.

Inside: a man.

Breathing. Still.

Hernan stepped toward it, slow and steady.

Aya followed. Then stopped.

Her breath hitched.

The man in the pod had Hernan’s face.

Down to the fracture scar. Down to the silent tension behind the eyes.

And those eyes — they weren’t closed. They were open.

Staring. But not seeing.

Empty.

Dekra crouched at a console, glyphs blinking across her scalp.

"This isn’t Echo Zero-B," she said. "This is the shell he left behind."

"The backup?" Iro asked.

"The failover," Dekra confirmed. "He breached stasis two days ago. No alerts. The system thinks he’s real."

She tapped the last log open. Aya read the screen.

You survived. But that doesn’t mean you passed.

Another entry:

The test wasn’t becoming the mission. It was realizing you already were.

Then:

There’s only room for one identity. And I know who the replica is.

Aya turned, voice nearly cracking. "He thinks you’re the copy."

Hernan stared into the pod. "He thinks I failed."

The stasis system chirped.

The pod hissed open. Steam curled out like dying breath.

The other Hernan slumped forward, perfectly still.

Not dead.

Just... unfinished.

Aya stepped back. "What do we do now?"

No one answered.

The pod clicked again — the breath of something that had once been human, but was now only proof.

Proof of a second life, walking freely somewhere above.

And Hernan, still staring, whispered to the empty reflection:

"We find him."

He turned toward the door.

"Before he finds me again."

Behind him, the chamber dimmed. The console shut down.

No lights followed.

No trail marked their way out.

Just memory.

And the quiet hum of identity... splitting.

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