BLOODCAPE
Chapter 95 – The Wrong Kind of Blood

Chapter 95: Chapter 95 – The Wrong Kind of Blood

The Zodiac Briefing Room had no clocks.Only countdowns.

Buried beneath the Hero Academy’s administrative spire — ten levels down, where signal dampers bent even sound into submission — the room resembled the inside of a sealed reactor. Everything was deliberate: matte black steel, obsidian veins that pulsed faintly with biometric resonance, and the stifling air of unrecorded decisions.

At the center stood the Adjudicator’s Table. A flawless ring of obsidian-glass, pressure-reactive, coded to ten genetic signatures.

Tonight, only four chairs were filled in person. The remaining six flickered with encrypted holo-feeds. Distorted silhouettes. Filtered voices. No identifiers. Only presences.

Zodiac Gemini leaned forward, both holograms glitching slightly out of sync, like a soul trying to separate from itself.

"This isn’t about what he did. It’s about what he is."

Across from them, Leo sat motionless. North seat. Always North. Arms folded, jaw locked, eyes unreadable beneath the ambient light.

"He’s a cadet," Leo said. "Under observation. Contained."

"Contained," Gemini repeated, scoffing. "In theory."

At the center console, Dr. Camilla Varn activated a sequence. The Solaris Echo file unfolded around her — a rotating helix of raw data, surveillance loops, biometric graphs, and combat telemetry. Her voice never rose, but its weight increased with every syllable.

"No, sir. He’s a cipher."

She tapped once. The room dimmed. The footage took over.

On every surface, Hernan moved.Disarming. Disabling. Dismantling.

Frame by frame.Cadet after cadet.Precision after precision.

"No hesitation," Camilla said. "No recoil. No visible calculation."

One frame showed Hernan catching a baton mid-arc — before his attacker’s muscles had even fired at full extension.

"This isn’t instinct. It’s muscle patterning. Encoded. Not learned."

Zodiac Libra leaned back, hood drawn low.

"Genetic memory imprinting is a discarded theory."

"So was neural symbiosis. Until Solaris rewrote the rulebook."

Another beat of silence.

Then Zodiac Scorpio’s distorted feed crackled to life, dripping with doubt.

"You’re suggesting Solaris left behind a son. Or worse — a prototype."

Camilla turned slightly.

"Not left behind. Built."

She tapped again.

A side-by-side. Solaris in his final known training footage — the pivot, the elbow feint, the step-back knee-lock.

Next to it, Hernan.

Identical.

Scorpio’s voice dropped an octave.

"Then we’re not discussing a prodigy. We’re discussing a contingency."

Gemini’s dual voices sharpened.

"One that may not be loyal to anyone alive."

Camilla’s voice was calm as glass.

"Or worse — loyal to someone dead."

Leo stood slowly. Not to intimidate. But to make space for gravity.

"Every generation births something that terrifies the last."

"And this?" Gemini asked. "Terrifies you?"

"No," Leo said. "It reminds me."

"Of what?"

"Of what happens when we try to bury ghosts and forget they leave children."

Camilla stepped in.

"His kill ratio is theoretical because he’s held back. Every move ends in a conscious de-escalation. That’s not mercy. That’s training."

"So we end it before the switch flips?" Scorpio asked.

Leo didn’t blink.

"We understand him before someone else does."

"And if it’s already too late?"

He didn’t answer that.

Instead, he turned back to the table.

"I invoke the Unknown Clause."

The words dropped like a blade.

Several holograms flickered in protest. Audible murmurs buzzed through the encryption filters. Ryl, standing in shadow behind Leo, watched Camilla — her face unreadable, but her knuckles were white.

Camilla frowned.

"That clause is reserved for black-tier lineage cases with no public DNA trace."

"Which describes him exactly," Leo said. "Until we know what he is, he’s protected."

"You’re not protecting him," Scorpio snapped. "You’re protecting the program that created him."

Leo’s voice hardened.

"If you kill him without understanding the design, you’re not ending a threat. You’re triggering an arms race."

A pause.

Libra spoke, calm as a verdict.

"Motion to vote: delayed. Genetic verification pending."

Gemini leaned back. Her mirrored forms tilted.

"Then let the fuse burn."

One by one, the holograms blinked out.

Camilla’s hands — once folded — were clenched at her sides.Ryl didn’t move, but she hadn’t looked away from the Solaris footage since it started.

As Leo turned to leave, he paused at the threshold. His voice came quiet. Measured. Directed at no one. Or everyone.

"Delays don’t pardon. They just build coffins in advance."

The door sealed behind him.

And the countdown resumed.Invisible. But louder now.

The Academy Archives Access Terminal didn’t hum.

It whispered.

Built inside the west library annex — a space so underused even janitorial patrols skipped it — the room was buried under floor dust and forgotten wires. No cameras. No alerts. Just a station once designed for legacy file conversions. Now repurposed for digital heresy.

Tessa stepped through the side maintenance hatch. Gloved. Hood up.

The console flickered as she approached, casting a sickly light across her jaw.

She logged in.

USER: VARNSYS-GHOSTACCESS MASK: SHADOW PROXYTRACE STATUS: MODERATE RISK — PROCEED?

She ignored it.

SEARCH: SOLAR PARAGON UNIT — VISUAL RECORDSFILTER: DEEP FILES / REDACTED HEADINGS

Most results came back corrupted.

Some were bait — loops designed to lure whistleblowers into security traps.

One wasn’t.

It had no name. No preview. Just a timestamp: 10 years ago.

She clicked.

SYNTAX KEY REQUIRED

Her voice shook slightly.

"Theta-Initiate. No Safe House."

The file opened like a wound.

Footage loaded.Raw. Fragmented. Decayed by time and intention.

A training room. Solaris at full height — armored, agile. And beside him...

A second figure. Smaller. Younger. Masked.

They moved in perfect synchrony. Not mirrored.

Merged.

The technique.The elbow-feint.The same inside pivot.The disarm Hernan used — perfectly — on the rooftop ambush.

Tessa’s mouth went dry.

"He wasn’t trained..."

She said it aloud. Like naming it might make it less real.

"He was built."

And then—

NOTICE: SESSION DUPLICATEDMIRROR PROCESS ACTIVEORIGIN: UNKNOWNTIME TO TRACE COMPLETION: 14 SECONDS

She froze.

"No. No. No—"

She hit the kill switch.

Grey-lit.

Locked out.

ALERT: FILE FLAGGED — LEVEL SIXEXTERNAL ACCESS LOGGED

Sparks flew as she yanked the hardline from the terminal’s side port. The screen sizzled. Went black.

Her breathing came shallow and fast.

Too late.

Whoever watched, watched everything.

She grabbed the printout — the partial Solar Paragon crest — and bolted.

Far below, deeper than cadet records reached, a shadowed server bank flared awake.

A silent room. One screen.

A full replay of Tessa’s session.

Search terms. Footage. Breathing patterns.

Paused on her face.

The same fear Solaris had once seen in a mirror — before he shattered it.

A folder opened.

PROJECT INHERITOR: ACTIVE

A gloved hand moved into frame.

Tapped a key.

The folder locked.

Two notifications bloomed in colorless light:

Observation: PRIORITY FLAGGED.Containment: APPROVAL PENDING.

Then silence.

No timestamp.

No sender.

Just two watchlights pulsing.

One red.One white.

And somewhere, on opposite sides of the same storm,a boy without a name, and a girl holding the wrong one — began to run out of time.

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