Echoes in the System

The red light pulsed above them like a heartbeat — slow, steady, patient. Jessica didn’t notice. The weight of this place pressed down like it remembered her too. This deep underground, it didn’t feel like they were breaking into a facility. It felt like they were walking into a memory.

"The server room should be just ahead," Olivia whispered, running gloved fingers along the cold concrete wall. "If their architecture stayed the same, it’s right past this junction."

Leanna checked the map glowing on her tablet. "Maintenance hatch here. Might put us straight into the control room."

Jessica exhaled through her nose. "We’re about to find out how lucky we really are."

Olivia gave a dry, humorless grin. "Luck? We left that back in Belize."

—

At the junction, Olivia crouched low, working her crowbar into the corroded panel seams. The metal screeched in protest as it came loose, the sound impossibly loud in the hush of stone and steel.

Jessica stared into the black hollow beneath them. She didn’t hesitate, "I’m going first."

Leanna’s brow creased. "Jess—"

"If it’s a trap, it should be me."

Without waiting for an argument, she dropped into the shaft. Boots hit metal. A soft hiss of stale air greeted her as she scanned her surroundings. A long corridor stretched ahead, lined with observation windows — glass coffins waiting to be filled. The air stung with the smell of disinfectant or blood. Down here, they smelled like the same thing.

The past came in flashes now. A child’s hand — her own — against cold glass. Voices murmuring from another room. Numbers, not names.

She shook it off. She had to focus.

—

The others joined her, silent but tense. Elias remained in the tunnel covering their exit. Olivia tapped her earpiece. "Server room’s that way."

Jessica’s eyes caught on something at the far wall. It was lined with cabinets, and what seemed like an endless amount of numbered drawers. Most were meaningless, except one. One stood out among the rest.

JESS-014.

Her world contracted for a moment. It wasn’t a name. It was a file number.

She crouched, fingers colder than the air around them, and yanked the drawer open. Inside: vials. Data chips. Notes written in the clinical, detached hand of someone who didn’t think their subjects were people.

GENETIC SAMPLE — SUBJECT 014.

Leanna hovered beside her. No words. Nothing needed saying.

Jessica’s voice came low and flat. "I wasn’t an accident." She paused for what seemed an eternity then concluded, "I was the model."

Olivia cursed from the server terminal. "Jess... it's worse than you think."

Jessica stood, bracing herself. "Show me."

She turned to the monitor. Olivia’s screen displayed a file labeled Project Lazarus: Phase Two. There were images and profiles. Not just one. Not just two. There were dozens. Each with slightly different faces and different names, but each with the same eyes and same cheek bones. They were versions of her.

Jessica stepped back, breath thin, heart kicking in her ribs like a trapped animal. "They didn’t just make me.”

Silence fell in the room for half a beat. Then the overhead speaker crackled to life. The voice that followed wasn’t angry. It wasn’t even triumphant. It was cold and calm.

"Welcome home, Subject 014." A pause. "We’ve been expecting you."

At the far end of the room, the heavy security door shuddered, and began to open.