What Lays Beneath
1037 Words
The night was loud with silence.
Margo stood behind the dumpster two blocks from The Vesper, her gown long gone—replaced by her tactical gear: black from collar to boots. The weight of the document pressed against her chest, tucked into the inside pocket of her jacket. Her heart was still pounding, but not from fear.
From rage.
Senator Valemont wasn’t just a corrupt politician. He was the key to the entanglement her sister Elise had gotten herself in. He smiled for the press while controlling a criminal empire beneath the surface—one that now had Elise’s name written down in red across its darkest secrets.
But Margo had something he didn’t. A list of names, shadow accounts, facility codes. And with it? A reason not just to fight—but to destroy.
She opened her burner phone. One message blinked from Switch.
“Got a bite. Come quick.”
The club was half-empty when she arrived. The bass beat low and steady as Switch sat in the back booth, face lit by his laptop.
“She was telling the truth,” he said, no records. “Elise—your real sister—never showed up in any death registry. There was no official record, no DNA confirmation. And get this—her charity got frozen just days before she vanished. Funds got redirected. You wanna guess where?”
“Try me,” Margo said, sliding into the booth.
“A facility in Belarus. Code name: ‘Sanctum’. They do genetic R&D. Quiet, privately funded. Not on any government record.”
Margo’s blood went cold. “A black site.”
“Worse. A privatized black site. No accountability, no oversight, just a lab sitting in the middle of a forest like it doesn’t exist. And you know who sits on the board of their biggest donor?”
“Valemont,” she growled.
Switch nodded grimly. “And someone called Dr. Mira Kell. Ex-government, biotech specialist. Fired for ethics violations.”
Margo stood. “Send the coordinates.”
Switch blinked. “You’re not going in alone are you?”
“Would you?”
He paused, then laughed. “You’re a crazy woman, Margo.”
She didn’t smile.
She eventually landed in Belarus three days later, under a false name and an alias. The car that picked her up was sleek and quiet, driven by a man in dark glasses. No one asked questions at the check points. No one checked her bags.
Everyone was paid.
She was dropped off twenty kilometers outside the facility. The forest swallowed the road as she walked to the trees, her gears where hidden in a black bag. She moved like shadow between pines, her boots were silent on dead leaves.
By nightfall, she saw it.
Sanctum.
It rose from the earth like a wall of concrete and glass behind tall wire fences and motion sensors. No lights outside. No guards patrolling. It didn’t need them. The isolation was the defense.
Margo waited until midnight before she cut the fence and crawled through.
Inside, it was dead quiet.
Straight halls.glowing light. Cameras she unlocked with a flick of her wrist-device. Doors that opened to coded swipes. She moved with quick precision.
She found the main lab on sublevel three. The temperature was cold. Not just the air—but the feeling.
Something was wrong.
Then she saw the tanks.
Six of them, lined like coffins. Filled with clear fluid. Each one held a body—hairless, unconscious, barely human.
Clones.
But not of Elise.
They were male. Young. Unmarked. Blank slates.
She stepped closer and saw the labels:
Test Subject: Echo-7
Genetic Origin: Asset M-34
Viability: Stable
Margo's stomach turned. "Asset M-34" wasn't a name—it was a person reduced to data. Possibly Elise. Possibly hundreds like her.
Footsteps came behind her.
She quickly drew her weapon.
A woman stepped into the lab. Tall, composed, blonde streaked with silver. Her eyes were cold glass behind frameless lenses.
“Agent Marlowe,” the woman said. “Or do you prefer Margo now?”
“Dr. Mira Kell, I assume,” Margo said calmly.
“You should not be here.”
“Neither should those,” Margo nodded at the tanks.
Kell stepped closer, heels sounding against tile. “We are creating perfection. Curing disease. Enhancing potential. The real tragedy is your sister, she never saw the beauty in it.”
Margo froze. “You knew her?”
“I built her,” Kell said.
It hit like a blow.
Elise hadn’t just been a victim. She’d been a foundation.
Margo advanced, eyes burning. “You stole her life. Her identity. You used her to build these… things.”
“She volunteered,” Kell said calmly. “At first. Until she saw what we were really doing. But by then, she’d seen too much.”
Margo's voice rose up. “Where is she?”
Kell only smiled. “Alive. Somewhere you’ll never reach.”
Margo’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Kell tapped a button.
Suddenly, alarms sounded. Red lights flared. Steel shutters slammed over exits. Margo ran just as the tanks began to drain.
The clones opened their eyes.
The next hour was a blur of chaos. Margo fought her way out of Sanctum through a maze of collapsing corridors, fire barriers clouding the air. One clone attacked her with brutal strength—barely human, She managed to put him down with a blade in his neck.
By the time she reached the woods again, she was covered in blood, breathless, but alive.
And in her hand?
A data drive from Kell’s terminal.
She disappeared into the trees just as sirens came behind her.
Back in the city, Switch patched the drive into his system. What they found was darker than either of them expected.
Dozens of files.
Elise’s DNA mapping. Psychological reports. Videos. Experiments.
Margo watched one recording on mute. Elise in a glass room. Hooked to wires. Talking, crying, fighting.
She had been alive for months—years maybe—after her supposed disappearance.
“Where do we go from here?” Switch asked, eyes wide.
Margo stared at the screen, voice hollow.
“We find her.”
- Writer
