The victory felt hollow.
Elliot stood in the command center, staring at the map. Green dots covered every continent—facilities closed, copies freed, governments cooperating. The neural reset formula had been shared worldwide. Thousands of conditioned copies had been awakened, given new identities, new lives.
But something nagged at him. A loose thread. A shadow at the edge of his consciousness.
Adam called him over. "I found something in the old files. A reference to a facility that isn't on any of the lists."
"Where?"
"In the Arctic. Deep beneath the ice. The files call it 'The Last Template.'"
Elliot's blood ran cold. "What's in it?"
"The original neural map. Not Gavin's. Not Morgan's. The first one. The template from which all copies were derived."
"I thought that was destroyed.
