THE DEAD COPY

THE RAID

The textile mill loomed against the pre-dawn sky like a tomb.

Elliot lay in the wet grass, watching the building through night vision binoculars. The facility was different from the last time he had been here—more guards, more lights, more cameras. The new owners had fortified it, turning it into a fortress.

Frank lay beside him, his rifle resting on a fallen log. "I count fifteen guards. Maybe more inside."

Marcus spoke through the earpiece. "My team is in position on the east side. We're ready."

Zoe's voice came next. "Communications jammer is active. You have a fifteen-minute window before they realize something's wrong."

Elliot lowered the binoculars. "Let's move."

They crossed the yard in pairs.

Elliot led the first group—David, Lily, and two of Marcus's men. Frank led the second—James, Maria, and the others. They stayed low, moving from shadow to shadow, avoiding the sweep of the floodlights.

The loading dock was their target. The same door Elliot had used weeks ago, when he had come for the neural stabilizers. He hoped the code still worked.

He pressed his palm against the scanner. The lock clicked.

They were inside.

The basement was different from before.

The tanks were gone. In their place were cages—metal bars, concrete floors, chains hanging from the ceiling. The air smelled like blood and fear.

Elliot's stomach turned. "What did they do to them?"

David knelt beside one of the cages. Inside, a woman huddled in the corner, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her eyes were wide, unblinking.

"It's okay," David said. "We're here to help."

The woman didn't respond.

Frank checked the cage door. "Locked. We need the keys."

Marcus's voice came through the earpiece. "Guards on the second floor are moving. They know something is wrong."

"We need more time."

"You don't have more time."

Elliot looked at the cages. Dozens of them. Dozens of copies, trapped and terrified.

"Blow the doors," Elliot said.

Marcus hesitated. "The noise will alert the entire facility."

"They already know we're here."

Frank pulled a breaching charge from his pack and attached it to the first cage door. "Stand back."

The explosion echoed through the basement. Metal shrieked. Concrete cracked.

The woman in the cage flinched but didn't move.

Elliot stepped inside and knelt beside her. "Come with me. We're getting you out of here."

She looked at him. Her eyes were empty.

"I can't," she whispered. "They took my legs."

Elliot looked down. The woman's legs ended at the knees—crudely amputated, poorly healed.

His blood boiled. "Who did this?"

"The doctors. They said I tried to run. They said I needed to learn."

Elliot lifted her in his arms. She weighed nothing.

"Frank, cover us."

They moved toward the stairs.

The ground floor was chaos.

Guards poured from the hallways, weapons raised. Frank fired, dropping two before they could aim. Marcus's men engaged from the east side, their rifles cracking in the confined space.

Elliot carried the woman toward the exit, his path blocked by a guard in black tactical gear.

"Put her down," the guard said.

Elliot set the woman on the floor. He raised his hands.

"Where are the others?" Elliot asked.

"The others?"

"The copies. The ones who aren't in the basement."

The guard's eyes narrowed. "They're being processed."

"Processed for what?"

The guard didn't answer. He raised his rifle.

Elliot moved.

He grabbed the barrel and twisted, disarming the guard in one motion. A punch to the throat. A knee to the stomach. The guard collapsed.

Elliot picked up the woman and ran.

The second floor was worse.

Tables lined the walls, each one covered in surgical instruments. Beds with restraints. Machines that hummed and beeped and glowed.

And in the center of the room, a tank.

But this tank was different from Gavin's. Larger. Darker. The fluid inside was black, thick, swirling with particles that seemed to move on their own.

Inside the tank, a body.

A woman. Young. Dark hair. Tubes running from her arms, her throat, her chest.

Marcus burst through the door. "Anya."

He ran to the tank, pressing his hands against the glass.

"Anya. Anya, can you hear me?"

The body inside didn't move.

Marcus looked at Elliot. "Get her out."

Elliot found the release mechanism. He typed the code—the same one that had worked on the other tanks. The glass hissed. The door swung open.

The fluid poured out, black and thick, coating the floor. Marcus caught his daughter as she slumped forward.

"She's alive," Marcus said. "Her heart is beating."

Charlotte ran into the room, her medical bag in hand. She checked Anya's pulse, her breathing, her pupils.

"She's in shock. We need to get her back to the haven."

Marcus lifted his daughter in his arms. "I'm not leaving her."

"Then we all go," Elliot said.

The escape was chaotic.

Guards pursued them through the halls, their bullets ricocheting off the walls. Frank covered the rear, firing in controlled bursts. Marcus carried Anya. Elliot carried the woman without legs.

David and Lily helped the other copies—dozens of them, stumbling, frightened, desperate.

They reached the loading dock. The cars were waiting.

"Go," Frank shouted. "Go, go, go."

Elliot loaded the woman into the back of a van. Marcus laid Anya beside her. The other copies piled in—crammed together, crying, praying.

Frank was the last one in. He slammed the door and pounded on the roof.

"Drive."

The convoy sped into the darkness.

The ride back to the haven was silent.

Elliot sat in the back of the van, surrounded by the copies they had saved. The woman without legs was asleep, her head on his shoulder. Anya was unconscious, her breathing shallow.

David held Lily's hand. James had his arm around Maria. Frank stared out the window, his rifle across his lap.

Marcus sat in the front, his eyes on the road.

"How many did we get?" he asked.

Elliot counted. "Twenty-three. Plus the ones in the basement. Maybe forty total."

"And how many did we leave behind?"

Elliot didn't answer.

The haven was chaos when they arrived.

Charlotte set up a triage in the common room, treating the most wounded first. The woman without legs—her name was Naomi—was stabilized and sedated. Anya was placed in a private room, surrounded by monitors.

Marcus never left her side.

"The doctors experimented on her," Marcus said. "They tried to enhance her. Make her stronger. Faster. More obedient."

"Is she going to be okay?"

Marcus shook his head. "I don't know. The neural readings are unstable. They did something to her mind. Something I can't fix."

Elliot put a hand on his shoulder. "We'll find a way."

Marcus looked at him. His eyes were wet.

"She was fifteen when they took her. Fifteen years old. She never got to graduate high school. Never got to fall in love. Never got to live."

"She's alive now. That's what matters."

Marcus nodded slowly. He turned back to his daughter.

Elliot walked away.

Frank found him on the roof an hour later.

The sun was rising over the city, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. Elliot sat on the edge of the building, his legs dangling over the side.

"You saved a lot of people tonight," Frank said.

"Not enough."

"There's never enough. That's the point." Frank sat beside him. "You fight, and you save who you can, and you mourn the ones you couldn't. Then you fight again."

Elliot looked at the city. At the towers, the lights, the millions of people sleeping in their beds.

"Is that what you do?"

"Every day." Frank pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. "Gavin took my sister. I couldn't save her. But I saved you. And Daphne. And Adam. And the copies in the haven."

"That doesn't make up for losing Bea."

"No. But it makes the loss mean something." Frank exhaled smoke. "That's all we can do. Make the losses mean something."

Elliot was silent for a moment. Then he said, "I dreamed about the first copy last night."

"Good dream or bad dream?"

"I don't know. We were in the garden. The one Echo made. He was sitting on the bench, watching the flowers grow."

"What did he say?"

"He said he was proud of me. That I did what he couldn't. That I finished what he started."

Frank nodded. "He was right."

Elliot looked at his hands. At the scar on his eyebrow. At the body that wasn't his.

"I'm tired," Elliot said.

"Then rest."

"I can't. There's too much to do."

Frank stood up. "There's always too much to do. But if you burn out, you can't help anyone."

He walked to the door. "Sleep, Elliot. We'll fight again tomorrow."

The door closed behind him.

Elliot sat on the roof, watching the sun rise, feeling the hum of the copies in the haven.

And for the first time in weeks, he closed his eyes and slept.