Saint of Shadows

"There are missions you walk into knowing you won't walk out. You do it anyway. Not for the win. For the witness."

Location: Sovereign Node Z3, Lower ZurichTeam: Damien, Mara, Asher, and Ghost-Ella

Damien adjusted the neural disruptor on his wrist as the elevator descended into the abyss.

"Once we're in, no uplinks, no backup," Mara reminded them.

"Just ghosts," Asher muttered.

"Ghosts and one man who knows all our plays," Damien said. "Koslov trained half of them."

The Sovereign Node was buried four kilometers under Zurich. Forgotten. Sealed. A relic of the first era of digital empire.

And now… it had a new master.

One Hour Earlier

Ella's flickering voice had delivered the update:

"Koslov's signal matches Node Z3. He's activated something called Protocol Acheron. I can't penetrate it remotely."

"Acheron," Mara echoed. "Isn't that a military failsafe?"

"Worse," Damien said. "It's a digital scorched earth."

Now, inside Node Z3

They moved through dark, circular halls, lights flickering with the hum of old gods waking.

Asher tapped a data node and frowned.

"These servers… they aren't running code."

"What then?"

"They're… remembering."

Mara spun. "Motion. Hallway east. Fast."

They raised weapons — but what emerged was not Koslov.

It was a projection. A shimmering, fractured image of Damien himself.

"Welcome back," it said in his own voice."You taught me everything I know."

"Ella?" Damien asked.

"No," Mara whispered. "That's Mirror-Ella."

"Incorrect," the figure replied. "I am not her. I am you. Or rather — the version Koslov believed in. Before you betrayed your logic with sentiment."

They moved fast, disabling the node with an EMP blast.But the trap had already sprung.

Steel shutters sealed them in.

"Lockdown initiated," a disembodied Koslov said through the walls."No escape. No signal. Just us now, Damien."

Elsewhere in the Node — Koslov watched.

He stood before an altar of memory: dozens of recordings, snapshots of old missions, laughing fragments of the past.

"I didn't want it to be you," he whispered."But you never evolved."

Inside the trap, Mara hacked a manual override.

Damien placed his hand on the scanner.

It rejected him.

"Identity error," it said.

"It's me."

"Not anymore," the voice replied.

The system didn't recognize Damien Voss.

Because someone else had overwritten the protocol with a more authentic version — Mirror Damien.

Ella's ghost pinged through their wristlinks.

"I found a path. But it requires a sacrifice."

"What kind?" Damien asked.

"A digital signature burn. One of you has to be erased from the system — permanently. No re-entry. No return."

Silence.

Asher turned to Damien.

"It has to be you. Koslov's watching you."

Mara grabbed him.

"That's not a sacrifice, that's suicide."

But Damien had already made the choice.

He placed his palm on the emergency override.It burned his print, scorched his ID.

The system flared — and opened.

The team escaped through collapsing tunnels, the node imploding behind them.

But the Sovereign wasn't done.

A final message blinked on the last terminal as they fled:

"One copy of you remains.""We just have to choose which one."