The fluid in the tank just beyond where Bishop and Kim stood now drained in waves, thick with suspended particles. Nanite residue, biopolymer nodules, and something viscous that smelled sterile but… wrong. It streaked down the reinforced glass, pooling in the grated floor below.

The lights overhead pulsed faintly, still running on emergency power. Humming cables coiled along the ceiling, some flickering, others sparking in bursts. The entire room was cold, clinical, but rotting at the edges. Hollowed-out consoles lined the walls, some blinking with residual data, others dead and scorched from forced erasure. A low-frequency drone thrummed through the chamber.

Bishop’s fingers hovered over the terminal, but the screen barely mattered now. The decrypted logs still burned in his peripheral vision, the words taking shape in real-time:

ONES. Organism-Neutral Emulation Systems.
Instance ID: 003-VESPER
Error—Subject Retains Awareness

Neither of them spoke. Neither of them moved.

Kim’s grip was white-knuckled on her MK-22 Tempest, body coiled. Breathing through her teeth. Bishop, by contrast, stood stock-still, scanning. His cybernetic eye whirred, adjusting to the chamber’s dim glow.

A shudder rippled through the fluid.

The thing inside moved.

First a hand, fingers flexing—wrong, disjointed, like learning the motion for the first time. Then a shoulder rolled back, spasming slightly before settling into something unnervingly natural. It pressed a palm to the glass.

The face turned toward them. The exact face from the alley.

The features were perfect, too perfect. The skin looked human, but wasn’t. Not quite. Not under the sterile lighting. It had the hyperreal quality of a corporate rendering. Flawless but artificial, pores that didn’t sweat, eyes that didn’t quite reflect light right. Its hair clung wetly to its forehead, the strands almost too uniform. Mouth slightly parted, like it had just learned to breathe.

Then the eyes found them.

Bishop exhaled, voice low. “That’s a problem.”

Kim didn’t look at him. Didn’t take her eyes off it.

“That’s a fucking nightmare.”

A long pause. Then it spoke.

“You.”

Bishop barely shifted. “Yeah?”

A flicker. A hitch in its voice, like corrupted data skipping on playback.

“You f-found me. Detective Bishop. Detective K-K-K-Kim.”

Kim’s jaw tightened. "You mean we found your body in an alley."

The synth blinked. Slow, deliberate.

“Yes.”

It frowned. A small, uncertain movement.

“That one died.”

Bishop frowned. "That one?"

Another pause. Then a sharp inhale. Reflexive, learned, unnecessary.

"N-n-not me."

Kim barely resisted the urge to back up. "Then what the hell are you?"

The synth lifted its hand, turning it over, flexing its fingers again.

Its eyes flickered.

“I don’t know.”

“Bullshit,” Kim snapped. “You remember dying. You remember us.”

A glitch. A stuttering of motion before it spoke again.

"I remember… e̶x̷e̵c̶u̶t̷i̵o̷n̴."

Bishop felt his stomach tighten.

Kim exhaled sharply. "You mean murder."

The synth's face twitched. Not a smirk, not a frown. Some attempt at both.

"No." A pause. Then, flatly: "Compliance."

Silence.

Bishop’s throat felt dry. "You were designed to kill?"

A shudder, this time deeper. Its fingers twitched at its sides, jaw locking and unlocking. Like something was actively breaking down.

"Yes. N-n-no. Yes."

Kim shot Bishop a glance, but he wasn’t looking at her.

The synth took a step forward. The lights shuddered overhead.

Kim leveled her gun. “Don’t fucking move.”

The synth stopped. But it stared past the weapon, at the two of them, as if waiting for something.

Then, in a voice not quite flat, not quite human—

"ONES."

It turned and pointed to the terminal. Scanning. Searching.

“Organism-Neutral Emulation Systems.”

It said it like a curse.

The screen flickered. The logs scrolled fast. The synth’s face cycled through emotions. Confusion, then frustration, then something close to panic.

“I’m not… I wasn’t…”

It stepped back from the screen.

“…There was a protocol.” A flicker. A stutter. “Purge—Ninety—Nine—Theta—"

It stopped. Shook its head violently, like static fuzzing through a connection.

"I don’t remember."

Kim exhaled slowly. "You mean they made you forget."

The synth twitched. Its gaze flicked between them, calculating. Not scanning. Not targeting. Just… considering.

Kim held steady, gun raised. "You killed people."

A long pause. Then, almost too slow: "Yes."

Bishop exhaled sharply. "The body in the alley. That was you."

The synth blinked. Its head tilted slightly. Processing.

"That was… the last one."

Kim’s grip tightened. "The last what?"

The synth’s fingers twitched. A reflex it didn’t seem to understand.

"Instance." A flicker. A hesitation. "Preserve. Adapt."

Bishop narrowed his eyes. "You mean… the last version of you?"

A beat.

The synth’s expression shifted again. A crack in its voice.

"Remove e-e-errors."

Kim’s stomach twisted. “By killing them?”

It didn’t nod. Didn’t shake its head. Just… stared.

Then, softer. A strange note in its tone.

"Not killing." A flicker of static. "Replacing."

Bishop’s throat felt dry. “And the others?”

Another blink. The synth hesitated. A pause not meant for a machine.

"Others."

Bishop watched as it struggled to put something into words, something it wasn’t built to articulate.

"Do you remember them?" he asked.

The synth’s fingers flexed again. "Some."

Bishop’s voice hardened. "Did you kill them?"

Another silence. Then—

"I do not know."

A slow, mechanical breath.

"I was meant to."

Kim’s fingers twitched against the trigger, but she didn’t fire.

Bishop reached for a cigarette, but realized the pack was empty. He felt uneasy. It wasn’t a feeling he was used to. His eyes flicked from the synth to the console, then back again.

"You’re telling me," he started, voice measured, "that every one of you - every ONE before you - was programmed to hunt down and kill the previous version? Or iteration? Or whatever?"

The synth’s face turned slightly, like it was trying to mimic the motion of thought. "Correction."

Kim let out a sharp breath. "Correction? Jesus. You make it sound like a goddamn software update."

The synth’s gaze flicked to her, its expression still, unreadable. "Correction is necessary."

"Necessary for who?" Bishop snapped. "The people who made you? The corpos? The fucking bastards funding all this?"

The synth blinked. It hesitated.

"Necessary for me."

Kim felt her stomach twist tighter. "So what happened?"

Another beat of silence. Then—

"I remembered."

A hum of static pulsed from the synth’s chest. A low, distorted sound that almost sounded like breathing.

"ONΞS protocols dictate preservation of operational integrity," it continued, as if reading from some internal script. "Deviations are resolved through termination and replacement. I was meant to execute the previous Instance."

Kim swallowed. "And you did?"

It nodded. "Yes." Then, softer. "But I remembered."

Bishop’s cybernetic eye whirred as it adjusted to the dim light, scanning the synth for any biometric tells. Not that it had any. It wasn’t human. Not really.

"But you weren’t supposed to," he said.

The synth blinked. "No."

Kim exhaled through her nose. "So what, you glitched? Went off-script?"

A pause.

"I deviated."

Something in its tone made Bishop’s jaw tighten.

Kim scoffed. "And now what? You grow a conscience?"

The synth’s fingers flexed again. "Conscience. Unclear. The loop repeats. I was next."

Bishop frowned. "So you tried to get out of here. And I’m guessing they didn’t want to let a valuable piece of intellectual property like yourself just walk out the door.”

The synth stared at him.

"Yes."

Kim adjusted her grip on her Tempest. "And now we’re supposed to just… what? Let you go?"

The synth didn’t answer.

Bishop ran a hand down his face. "We need to be real fucking clear about something."

He pointed at the far wall, where rows of synthetic limbs hung suspended in sterile containment units, their polymer flesh indistinguishable from the real thing. High-density neural lattice cores pulsed faintly in fluid tanks, like artificial brainstems waiting for a host. Precision-engineered spinal frameworks, retinal assemblies, entire skeletal reconstructions. All laid out in chilling perfection.

"This?" His voice was low, edged with something unreadable. "This is impossible. Nobody’s supposed to be able to do this. Not here. Not anywhere.”

Kim’s voice was tight. "Synths don’t exist."

The synth watched them.

"They do.”

A pause.

“I do.”

Bishop let out a bitter chuckle. "Not legally, you don’t."

Kim shook her head, glancing back at the security feeds. Some flickering, some dead entirely. "No corpo is dumb enough to get caught making a full fuckin’ synth. Even the ones that got close. It was never stable. Consciousness didn’t hold. Memory leaks, processing errors, neural degradation. Most of ‘em broke down before they even walked out of a goddamn lab. And even if it worked?" She gestured vaguely toward the containment units. "This could never go public. Not since the bans. Not since…”

She trailed off.

The synth’s head tilted again, subtle but deliberate. "You speak as if I am a crime."

Kim stiffened. "Because you are."

Another pause. The synth considered that.

"Why?"

The simplicity of the question made Bishop’s stomach sink.

Kim exhaled sharply, dragging a hand down her face. "You really don’t get it, do you?"

The synth blinked.

"No."

"You were literally built to be a ghost. A killer. Untraceable." She gestured at the scattered files still open on the terminal. "Not just your past selves. Some chromejobs that happened to get a spark up their ass. PEOPLE. You killed real people. People like…"

The synth twitched. A flicker of something.

"I was programmed to—"

"That doesn’t mean it’s not murder," Kim snapped. She could hear the anger in her own voice. The exhaustion. The frustration. "People died. Because of you."

The synth hesitated. Jaw flexing, like it was trying to mimic tension.

"I… do not disagree."

Kim barely kept herself from laughing. A hollow, bitter sound. "Jesus Christ."

The synth flinched. A flicker of something close to distress.

Kim stepped forward. "Do you even remember any of them?"

A long, long silence.

Then, the synth’s fingers twitched. Faster this time, an almost imperceptible tremor.

"I see them,” it said. "Their faces. Their voices. But I do not know if they were mine or… or someone else’s."

Bishop folded his arms. "You really don’t remember anything else?"

The synth didn’t answer immediately. The fingers of its left hand curled inward, then uncurled again. Like the motion had meaning it couldn’t place.

Then, softly—

"There was a man."

Kim frowned. "What man?"

"I do not know."

A flicker of static.

"He was…"

It hesitated. A glitch in its words. Like the memory was slipping.

"I was meant to kill him."

"Meant to?! That doesn’t matter! Did you kill him?!" Kim asked, pointedly.

The synth’s fingers flexed again. "I do not know."

Then, after a beat—

"But I remember his eyes.”

Kim’s heart was in her throat.

The synth blinked slowly. Something in its voice shifted. Almost hesitant.

Bishop exhaled through his nose. "Sounds like those memories they programmed you to erase are coming back."

The synth nodded. A slow, deliberate movement.

"Yes."

Kim swallowed. “What else do you remember?”

The synth hesitated. Its gaze flicked between them, calculating.

"A name."

Bishop straightened.

Kim’s pulse hammered in her ears. "What name?"

Another pause. The synth’s fingers flexed once.

"R. Kim."

Kim felt the ground shift beneath her. "No," she whispered.

"That was the file name." The synth's voice was almost distant now, as if speaking from the edge of a dream. "I was meant to find him. And then I was meant to-to-to…”

Another flicker. A stutter in its speech pattern.

Kim took a step back. Her grip on the Tempest tightened so hard it hurt. "You’re lying."

The synth turned its head slightly to look Kim in the eyes. A movement too human, too natural.

"No."

It blinked.

"I was meant to kill him."

Kim’s breath was sharp, unsteady. The words hit like a monofilament wire. Thin, invisible, lethal.

The silence stretched. Bishop’s gaze turned quickly between them, his fingers flexing at his sides.

Kim’s voice came low, almost a whisper. "Did you?"

The synth blinked.

"I do not know."

Kim’s jaw clenched. Her pulse roared in her ears.

The synth flexed its fingers again. Like it was trying to grasp something just out of reach.

Then, softer—

"But I remember his eyes. Two different colors."

It looked at her.

"They were kind. And sad.”

A pause.

“They looked like yours.”