Contract Marriage with My Secret Partner in Crime-Chapter 166: Replication

They entered like ghosts.

The air inside the facility was damp and stale, filled with the echo of forgotten years. Lights flickered overhead, casting long shadows on peeling walls and rusted steel. Every footstep seemed louder than it should’ve been, swallowed quickly by the depth of the underground maze.

Zephany tightened her grip on her flashlight. Beside her, Kendrick moved silently, his eyes scanning every corridor, every corner. Sophia followed with her usual quiet efficiency, her tablet flickering as it pinged nearby signals. Reynold, taking the rear, held his weapon close—not because he expected danger, but because he remembered it.

They passed through abandoned operating rooms and specimen storage units, each with broken glass, upturned trays, and decayed biohazard labels. But the silence was what got to Zephany most. It wasn’t just the stillness of a place long shut down. It was the heavy quiet of regret, of things done and undone.

"This was where they processed samples," Sophia said, crouching beside a long table covered in dust and surgical clamps. "Every sample was cataloged, tested, and stored. That door leads to the central vault."

"Is it still functional?" Kendrick asked.

Sophia shook her head. "Power’s intermittent. But I can route access from my tablet."

"Do it," Zephany said. Her voice was calm, but her stomach had tightened into a hard knot.

As Sophia typed, Reynold stepped toward a steel cabinet embedded in the wall. He pried it open with a soft grunt and found rows of old Helix folders—paper, not digital. Yellowed at the edges. Some were stained.

He flipped through them slowly, his jaw tightening.

"They kept records of patients. Test groups. Even failures. It’s all still here."

Zephany moved beside him and took one folder. The name on the tab froze her in place.

Subject 015A - Kendrick Vale

She opened it without speaking. Kendrick came to her side, his expression unreadable.

Pages of charts. Notes. Graphs mapping cell regeneration. Incident logs.

A line at the bottom read: "Subject displays no rejection response. Mutation stability remains unpredictable. Proceed with caution."

Zephany glanced at Kendrick, whose eyes hadn’t left the folder.

"I was thirteen," he said quietly. "They told me I had an immune disorder. Said the trial would help. That it was my choice."

"You didn’t know," she whispered.

"I didn’t want to die," he replied. "That was all I knew."

Sophia interrupted them. "I’ve accessed the main vault. Files are downloading now. But I found something else. An encrypted folder labeled Alpha Zeta."

"Alpha Zeta?" Reynold repeated. "That wasn’t on any of the blueprints."

"It’s tied to a restricted elevator at the far east wing. Level S-3."

Zephany turned to Kendrick. "Elias is down there."

---

Elsewhere in the Facility – East Wing

Pia ducked under a partially collapsed archway, flashlight bouncing off fallen debris. Kaelion followed behind her, muttering about stress fractures in the walls. Christy, limping slightly, kept pace with Levy as they moved through what had once been Helix’s diagnostics wing.

"There’s a lot of electromagnetic interference here," Kaelion said. "Something’s active below us. Possibly a backup generator."

"You think Elias is powering the chamber?" Christy asked.

"I think he never stopped," Levy murmured. She knelt to pick up a rusted ID badge. It read: Dr. Elias Denevar – Principal Researcher.

Pia paused. "Over here. This panel’s newer than the rest."

Behind a false wall, they uncovered a stairwell—intact, cold, descending into blackness.

Levy looked at Pia. "Should we wait for the others?"

Pia gave her a small, wicked grin. "Do I look like someone who waits?"

Kaelion groaned, "I hate it when she says that."

They moved down.

---

Level S-3 – Lower Lab

The air was colder here. The hum of machines vibrated through the floor.

Zephany stepped into a chamber unlike the others. Unlike the decayed ruins above, this place was pristine. Active. Lit with glowing panels and state-of-the-art equipment.

At the center was the containment chamber. The boy still floated within, unconscious, preserved.

Elias stood beside it, his expression neither triumphant nor guilty. Just tired.

"I was expecting Cassius," he said.

"He’s not far behind," Zephany answered. "He sent us ahead."

Kendrick stepped beside her. "Who is he?" he asked, nodding at the chamber.

"Subject 001X," Elias said. "The first true Helix construct. Grown entirely from modified genome strands. No natural origin. No past. Just... potential."

"You made him?" Sophia asked from behind.

Elias looked at her. "We designed him. He was never supposed to wake up. He was our insurance policy. But someone else activated the protocol."

"Who?" Reynold asked.

Elias hesitated. "Brent."

Before they could respond, a metal door slammed shut behind them. Sophia immediately tried her wrist console.

"Locked. External override."

"You brought this on yourselves," a voice called out from the shadows.

Brent stepped into view, armed and calm. His expression betrayed no emotion.

"This ends here. We’re not unleashing another variable into the world. That boy doesn’t belong. Helix ends with us."

"You’re going to kill him?" Zephany asked, stepping forward.

"I’m going to make sure none of you make it out with the data."

He raised his weapon.

But before he could fire, the chamber behind Elias began to hum loudly. The boy’s eyes fluttered open. Violet light pulsed through the room. The containment field cracked with a hiss.

Kendrick pulled Zephany down as the chamber shattered.

Alarms blared.

Smoke, sparks, and light engulfed the lab.

The boy—eyes glowing faintly—floated for a second, then collapsed to the ground, gasping.

Brent stumbled backward.

Elias ran to the boy’s side. "It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re—"

The boy’s hand shot out, gripping Elias’s wrist with impossible strength.

His voice, hoarse and echoing, asked one word:

"Who... am I?"

Everything was chaos.

The sirens wailed inside Level S-3, their piercing cry bouncing off the walls like a scream from the past. Red lights flashed overhead, painting the white lab in violent pulses. Smoke coiled from the shattered containment chamber, curling around their feet as if alive.

Zephany pulled herself up, her arms stinging from glass shards, her breath tight in her lungs. Beside her, Kendrick was already on his feet, shielding her with one arm while scanning the room.

The boy was still on the floor, curled in a fetal position, his glowing violet eyes blinking as though seeing light for the first time. Sparks jumped from the shattered panel behind him. Elias remained frozen beside him, his wrist still gripped in the boy’s hand. Blood trickled from where the grip dug into his skin.

"Don’t move," Elias said, voice quiet, but steady. "He’s not stable."

Reynold stepped forward, gun raised. "He doesn’t look like he belongs in the world above."

"Put it down," Elias warned.

Reynold hesitated.

Then Sophia spoke. "He’s scared." Her voice was level, soft. She had knelt behind one of the side consoles, her tablet blinking with active signals. "His neural activity is spiking erratically. If you fire, it might trigger an uncontrollable reaction."

Zephany stared at the boy. His breathing had turned ragged, rapid. His body was shaking, muscles twitching with unfamiliar sensation.

"Let him go," she said, taking a step toward Elias. "You’re hurting him."

"He’s the one hurting me," Elias replied, strained but calm.

Then, with a subtle shift, the boy loosened his grip.

The air was damp with the scent of metal and chemicals. Cassius stood at the threshold of the chamber, his eyes fixed on the wall lined with containment pods. The soft pulse of pale blue lights reflected off the glass tubes, each one labeled with a code and a red Helix insignia. He didn’t speak, didn’t move, not yet. He simply listened—to the hum of the machines, the slow drip of condensation, and the rapid beat of his own heart.

Sophia stepped in quietly behind him, her gloved hand brushing the side of the entrance as she scanned the room. Her voice was hushed, but firm. "They kept it operational. Even after all this time."

Cassius took a slow breath. "Not just operational. Active. Look at the condensation levels. Someone’s been monitoring these pods. Recently."

He crossed to the nearest containment unit and wiped a streak into the foggy glass. Inside, the figure of a young man floated, skin pale, eyes closed, thin tubes running from his chest and neck into the machinery behind him. Vital signs blinked faintly on the monitor beside the pod.

"Stasis," Sophia murmured. "No decay. These aren’t failed subjects. They’re preserved."

Cassius narrowed his gaze. "Or stored."

Sophia moved toward a central console, tapping the surface until a panel lit up with rows of encrypted files. "These records are newer than I expected. See this timestamp? Last month. Someone’s been running diagnostics. Adjusting vitals. Even altering serum levels."

"Brent," Cassius muttered. "He’s replicating Mern’s protocol. Perfecting it."

Sophia’s fingers hovered over the data feed. "No. This is beyond Brent. These readings are too stable. There’s a precision here that Brent never had. Someone else is helping him."

Cassius stiffened. "Or leading him."

A sudden alert chimed from the console. Sophia turned. "Someone’s accessing the system remotely. Now."

Cassius stepped back from the pod. "Trace the signal."