Contract Marriage with My Secret Partner in Crime-Chapter 172: Backup Site

"He’s stabilizing," she replied without turning. "But the anomaly we detected in the last scan—it’s getting stronger."

Cassius approached the console and tapped the screen. The display shifted, revealing Kendrick’s latest bioscan. A glowing signature, faint but distinct, pulsed in the upper quadrant.

"Residual Helix activity," Cassius muttered. "No enhancement, but no decay either."

Sophia finally turned. "That’s not possible unless—"

"He was exposed again," Cassius finished, his brow tightening. "But we’ve kept him clear for months. There’s been no new contact."

Sophia stared at the screen. "Then either someone tampered with his meds, or... he’s adapting."

Cassius fell silent. That possibility had been lingering at the edges of his mind for days. If Kendrick’s system had begun to integrate Helix markers naturally, it meant something much more dangerous was unfolding. The stability they’d hoped for might have taken a different turn.

Meanwhile, Kendrick lay on the cot in the adjoining room, unaware of the growing concern in the next room. Zephany sat beside him, her hand resting gently over his. She watched his sleeping face, the way his brows twitched now and then, and the faint glow that seemed to pulse under his skin when the lights flickered.

She hadn’t slept much. Her thoughts were a battlefield—scattered pieces of her own identity, memories of Obscura, worries over Kendrick, and the crushing possibility that Helix hadn’t been dormant after all. And if he was changing again, what would it mean for their lives?

She whispered, "You promised to be okay..."

Kendrick stirred. Slowly, his eyes fluttered open.

"Hey," he rasped.

Zephany offered a faint smile. "Hey yourself. You scared me."

He tried to sit up but winced, his hand flying to his side.

"Don’t move," she said quickly, guiding him back. "You’ve been out for nearly twenty hours."

He blinked at her. "Did... did something happen?"

Zephany hesitated, then nodded. "You collapsed. We brought you here. Cassius has been running tests."

Kendrick closed his eyes again, his voice low. "I had a dream... or something. I saw fire. Voices. Not mine. Like memories I never had."

Zephany’s breath caught. He was remembering.

She stood and walked to the door. "I’ll get Cassius. He needs to hear this."

Cassius entered a moment later, carrying a small tablet. He sat beside Kendrick without ceremony, his eyes sharp behind tired lenses.

"Tell me about the dream," he said.

Kendrick nodded slowly, recounting what little he remembered. The flashes of white corridors, a woman in a lab coat, someone shouting, and then fire—a room engulfed in it.

Cassius listened silently, then finally said, "Those aren’t dreams. They’re fragments."

"Fragments of what?"

Sophia stepped forward. "Of the Helix facility. Of your time there."

Kendrick stared. "I don’t remember ever being there."

"You weren’t conscious. Not fully," Cassius replied. "You were part of a stability test. Your data was flagged as promising, but you disappeared before they could finish. Your body retained markers, but your mind blocked it. Until now."

Zephany took a step closer. "Are they coming back? His memories?"

"In waves," Cassius said. "Triggered by stress or exposure. And they’ll keep coming. We need to monitor him more closely than ever."

Silence fell.

Then Zephany asked, "And if it’s not just memories? What if the Helix signature is changing him again?"

Cassius didn’t answer.

---

Far from the Institute, Brent stood in the shadows of the abandoned hospital’s courtyard, his coat soaked through from the rain. His eyes glinted as he peered through the scope of a modified lens. The signal beacon he’d embedded weeks ago had finally triggered. Someone had found the hidden room.

And worse, they’d stayed long enough to notice the remnants.

"Damn," he muttered. He pulled a phone from his coat and dialed.

"You said they wouldn’t get this far," he hissed.

On the other end, a calm voice replied, "I said they’d be delayed. You were the one who left a trail."

Brent cursed. "Then we move up the timeline."

"Are you sure? The data isn’t complete yet."

Brent’s eyes narrowed. "We don’t need complete. We need control. Activate the final subject."

A pause.

"Understood."

Brent ended the call and looked toward the far end of the ruins, where a figure stood in the mist—tall, motionless, half-lit by the flicker of faulty streetlights. A prototype. The last one Helix had developed before going dark.

The figure turned its head, red eyes glowing faintly.

"Time to wake up," Brent murmured.

---

Back at the institute, Reynold leaned over the surveillance feed Jeric had set up from their last visit. The footage was grainy, but a figure had appeared in the lower frame—too tall, too smooth in movement.

"That’s not Brent," Jeric said.

"No," Reynold muttered. "That’s something else."

They exchanged a look.

And knew this was just the beginning.

---

The sun dipped low, casting a burnt-orange glow over the city as shadows lengthened across the aging hospital rooftop. Brent stood at the edge, wind tugging at the edges of his coat, his phone pressed to his ear.

"They’ve found the backup site," came the voice on the other end. Elias’s tone was low, clipped. "Reynold and Jeric were inside for hours. They’ve seen the refrigeration unit, the equipment, the laptop."

Brent’s jaw tensed. "And the files?"

"Still encrypted," Elias replied. "But if Reynold gets that drive back to Cassius, it won’t stay that way for long."

Brent’s eyes narrowed, scanning the street below. Cars moved like ants—innocent, unaware. But high above them, the last of Helix’s secrets teetered on the brink of exposure.

"We need to accelerate the extraction," he muttered. "If they link the biometric readings to the dormant vials, we lose everything."

"You said we had time."

"We don’t," Brent snapped. "Cassius is already suspicious. That blood test he ran on Kendrick? He knows the regenerative markers aren’t natural. And Zephany’s proximity to both Cassius and the target... it’s no coincidence."

A pause crackled through the line. Then, Elias spoke again, quietly. "Then you better prepare for the worst. Because if Cassius finds me, there won’t be another reboot."

The line went dead.

Brent slipped the phone into his pocket, his gaze hard. Then he turned and descended into the stairwell, each step echoing like a countdown.