The Bigshot's Superstar Wife-Chapter 214: Hold On (3)

They moved quickly through the crumbling corridors of the facility, the flickering lights casting shadows that danced like specters along the walls. Jericho, still weak but walking with growing strength, guided them through a side passage that bypassed the main exit routes. Athena kept her sword ready, her senses sharpened beyond the capacity of ordinary humans. Her body remembered what her mind couldn't fully grasp yet—every step, every breath, every glance behind her was calculated, as if some training long buried beneath layers of forgotten identity had reawakened. The deeper they went, the more she could feel the hum of machines, ancient and alive, pulsing beneath the concrete and steel. Jericho stopped them in front of an enormous vault door, one marked not with words but a glowing emblem—an insignia Athena had seen many times in her dreams. "This is it," he said quietly. "The heart of the Sinalta Project. The truth is inside."

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Xavier looked skeptical. "And what exactly is waiting for us? Another clone army? More bioengineered freaks?" Jericho met his gaze with a grim expression. "No. What's in here is the root code. The beginning of it all. The original consciousness imprint—the one they based every puppet, every model, every Athena on. Including you." Athena's breath caught. She didn't say anything. Instead, she pressed her palm against the scanner beside the door. To her surprise, it responded instantly. A soft chime rang out, and the massive locks began to disengage, rotating with slow, deliberate clicks until the vault hissed open. A cold mist spilled out, carrying with it the sterile scent of preserved history and long-buried nightmares. Inside, the room glowed with soft blue light. Transparent columns filled the space like pillars in a cathedral, and inside each one floated holographic data streams, suspended memories, and human-shaped silhouettes locked in time.

Athena stepped forward slowly, her eyes scanning the contents. "These are all me?" she whispered. Jericho nodded. "Versions of you. Failures. Experiments. Prototypes. They copied and rewrote your personality over and over again, trying to find the perfect balance between obedience and emotion. They didn't expect you to awaken. But you did." Her head spun. Thousands of lives she didn't live. Faces she never wore but somehow belonged to her. And at the center of the room, beneath a protective dome, was a chair. A single chair facing a console, with wires trailing from its headrest like a crown of thorns. "That's where it began," Jericho said softly. "That's where you uploaded your original self. You were the lead architect, Athena. You designed the weapons. You were never just a puppet. You were the creator."

The weight of that truth dropped onto her like a hammer. Her knees buckled, and she sank to the floor. "I don't remember any of this," she muttered. "I remember being trained. Tortured. Programmed. Not… this." Jericho knelt beside her. "They wiped you clean and threw you into the battlefield. But fragments remained. That sword, your instincts, your resistance to control—they were all remnants. You buried your identity to survive. But now it's time to bring it back." Xavier stepped closer, staring at the chair. "So what happens now? You sit in that thing and plug in?" Athena looked at him, eyes filled with both fear and clarity. "I have to. The answers are in there. Not just for me—but for Earth. For every puppet they released." She stood again, slowly but surely. "If I access the original root code, I might be able to shut down the system permanently. No more models. No more replications. We end it all."

She took a deep breath and approached the chair. Jericho hesitated. "It's dangerous. If your mind isn't ready—" "I'll risk it," she said firmly. "This is what I was meant to do." She sat down, letting the headpiece lock into place. The moment it touched her skin, the lights flared, and the dome sealed around her. Xavier and Jericho watched as her body went limp, her consciousness diving into the digital abyss.

Inside, she was falling through time. Through memories. Through lifetimes she didn't remember living. She saw her hands sketching blueprints, her voice speaking directives, her image projected onto massive screens as she led the development of the ultimate infiltration weapon—herself. She saw the day she volunteered to become the first subject, to implant her mind into a body that could survive the collapse of the Earth. She had loved Jericho. That was true. But she had also betrayed him—when he asked her to run, she had stayed. She had chosen the mission over him. And when he disappeared, she tried to resurrect him. She failed. That was the final fracture. The day she erased herself and became a shell.

Now she stood before a final gate, guarded by a mirrored version of herself. This doppelgänger stared at her with cold, calculated eyes. "You're not ready," it said. "You were built for war, not truth." Athena stared right back. "I built you to protect the code, not deny it." The doppelgänger smiled. "Then take it." The gate opened. Light consumed her. And when she woke up in the chair again, gasping for air, her memories were whole.

Jericho rushed forward. "What happened? Are you alright?" Athena stood, trembling but focused. "I remember everything. I know how to disable the network. I know how to shut down the production line." "Then let's finish this," Xavier said. "There's a mainframe below us. If we destroy it, we sever the connection for good." "No," Athena said. "We don't destroy it. I'm going to overwrite it." Jericho blinked. "What?" "If I input the root code, I can send a signal to every puppet still active. A recall. A reset. Give them all a chance to live free, like me. Or choose to end themselves. No more control." Xavier hesitated, then nodded. "Then we guard you while you do it."

They descended into the depths of the core. The final floor. A room glowing with red light and humming with unimaginable energy. Athena approached the control panel, her fingers flying across it. Codes, equations, language from a lost civilization flowed through the screens. She plugged in the root drive. The system resisted—alarms blared. Defense mechanisms activated. Jericho and Xavier fought them off, holding back the onslaught of drones and hybrids while Athena focused on her task.

A final prompt appeared: "Initiate Override Sequence?"

Athena pressed YES.

The room shook. A shockwave pulsed through the air. And far across the broken cities of Earth and the stars beyond, countless puppets—clones, models, machines—paused mid-mission. Eyes once blank began to blink with thought. With fear. With curiosity. The signal reached them all. They were free.

Back in the facility, silence followed. The drones fell. The lights dimmed. The war was over.

Athena collapsed to her knees, tears running down her cheeks. Jericho caught her. "You did it," he whispered. She smiled faintly. "No. We did." And in the aftermath, beneath the ruined world they once fought to save, they emerged not as soldiers or machines, but as people—carrying the weight of the past, and the fragile hope of what could come next.