CHAPTER 7 — THE FAMILY BUILT ON LIES
The arena fell silent.
Even the prisoners stopped fighting.
Ethan stared at the woman holding the assault rifle.
His wife.
The mother of his son.
The person he had spent two years mourning.
She looked back at him with tears in her eyes.
"I'm sorry..."
"I had to let you believe I was dead."
Before Ethan could speak, the Warden began to clap.
"Excellent timing."
"I've been waiting for this family reunion."
The woman lowered her rifle slightly.
"Stop calling us your family."
The Warden smiled.
"But you are."
He pressed a remote hidden inside his sleeve.
The giant screen above the arena flickered to life.
Old security footage began to play.
A hospital room.
Twenty-nine years earlier.
A newborn baby.
Ethan.
Standing beside the hospital bed...
was the Warden.
Not as a prison official.
As a young military scientist.
Then another woman entered the room.
The same woman Ethan had always believed was his mother.
But she wasn't holding him.
She was handing him over.
The Warden paused the video.
"You were never abandoned."
"You were engineered."
Ethan's hands trembled.
"No..."
"My parents raised me."
"They adopted you."
The words echoed through the arena.
The Warden continued.
"Project Phoenix needed children with extraordinary genetics."
"So we created them."
"We placed them with ordinary families."
"We watched them grow."
"We waited."
The woman beside Ethan slowly removed the necklace she had worn since the day they met.
Hidden inside was a tiny encrypted microchip.
"I've been undercover for six years," she said.
"I married you because I was ordered to monitor you."
Ethan looked as though the ground had vanished beneath his feet.
"So..."
"Everything was fake?"
She stepped closer.
"No."
"My mission was."
"But loving you..."
"That was never part of the plan."
Before Ethan could answer—
The arena lights suddenly went dark.
One by one, the elite soldiers in black armor raised their weapons.
Not at the prisoners.
At the Warden.
A mechanical voice echoed through the arena.
"Authorization Override Detected."
"Supreme Controller Identified."
The Warden frowned.
"What?"
Every soldier slowly turned toward Ethan.
Then, in perfect unison...
They knelt.
May you like
"Welcome home..."
"...Commander Phoenix."
