CHAPTER 4 – The Kill Switch
The knife stopped just inches from Elias's throat.
The courtroom was so silent that everyone could hear Victoria's breathing.
Her eyes were empty.
No fear.
No hesitation.
Only obedience.
"Mission acknowledged," she repeated.
"Eliminate Target One."
Elias didn't move.
Instead...
He slowly reached into his jacket and removed a worn leather bracelet.
It looked old.
Cheap.
Completely out of place in the middle of a government courtroom.
Victoria's hand trembled.
For the first time since the strange voice had taken control of her...
Something inside her resisted.
Elias stepped closer.
"You made this for me," he whispered.
"When we were twenty-three."
Victoria stared at the bracelet.
Suddenly—
FLASH!
A memory exploded inside her mind.
A quiet beach.
A sunset.
Laughter.
A young Victoria wrapping the leather around Elias's wrist.
"If we ever lose each other," she smiled, "this will bring you home."
Back in the courtroom, tears rolled down her cheeks.
The knife lowered by a single inch.
Hidden deep inside her mind...
The real Victoria was fighting back.
But someone else was watching.
Miles away.
Inside a hidden underground control room.
Rows of giant monitors displayed every angle of the courtroom.
Technicians watched Victoria's heartbeat.
Brain activity.
Eye movement.
A woman wearing a white laboratory coat folded her arms.
"She's resisting," one technician whispered.
The woman smiled.
"No one escapes Program Zero."
She pressed a red button.
Across the courtroom...
Victoria screamed.
She dropped to both knees as unbearable pain ripped through her body.
Tiny electronic pulses fired through a microscopic implant hidden at the base of her skull.
Elias's face turned pale.
"No..."
"They never removed it."
Victoria looked up.
Her voice no longer sounded like her own.
"Primary objective updated."
"Kill everyone protecting Target One."
Suddenly—
She moved.
Faster than any human in the room could follow.
One guard flew backward into a marble pillar.
Another was disarmed before he even realized she had reached him.
A third officer collapsed after one precise strike to the neck.
Panic erupted.
People ran in every direction.
The courtroom became a battlefield.
Elias grabbed Victoria's wrists, desperately trying to stop her without hurting her.
"Fight it!"
"You are stronger than them!"
Victoria's eyes flickered.
For one heartbreaking second...
She recognized him.
"Elias..."
Then a gunshot echoed through the courtroom.
A sniper's bullet tore through the window.
Elias shoved Victoria aside.
The bullet slammed into his shoulder.
Blood splattered across the marble floor.
Victoria froze.
Something inside her shattered.
The emotionless expression disappeared.
Her breathing became frantic.
"Elias!"
She caught him before he hit the ground.
He smiled weakly.
"I knew..."
"...you'd come back."
Before she could answer...
Every monitor inside the courtroom suddenly switched to the same image.
The woman in the white lab coat appeared on every screen.
She smiled directly at Victoria.
"Congratulations, Subject Zero."
"You've passed the final test."
Victoria stared in horror.
"What do you want from me?"
The woman laughed softly.
"I don't want you."
"I want what is inside you."
She pressed another button.
A hidden compartment opened beneath the judge's bench.
Inside was a steel case marked:
PROJECT GENESIS
The woman looked straight into the camera.
"Open the case, Victoria."
"Inside is the truth about who you really are..."
"And why the entire government has been hunting you since the day you were born."
As Victoria slowly reached for the steel case...
She noticed something terrifying.
It required two fingerprints to unlock.
One belonged to her.
The other...
May you like
Belonged to someone who had officially been dead for twenty-five years.
Her mother.
