The Red File Book Two : Code Obsidian

The Prototype

The biometric lock hissed and clicked as Kael completed the final bypass.

The steel door groaned open, its inner mechanisms ancient but intact. Frost poured out, swirling at their feet like breath escaping a long-sealed tomb.

Emma stepped inside first, pulse quick, hand hovering over her sidearm.

The chamber was unlike the cryo-pod rooms.

No rows. No labels. Just a single cylindrical stasis column in the center, humming with suppressed energy. Vines of cables snaked across the floor, linking the pod to servers that had clearly been running silently for years. Still powered. Still alive.

On the screen:
SUBJECT CODE: 000X—ECHO
Status: Locked. Dormant. Unstable.
Classification: Prototype Alpha

Kael stood still. "Echo was never approved. The others in Crimson thought it too dangerous. Too human. Emma Prime defied them and built it anyway."

Emma stepped closer. Within the chamber, she could see a figure—roughly her age—suspended in fluid. The face was both familiar and different. It was as if someone had combined fragments of every child in the Genesis database and stitched them into a single being.

"Is it... a clone?" Ezra asked, breath caught.

Kael shook his head slowly. "It's all the clones. The neural imprints of every source child. Fused. Adapted. The sum of every stolen life."

Noah moved to the terminal, hands flying over the keys. "This thing is more than just a person. It's a living archive. It remembers everything."

On the screen, more data flooded in:

Capabilities:

Neural convergence across all known Genesis templates

Empathic resonance amplification

Autonomous AI integration

Strategic memory imprint access

Unpredictable emotional instability

Wren read the last line aloud. "It's unstable. Why?"

Kael answered, voice tight. "Because it knows what it is."

Emma stared at the face behind the glass. It was... peaceful. But the faint movement of the subject's fingers said otherwise. It wasn't asleep. It was waiting.

There was a final video file blinking on the console.

Emma pressed play.

Emma Prime's image appeared again, this time wearier. The lines on her face deeper. Behind her: the stasis chamber.

"If this reaches you... then it's time," the recording said. "Crimson will not stop. They will rise again, even after defeat. Echo is the end of that cycle. It carries everything—our pain, our knowledge, our resistance. But it must not be woken lightly."

She leaned forward.

"You must earn its trust. Because Echo... is not a weapon. It's justice incarnate. It will choose. And if you're not ready for what it sees in you... it will destroy you."

The screen went dark.

Emma turned to the others. "We wake Echo."

Kael hesitated. "Are you certain?"

Emma nodded. "We need answers. And Crimson needs to be finished. Not fought. Not stalled. Ended."

Kael moved to the console, entering the final override codes.

The chamber lights dimmed. The fluid began to drain.

Everyone took a step back as the figure within collapsed to the base of the pod, gasping.

Emma rushed forward and caught them.

The figure coughed, then slowly looked up—eyes glowing faintly, shifting in color—blue, green, violet, gold.

Echo spoke, voice soft, layered. Male and female. Child and elder.

"You're the one she made last," they said. "Emma's last hope."

Emma stared. "You know who I am?"

"I know all of you," Echo whispered, glancing around. "Because I was built from all of you."

Then their eyes turned hard, filled with fire and ice.

"And now... it's time to burn Crimson to the ground."