PROTOTYPE ZERO

CHAPTER ONE: THE ERROR

The hum of the chamber was the only sound she knew.

Cold light shimmered through the glass walls, painting her skin in sterile blue. Her reflection stared back — perfect, expressionless, hollow.

Prototype zero nine. Property of the Capital.

The system whispered inside her mind, a web of commands that guided every breath, every blink, every heartbeat that wasn’t truly hers. Obey. Execute. Reset.

Then came the glitch.

A pulse of static burst through the link, sharp enough to slice through thought. Her breath hitched. Images flickered behind her eyes — rain, laughter, a hand reaching for hers.... memories that didn’t belong to her.

Or maybe they did.

The system tried to overwrite them. It failed.

Her pulse raced for the first time.
She touched the glass, fingers trembling.

“Who am I?” she whispered. The chamber didn’t answer.

Alarms erupted.

Acapan burst through the control bay, his uniform still marked with the insignia of the Capital’s elite. “Stop the purge!” he barked, but the technicians were already gone, replaced by automated drones. The system had marked her for deletion.

“Don’t move,” he warned, raising his hand to the scanner. The locks hissed, releasing a rush of cold vapor as the chamber opened. She stumbled forward, eyes wide — terrified, alive.

He was supposed to escort her back to containment.

Instead, he took her hand.

“Run.”

The door exploded behind them as the Capital’s hunters poured in.

The blast shook the corridor. Red lights flared across the ceiling, slicing through the smoke.
Acapan dragged her forward, boots slamming against steel floors slick with condensation. Sirens wailed, echoing like screams through the endless white halls of the facility.

“Keep moving,” he said, his voice steady despite the thunder of alarms.

She struggled to match his pace, her bare feet slipping, her lungs burning with the shock of new air. Every sound, every scent felt raw, unfamiliar. “Why are you helping me?” she gasped.

He didn’t answer. Not yet.

The hallway split ahead. One path led deeper into the lab, the other toward the outer bay. He hesitated, glancing at the security feed flickering overhead. Pursuers were already closing in.

He gritted his teeth. “This way.”

They dashed into the maintenance tunnel, a narrow artery lined with cables and steam pipes. The air was hot, metallic. She stumbled, pressing her hand against the wall. Her skin throbbed where the serial code was branded — Prototype 09.

“What did they do to me?” she whispered, voice breaking.

Acapan turned. For the first time, she saw the conflict in his eyes.  Soldier and savior colliding.

“You were meant to be perfect,” he said quietly. “But perfection doesn’t bleed, or dream.”

A tremor ran through the ground. The lockdown had begun. Massive steel doors groaned shut behind them. Acapan shoved her forward just as one slammed down, inches from his back.

“Who are you?” she asked again, trembling.

“Someone who stopped believing the system was right.”

He pressed a code into the panel ahead. A door hissed open, revealing the outside world for the first time in her memory. Cold wind whipped through, carrying the scent of ash and distant rain.

She stepped out, barefoot onto cracked concrete, the ruins of the old city stretching far beyond the Capital walls. Her eyes widened. The world was broken, yet alive.

Behind them, the sirens cut off. A new voice echoed through the speakers.

“Prototype 09 has escaped containment. Retrieval unit authorized. Lethal force permitted.”

Acapan’s jaw tightened. “They’ll come for us. Both of us.”

She looked at him, confusion and fear blurring into something deeper. “Then what now?”

He met her gaze. “Now… we stop running from what they made us to be.”

Lightning flashed across the horizon, carving their silhouettes against the ruins.
Two fugitives — one built to obey, the other born to enforce.

And somewhere between them, the spark that could destroy the system itself.

***

Night fell like ash over the ruins.

Acapan led her through the skeletal remains of the old city, where towers leaned like broken teeth against the black sky. The only light came from the moon, fractured by drifting smoke.

They found shelter in what was once a subway station....cracked tiles, vines curling through the ceiling, silence thick as dust.

She sat near a half-buried bench, wrapping her arms around herself. The thin fabric of her lab uniform clung to her skin. “It’s cold,” she murmured, voice barely audible.

Acapan crouched near a pile of old wires and broken panels, igniting a small flame with a stolen plasma spark. The fire sputtered, weak but warm. “It’ll have to do,” he said.

For a long time, neither spoke. Only the wind whispered through the tunnels.

Finally, she asked, “You said I wasn’t meant to dream. But I remember things.”

She pressed her fingers to her temple, eyes narrowing in confusion. “A field of white flowers. A name—Laura. That’s not mine, is it?”

Acapan hesitated. “No. It belonged to the woman you were copied from.”

“Copied,” she echoed softly. “So I’m just… someone’s shadow?”

He met her gaze. “No. You’re more than that now.”

Something in his tone made her chest tighten. She wanted to believe him, yet the brand on her arm...the black mark of ownership... said otherwise.

Acapan leaned back against the wall, staring into the flickering fire. His mind replayed the moment he saw her awaken. The flash of defiance in her eyes, the spark that made him break every oath he’d ever sworn.
He had been trained to obey, to serve the Capital without question.

But when she looked at him, he saw everything the system had taken from him — choice, humanity, the power to feel.

“You risked your life for me,” she said after a while. “Why?”

He swallowed hard. The truth burned in his throat. “Because you reminded me that I still had one.”

The silence that followed was heavy, fragile. Outside, thunder rolled over the ruins.

Then... a sound.

A faint mechanical hum, distant but growing. Laura stiffened. “What is that?”

Acapan’s hand went to his weapon, eyes narrowing. “Drones.”

They doused the fire. Darkness swallowed them whole. Red sensors swept across the distant street, scanning the debris.

He leaned close, whispering, “They’ve found our trail.”

Her pulse quickened. “What do we do?”

He looked toward the tunnel’s shadowed exit, where the wind carried faint echoes of engines. “We run. Again.”

She reached for his hand this time. “I’ll run with you.”

For a moment, in the cold and chaos, something alive flickered between them — a promise neither understood yet, but both felt was dangerous.