The city's silence was louder now.
Not because it had gotten quieter - but because Shimura had changed.
The clones still whispered at night. The ache in his body never faded completely. And the face he saw in the puddle - that face - was burned behind his eyelids.
He couldn't sleep.
Not because of nightmares.
But because he didn't want to see himself again.
Shimura moved through District 9 like he'd done a thousand time. Only now, he wasn't hiding. He was hunting.
The badge.
the name.
The project.
Black Veil.
Someone had to know. Someone still had records. A facility. A lab. Anything.
And if he found another one like him another experiment - they might have the missing piece.
Or they might try killing him.
Either way, he'd know more than he did now.
His lead came from a rotten black-market scrap dealer in the tunnels under Sector Delta. The man didn't want to talk - until Shimura left a clone behind to keep whispering into his ear even after the real Shimura had gone quiet.
Eventually, the old man cracked.
"They used to run something near the Basin... South District. Old tunnel network - shut down years ago. But there's something still moving out there."
Shimura went the same night.
The Basin had been a hydro-energy site before the city drowned in corruption and left the entire district half-sunken and rusted through.
It was quiet now. Abandoned. But not dead.
The lights still flickered - motion-sensor activated. The air still hummed with residual heat.
Shimura ducked into the complex - half-flooded corridors, algae-eaten walls. His breath fogged in the cold. He walked slowly, clones flickering in and out around corners like nervous ghosts.
Then he heard it.
Not footsteps.
A voice.
Humming.
Soft. Clear. Female.
It came from down the hall. Past a locked door with security seals.
He touched the surface. It was warm.
He blinked.
And then the door unlocked on its own.
Inside was a cracked observation room - flooded with dying light and old terminals.
And in the center of it all stood a girl - no, a woman - barefoot, blonde, her frame tall and lean, eyes closed, hands moving delicately like a dancer slowing time itself.
Something shimmered around her. Not visible - but real. Residual echoes. Neural shadows.
Shimura froze.
Her presence was quiet, but heavy. Like a tuning fork humming after being struck.
She opened her eyes.
Blue. Piercing.
And looked straight at him.
"You're late," she said softly.
Shimura said nothing.
"I was wondering when they'd send another one."
"...Another what?"
She tilted her head. "Clone. Bloom - type. Black Veil dropout. Ghost kid. Pick your name."
She wasn't armed. She didn't need to be.
He could feel it - this girl wasn't normal. Not even close.
She stepped forward. And when she moved, he saw it: tiny distortions around her body, flickering micro-expressions cycling across her face, the kind you only see in someone flipping through identities.
"Who are you?"
her smile was small. Careful.
"Codename: V-09. Neural Echo Assimilation Protocol. I touch someone - get a piece of them. Thoughts. Instincts. Sometimes more than I want."
"Name's Solene. Or... that's what I call myself now."
He took a step forward. "You were part of the program."
"You say that like its over."
She looked past him. "It's never over. Not for us."
A clone shimmered beside Shimura, unbidden. She didn't flinch. Instead, she reached out - and touched the clone's arm.
Shimura tensed.
And then she spoke. In his voice. His exact pitch.
"Yours are hurting."
The clone shimmered, static rippling over its skin before vanishing.
Shimura gasped.
His voice again.
"I didn't hurt him. I felt him."
Her voice returned to normal. "They're loud, your clones. Like breaking glass in my head."
Shimura stared. "You can... copy?"
She shook her head.
"Not permanently. Not cleanly. I mimic. Mirror. Echo. But it burns. Every piece of someone I hold onto... tears off a little piece of me."
They both stood still.
Watching.
Not enemies. Not yet. Not sure.
She wasn't afraid of his clones. He wasn't unsettled by the way she spoke with borrowed inflection like it was natural.
They were both experiments. Errors with names. Living glitches.
"You came looking for someone else," Solene said.
He nodded.
"I thought they all died."
She turned and walked deeper into the lab. "They did. Most of them."
Then after a beat: "But not me. And not you."
Shimura followed.
And this time, the whisper in his head wasn't from his clones.
It was something else.
Familiar.
Foreign.
Curious.
In the dim light of the old facility, Solene whispered without turning back: "If you came looking for the man who did this to us..."
She finally turned around.
"I know where the others went. And I know where he went last."
Shimura's chest tightened - not from fear.
But from something older.
Hope.
Anger.
"You've seen him?"
She nodded.
"I saw your father, Shimura."
Then she added, quieter: "And if we don't move fast... he'll finish what he started."