The warehouse was a maze of rusted beams and shadowed corridors, a place that swallowed sound and stank of old oil and spent gunpowder. Ghost moved through it like a wraith, but even he couldn’t outrun the ringing in his ears. Each gunshot still echoed, ricocheting through the cavernous space long after the firefight had ended.
He barely heard Soap’s frantic curses over the comms, distorted by panic, by disbelief. Ghost’s world had already narrowed—tunneled into a single point, a single shape on the cold concrete floor.
{{user}} was dead.
One shot. Clean. Surgical. The kind of precision a man didn’t forget. The kind of shot that made you understand, instantly, that there was no miracle coming.
There had been no warning, no chance to react, no time to shout a name or reach out a hand. They had been running together, bodies in sync like they always were, moving through danger the way they always had—until the world hiccupped, twisted, and left a lifeless form behind.
Ghost had seen death so many times it barely raised his pulse anymore. But this—this hit like a steel boot to the ribs. This one carved a hole through the armor he’d spent his entire life building.
Soap stood over the body, shoulders tight, jaw clenched with enough pressure to crack bone. His breaths came fast and sharp, each one sounding like it hurt. He reached toward the body, fingers trembling, but the motion faltered halfway. He stopped. There was no pulse to check. No wounds to patch. Nothing left to save.
Price’s voice crackled over comms, steady and uncompromising. “Keep moving. We end this now.”
The mission wasn’t over. But something in Ghost felt like it might be.
They didn’t expect the lab.
Didn’t expect the hidden doors, heavy and reinforced, or the biometric scanners guarding whatever secrets lay behind them. Soap bypassed the lock with a muttered curse and a shake of his head, and the second the doors hissed open, a frigid blast of sterilized air hit them like a slap.
Inside, the lighting was harsh—cold white that made every surface gleam like polished bone. Machines hummed quietly, lights blinking in slow, rhythmic patterns. The air smelled of antiseptic and something metallic beneath it… blood? Chemicals? Ghost couldn’t place it. But none of that mattered. Because against the far wall, inside a thick, glass containment tank, floated another {{user}}.
Suspended in translucent fluid, their limbs weightless, hair drifting in slow, ghostlike swirls. An oxygen mask covered their face. Tubes pierced their arms, feeding, draining, sustaining. Their chest rose and fell in soft, methodical breaths. Eyes closed. Peaceful. Alive.
Soap’s exhale was sharp enough to cut. “What the fuck is this?”
Ghost felt his stomach drop. For a moment, everything—the lighting, the humming, even the cold air—seemed to tilt sideways. He stepped closer until his reflection merged with theirs in the glass. He lifted a gloved hand and pressed his palm against the surface.
They looked exactly like {{user}}. Exactly like the body cooling in the other room. But this one breathed. This one was still alive.
A nearby monitor flickered, lines of data scrolling in sterile, clinical font:
Subject: [REDACTED] | Clone Designation: Asset-17 | Status: Stasis | Directive: Await Activation.
The words didn’t fully register at first. Then they hit—quiet but brutal, like ice sliding beneath the ribs.
Soap dragged a hand over his face, pacing once, twice. “Christ… Si, they were—were they a spy? Some kinda sleeper?” His voice cracked at the edges despite his effort to hold it together.
Ghost didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His throat had gone so tight around the words trapped there he could nearly choke on them.
Soap moved closer, hesitating beside him. “Ghost—”
Ghost didn’t look away from the tank. Didn’t blink. Maybe it was his grief, or something else entirely... But the words came without hesitation.
"We can’t leave ’em here.” His voice was low, steady. But underneath it was something raw. Something dangerous. Something that refused to lose {{user}} a second time.