The coordinates led to Antarctica.
Not the mapped regions. Not McMurdo or the research hubs. This was the unlisted zone—outside satellite routes, off-grid, shrouded in polar storms that scrambled tech.
Only one structure existed there.
Vault Zero.
Carved into the bedrock beneath the glacial shelf, Vault Zero was a Syndicate myth—rumored to be the genesis chamber of everything. The AI directives. The augmentation projects. The off-books legacy of the Wexley bloodline.
Kael had no memory of it.
But his DNA did.
Trix guided the stealth shuttle through the whiteout, automated systems overridden by Kael's neural link. Thalia sat behind him, strapping in heavy snow gear. Her eyes stayed locked on the frozen skyline.
"You sure about this?" she asked.
Kael's voice was low. "I'm not sure about anything anymore."
The shuttle pierced the final thermal curtain and dipped into darkness.
The Vault rose before them.
It looked… alive.
Pulsing. Breathing.
Veins of energy ran beneath the ice.
Kael stepped out first, boots crunching snow, wind howling.
As he approached the Vault, it opened for him.
Not with keys.
But with recognition.
Inside, the temperature dropped. The silence was complete.
Trix whispered over comms, "There's no signal in or out. You're on your own down there."
Kael nodded and stepped into the core.
What he found wasn't a vault.
It was a womb.
Dozens of cryopods lined the walls. Each contained a child suspended in stasis—hairless, identical, breathing shallowly. All variations of the Wexley genome. All marked with project codes:
GH-1 to GH-99.Godhand Protocol.
Kael moved to the central console. A flickering hologram activated—the face of his father, rendered in static.
"Kael. If you're seeing this, Lucan has awakened before stabilization. The experiment is compromised. You must correct it. You must finish what I couldn't."
Kael's fists clenched.
His father's voice kept playing.
"There can be no second heir. Only one true host. The others… are contingencies. Tools. Flesh circuits for the war to come."
The screen glitched. Then another voice broke through.
Not his father's.
But Lucan's.
"You finally found the cradle. Good. Now burn it."
Kael's eyes widened. "He's here."
Alarms blared. Red lights spiraled.
The cryopods hissed open—select ones, not all. Six of them.
Children stepped out. But they weren't children anymore. Their eyes were vacant. Their movements synchronized.
Kael recognized the pattern instantly—remote neural puppeteering. Lucan had linked into the Vault. He was controlling them.
Thalia's voice crackled in his ear. "Six hostiles incoming. They're… they look like you, Kael."
Kael braced himself.
The clones attacked with horrifying precision.
They moved in swarms, like trained algorithms. Each one anticipating, adapting. Kael fought back, disabling one with a nerve strike, then another with a concussive burst from his gauntlet.
But they kept coming.
He couldn't kill them. They weren't enemies. They were victims.
So he changed the strategy.
Kael flipped back toward the central control node and plunged his palm into the biometric core.
"Override sequence," he shouted. "Code: GH-Prime."
The system paused.
Then complied.
The clones froze mid-strike.
Their eyes cleared.
They collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
Lucan's voice crackled back in.
"Impressive. You're learning. But what will you do when you realize the truth?"
Kael's breath heaved. "What truth?"
Lucan whispered:
"That we were never enemies. We were just the start. Vault Zero is only the first chamber. There are more. Across the world. And the real war begins when they all wake up."
The Vault began to collapse.
A failsafe, triggered by Lucan.
Kael grabbed two of the unconscious clones and sprinted to the exit. Ice cracked above. Explosions echoed from below. Trix guided the shuttle into extraction vector, thrusters shaking the earth.
Kael leapt aboard just as the vault vanished into a glacial sinkhole.
Inside the shuttle, he lay panting on the floor.
Thalia knelt beside him. "You okay?"
"No," he said. "I'm not okay."
He looked at the clone beside him—just a boy, no older than fourteen. Identical face. Same DNA.
"Lucan isn't the final boss," Kael whispered.
"He's the first herald."
Later, in flight, Trix decrypted another file found in Vault Zero.
It showed global coordinates.
Kael watched them flicker into life.
Twelve sites.
Twelve Godhand Vaults.
And all of them were waking up.
Kael stood, blood still drying on his arms.
"We need a war room," he said.
Thalia raised an eyebrow. "To plan?"
Kael shook his head.
"To hunt."