A week had passed since Ishan emerged from the Chronostasis Chamber. The Observatory was quiet now, like the silence after a storm. The staff had either evacuated or gone into hiding, unsure if another clone or worse would show up next. The scars of the battle remained in scorched walls, fractured tiles, and burnt circuitry.
But within the Observatory's heart, something precious had returned.
Amira sat on the Observatory's balcony, her gaze turned upward to the sky as Ishan stood beside her, a cup of tea in his hands. He still looked the same—yet not. Something in his eyes had changed. Not just maturity or sadness, but depth. A sense of time far longer than what his body should have known.
"How much do you remember?" she asked gently.
Ishan sipped the tea before answering. "Everything. Even things I wasn't supposed to. Like your favorite book when you were 19. Or the first song Dad ever danced with you to."
Amira smiled, tears silently slipping down her cheek.
"He must've told you so many things."
"He did more than that," Ishan said softly. "He left his memories in me. All of them."
Deep beneath the Observatory, Silas ran scan after scan on Ishan's vitals, brainwaves, and neurological mapping. The data was impossible.
"He's... a paradox," Silas said, awestruck. "He's got double-layered memories—his own childhood and the embedded stream from Rayan. It's like having two lives."
"It shouldn't be possible," Amira whispered.
"That's not all," Silas added. "There's a cognitive fusion. Rayan didn't just leave memories. He left instructions. A plan."
Ishan entered the lab, overhearing them.
"They're coming back, aren't they? The Ministry. The project never really ended."
Silas nodded. "I monitored ripple signatures. Whatever energy Vektor used—someone tried to recreate it two days ago."
Amira's hand clenched. "Then we don't wait."
That night, Ishan returned to the room his father had used. Dust covered the desk. Shelves remained untouched. And in the center sat a single sealed black case.
A retinal scanner blinked to life as he approached.
ACCESS GRANTED.
Inside lay a sphere.
Sleek. Black. Pulsing with blue veins of light.
The Core of Aeon.
A time engine prototype Rayan had never tested.
A handwritten note sat beside it.
"This isn't to go back. It's to go beyond."
The next morning, the Observatory's labs came to life again. Amira led a team of trusted scientists. Silas managed quantum systems. Ishan… became something else.
Not a child. Not a vessel.
A leader.
And as he activated the Core of Aeon, systems hummed, holograms lit the air, and timelines unfolded before their eyes.
They weren't trying to fix the past anymore.
They were preparing for the war in the future.
In a cold dark chamber, far beneath the capital, monitors blinked alive. A man with mirrored eyes watched the Observatory's reawakening.
He turned to his advisors.
"Initiate Phase Two. Send the next prototype. This time... make sure it remembers nothing."
To be continue...