Chapter 10: Red Victor

  The private jet sliced through the early morning sky, silent above the clouds. Inside, Victor sat motionless, eyes fixed on a map projected onto the cabin wall. Red dots glowed like infection points across continents.

  Every red dot marked a known associate. Every dot was someone dead—or about to be.

  Across from him, Selene sat with her legs crossed, flipping through classified dossiers Linn had decrypted. She was quiet, focused, her sharp eyes scanning every word.

  Then she froze.

  “This one…” she muttered. “Vera Krol.”

  Victor glanced up.

  Selene slid the folder across the table. “Surveillance operator for Ghost Protocol’s Europe sector. Disappeared two days ago. Base of operations was in—”

  “Budapest,” Victor finished, already rising.

  The pilot’s voice came over the comm. “Sir, we’ll be over Budapest airspace in twenty minutes. Do we land?”

  Victor stared out the window. The clouds below were painted in deep reds and golds.

  “Yes,” he said. “Burner landing strip. No transponder. We go in silent.”

  Selene nodded. “If Red Victor’s pattern holds, he’s already there.”

  Victor’s voice was low. “Then let’s ruin his routine.”

  ---

  Budapest – Abandoned Opera House

  The location was poetic. Victor understood why his counterpart chose it.

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  The Opera House had been shut down for decades, a collapsing beauty in a city that still whispered about wars no one recorded.

  Inside, the ceilings were painted with gods. Now they peeled like rotting skin.

  Victor and Selene entered through a maintenance tunnel, bypassing motion sensors with custom hardware Linn had rigged from scrap and paranoia.

  They moved like shadows.

  Selene covered the upper tiers with a silenced pistol. Victor descended to the orchestra pit.

  He found her there—Vera Krol.

  Dead.

  But it wasn’t just a body.

  The message was carved into her chest, deep and deliberate:

  “COME HOME.”

  Victor stared.

  Selene stepped closer. “He’s not just killing.”

  “No,” Victor murmured. “He’s trying to wake me up.”

  From the shadows, a low chuckle echoed across the empty stage.

  Victor turned, weapon raised.

  A figure stepped into the spotlight. No stage crew. No audience.

  Just him.

  Red Victor.

  Same face. But not the same.

  This one smiled wider. Moved looser. Like the rules of the world didn’t bind him anymore.

  “You made it,” Red Victor said. “Good. I was afraid you’d forgotten your roots.”

  Selene raised her gun. “Drop the act. You're just another lab experiment gone rogue.”

  Red Victor grinned. “Aren’t we all?”

  Victor stepped forward. “Why Vera?”

  “She was a conductor of lies,” Red Victor replied. “I’m simply rewriting the symphony.”

  Victor’s voice was cold. “What do you want?”

  “You, of course,” Red Victor said, his grin never fading. “But not to kill you. Not yet. No… I want you to remember.”

  He tossed a small cube onto the stage.

  It projected a hologram: a memory Victor didn’t know he had.

  A boy.

  A glass chamber.

  A voice screaming from behind a wall: “Subject Twelve is showing empathy! Isolate the deviation!”

  Victor’s breath hitched.

  Red Victor saw it. Fed on it.

  “Now do you feel it?” he said. “That itch? That fracture in your perfect logic?”

  Victor clenched his jaw. “I don’t need to remember. I need to end this.”

  He raised his pistol.

  Red Victor opened his arms.

  “Shoot, then. Kill the part of yourself you’re afraid of. Bury me. But know this—every death I leave behind carves deeper into you. I’m not your enemy.”

  His voice dropped to a whisper.

  “I’m your origin.”

  Victor hesitated.

  Selene didn’t.

  She fired.

  Red Victor dodged the bullet, disappeared into smoke like a ghost with purpose.

  The hologram vanished.

  Victor stood still, his finger twitching.

  Selene approached him. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” Victor said. “He’s two steps ahead. He wants me angry. Impulsive.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he knows that’s the only way he wins.”

  Selene looked back at Vera’s body.

  “He won’t stop,” she said.

  Victor looked at the words carved into her skin again.

  COME HOME.

  And for the first time in years…

  Victor didn’t know what “home” meant anymore.