The alley reeked of copper and decay. The body of a local government official lay sprawled across the damp pavement, his torso carved open like an art project. Pieces of him were missing—discarded or rearranged, not for any medical purpose, not even for ritual. Just because Elias Revere could.

  He had worked slowly, taking his time. No fear. No hesitation. The United World prided itself on control, on its advancements, on its supposed ability to regulate the human condition. But Elias had proved them wrong. Again and again.

  The rain slicked his hands, washing away some of the blood, but not all of it. His knife gleamed under the dull glow of the streetlight, a tool he had no intention of abandoning. Somewhere out there, his copies still roamed. Some dead. Some missing. He had long since lost count.

  It didn't matter.

  Nobody could stop him.

  Then the shadows shifted.

  A gunshot rang through the alley. His body jerked as pain seared through his shoulder. He staggered, breath hitching, and turned in time to see the armored figure emerge from the darkness.

  Lieutenant Adrien Cole.

  "You're done, Revere," Cole said, stepping forward, weapon steady. "No more running. No more killing."

  Elias bared bloody teeth in a grin. "Are you sure about that?"

  Cole fired again. This time, Elias dropped to his knees. The pain was distant, almost amusing. His mind ticked through possibilities—escape, attack, bargaining. But as the weight of his own body dragged him down, he knew.

  They'd finally gotten him.

  The trial of Elias Revere dominated global broadcasts. His was not the first case of murder in the age of genetic perfection, but it was the most horrifying. Fifty-eight victims in total. Parents, children, politicians, and drifters alike had met their gruesome ends at his hands—or, more disturbingly, the hands of his clones. The public wanted more than justice. They wanted answers.

  How had it happened? How had a man been cloned nearly thirty times without detection?

  United World had banned human cloning for over a century. It had been hailed as a moral victory, ensuring that no person could be copied against their will. Yet here he was—Elias Revere, or at least what remained of him. Revere-30 was the only one left. The others had been hunted down over the years, one by one, their violent tendencies making them easy to find. But with each capture came an unsettling truth: every iteration had full knowledge of the crimes of the original. They carried his memories, his desires, his insatiable need to kill.

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  And the public wanted to know: Were they responsible for his crimes? Or was someone else pulling the strings?

  "He took everything from me. My sister, my niece. Their bodies were found three weeks after they disappeared, and what he did to them—" Emma Holloway’s voice broke as she spoke before the tribunal, her grief raw and exposed. "He wasn’t human. He was something else. Something worse."

  The world watched as survivor testimonials played across screens, each one more gut-wrenching than the last.

  “He broke into our home while I was sleeping,” said Victor Drennan, a man who barely looked alive himself. “I only survived because he wanted me to watch while he—while he tore my wife apart.” His hands clenched into trembling fists. “He smiled the whole time.”

  The tribunal chamber was silent, save for the soft weeping of the audience.

  Journalists dissected every detail of the case, fueling a media storm that refused to die down. The biggest question loomed like a specter over the investigation: who had cloned him? How had he been recreated, time and time again?

  Reports surfaced that an underground geneticist, Dr. Ethan Vale, had once worked for the United World’s Bio-Engineering Division before disappearing without a trace a decade ago. Leaked documents suggested that Vale had been conducting unauthorized experiments in memory transference before his exile. If true, it meant Revere-30 wasn’t just a physical clone—he was a perfect mental replica. Every cruel thought, every twisted desire, all intact.

  The revelation sent shockwaves through the public. The system had promised safety. The system had promised control. And yet, it had failed in the most horrifying way possible.

  Lieutenant Adrien Cole had seen his fair share of horrors in his century of life. At 112, he still looked no older than 60, thanks to tissue regeneration and genetic optimization. But experience had aged him in ways no science could reverse.

  Tonight, the world was watching. A live feed beamed across the United World, the execution of the last surviving clone of Elias Revere—the man who had proved that even in an age of perfection, monsters could still exist.

  Cole stood on the other side of the glass, observing the restrained figure. This Revere—number 30—was identical to the original. Same piercing green eyes, same lean frame. But was he the same man?

  "Do you ever wonder," said Doctor Lin, the head of genetic ethics, standing beside him, "if we punished the right ones?"

  Cole turned to her, his expression unreadable. "They all had his memories. His instincts. They killed as he did."

  Lin sighed. "But they were made without choice. Brought into existence after the fact. Copies of a man who'd already lived."

  Cole had no answer for that. The law was clear, but justice had grown complicated in this new age.

  Inside the chamber, the execution proceeded. Revere-30 did not struggle. Instead, he locked eyes with Cole through the glass and mouthed words that sent a chill through his engineered bones.

  "I am not the last."

  The serum flowed. The body stilled.

  But Cole’s unease did not fade.

  In the days following, reports surfaced of another murder with the same precise, grotesque signature. The victim's remains were displayed like a morbid work of art. The barcode scan revealed something impossible: a genetic match to Elias Revere.

  Panic spread like wildfire.

  Was there another clone out there? Had Dr. Ethan Vale created more than just thirty? Or worse—had he found a way to keep the cycle going indefinitely?

  Cole stared at the report in his hands, his jaw tightening.

  They had promised the world that this was over.

  But perfection had always been an illusion.