Private The Lights That Weren’t On (BIRTHDAY BASH!!!!)

[Sommer Dai]

Signa-Ki – Core Sector: Genetic Vault "Oubliette"

The door opened with the slow gravity of revelation.
Sterile white light spilled across the floor.
Cool. Endless. Clinical.

Sommer entered, and the atmosphere shifted. No more illusions. No more satin lies. This was truth, kept behind walls so pristine, they felt holy.

The room was massive, oval in shape, lined with tall vertical tubes that stretched from floor to ceiling. Inside each tube—

Women.

Some breathing. Some suspended. Some just fragments.
All bore the same bone structure. The same cheekbones. The same exact shade of hair.

Her shade.

Sommer froze.

This wasn't about a clone.
This was about hundreds of them.
Linn Dobson didn't want to make a Sommer.
She wanted to manufacture the myth.

 

[Linn Dobson]

At the far end of the chamber, a single console illuminated itself. A holoscreen blinked to life, Linn's voice resonating from above like a dry echo of God.

"Now do you see, Miss Dai?"
"We didn't want you. We wanted what you represent. The construction. The alchemy of your appeal. Every stitch of defiance, every desperate reinvention, every lie you ever told the mirror until it believed you. That's the formula we were after."

 

[Sommer Dai]

Sommer's fingers shook.

"You think you've created me," she said, teeth grit. "You don't even know me."

 

[Linn Dobson]

Linn's voice didn't rise. It didn't have to.

"But I do. I know the weight of the hunger behind your eyes. I know your night terrors. I know you'd burn the galaxy before you'd ever let anyone see the parts of you that aren't gold and perfect and adored. And I know…"
"You still believe you're only safe when you're worshipped."

 

[Sommer Dai]

Sommer stumbled back. One of the pods sparked to life beside her, and the figure inside pressed its face to the glass. Her own eyes looked back at her.


Terrified.
Willing.
Waiting.​

 

[Andrew Lonek]

Outer Fields of Signa-Ki – Perimeter Edge

Andrew exhaled deeply, his boots crunching in the sand-crusted dirt of the grassy clearing outside the facility.

 

[Greah Dobson]

Greah Dobson stood beside him, her sun-kissed skin glowing beneath the golden rays of Utapau's evening light. Her voice was warm, casual, dangerous.

"She'll be out soon," Greah said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "She's been… invigorated by our offer. Once she finishes her business proposal, we're all going to toast by the ridge."

 

[Andrew Lonek]

Andrew chuckled. But his eyes flicked down to the faint buzz against his wrist.

Encrypted ping. Sommer's personal code.
Five digits. A distress call.
And she wasn't in any field.

He looked at Greah and smiled, just the right amount of cocky exhaustion.

"You know," he said, stretching. "For a research facility, this place has a hell of a view."

 

[Greah Dobson]

She beamed.

 

[Andrew Lonek]

That's when his HUD link caught—satellite reception, faint but enough. His inner neural implant lit green.

Transmission to remote system approved.

Far off in a hidden valley, buried beneath camouflage plating—

Andrew's armor woke up.

LOCATING USER. DEPLOYMENT SEQUENCE INITIATED.

He tapped two fingers to his wrist. The ping was subtle.

 

[Greah Dobson]

Greah walked a few paces ahead, gesturing toward the highlands. Talking about energy fields. Biodomes. Plans.

 

[Andrew Lonek]

Andrew kept smiling.

But in his mind?
Every weapon was on its way.
Every ounce of bravado dropped.
And this time, he wasn't going to wait for someone to take Sommer from him.

He narrowed his eyes at the horizon.

"Just hang on, Goldie," he muttered under his breath. "I'm coming."

 

[Sommer Dai]

Signa-Ki – Genetic Vault "Oubliette"

The silence was heavy — not absence of sound, but compression.
As if the air around her recognized the moment's weight.
The clones didn't move. Most were in stasis. But a few?

A few breathed.

Sommer stood still, her eyes locked with the nearest pod — the one whose inhabitant had met her gaze. The girl inside had her face, yes, but there was something… off.


Not fear. Not awe.


Recognition.


As if she were the real thing and Sommer the reflection.

"This is wrong," Sommer breathed.

Her palm hovered just inches from the glass, fingertips trembling, tracing the curvature of the pod's surface — a match to her own hip.


The console near her flickered again.


A prompt:
[Engage Neural Link with Subject C-7?]

Initiate Communication Protocol: Y/N

She hesitated.


Linn's voice no longer echoed through the room. The system waited, silently obedient. For once, she had control.


With a breath that shook but didn't falter, Sommer pressed: Y.


The lights above dimmed. The fluid in the pod began to drain with a soft hissssss, followed by the subtle click of unlocking restraints. A slow, careful exhale emerged from inside.


And then… she stepped out.

 

[Sommer Dai]

Subject C-7.
Barefoot. Clad in a simple bodysuit.
Same hair. Same face. Same golden eyes.
But there was a difference in posture — straighter, almost military. No stage presence. No seduction.

Pure function.

The clone looked at Sommer.

"You're not afraid of me," she said, her voice crystalline and measured.

Sommer didn't blink. "Should I be?"

C-7 tilted her head. "No. But maybe of what you'll have to do to me."

Silence.

The clone moved forward, fluidly — as if she'd been practicing these movements in a dream, waiting for this moment.

"You're the template," C-7 said. "But they made us to replace you. Refine you. Correct the flaws."

"I'm not flawed," Sommer snapped. But there was a waver in it.

"Then why do you wake up screaming some nights?" the clone replied, gently. "Why did they think pain would be the key to your success?"

Sommer's lip twitched.

"Because pain was the key. But I made it mine."

Another silence.

C-7 looked down at her own hands, flexing her fingers as if wondering what they were capable of.

"I dream about your life," she murmured. "Dancing. Laughing. Screaming. Loving. I feel the things you've felt. I cry when I hear music. But they told me it's programming. That I don't feel."

"Do you believe them?" Sommer asked, stepping closer.

C-7 met her gaze. "No."

They stood just inches apart now. Mirror images — one sculpted by choice, the other by design.

"Then tell me something," Sommer said softly, "before I decide whether to burn this place down or blow a hole through your skull."

"Anything."

Sommer searched her eyes, hunted for something artificial — but what she saw wasn't programming. It was something far more dangerous.

Curiosity. Longing. Hunger for life.

"If you had one chance to be free," Sommer asked, "what would you do?"

C-7's answer came immediately.

"I'd run. Not because I'm scared. Because I want to choose who I become."

 

[Sommer Dai]

Sommer stared for a moment longer.

Then, almost imperceptibly… she nodded.

She turned to the console, flipping through the data records. Clones C-1 through C-6 were terminated. C-7 was active. C-8 through C-13: incomplete. No consciousness. Stored.

Her hand hovered over the delete command.

Then swiped sideways — and instead, opened the master override.

She began setting detonation parameters. A virus to destroy all research records and wipe the genetic matrices beyond repair. One clone would walk free.

The rest would never haunt her again.

Behind her, C-7 whispered:

"You know they'll come after both of us."

Sommer's lips curled.

"They can try."

 

[Andrew Lonek]

Outside, just over the ridge, Andrew's armor landed in the field with a tremor of durasteel. The visor blinked awake.


In the distance, he heard explosions begin to build beneath the ground.

Ping.


Sommer's signal came through clean this time.
Coordinates.
Codeword: Halcyon.
She was alive. And she was making a move.


Andrew didn't hesitate.

"Hang on, buttercup," he muttered, fingers flying across his wrist interface. "You don't need saving, but im coming anyhow."

He turned on his heel—

 

[Greah Dobson]

instantly yanked into the air.

WhhHHRRRRRRRRM!!

The Force surged like a coil snapping free. Invisible hands gripped his body mid-stride and hurled him high above the ground in a graceful, almost effortless lift. His limbs locked, spine arched — suspended in midair like an insect in amber.

From below, Greah Dobson stepped into view, her arms extended with perfect poise, face no longer smiling.

Her hair whipped in the artificial wind rising from the facility's defenses powering up.

Her eyes now blazed yellow.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, lips parting with the ghost of former sweetness. "This was supposed to be cleaner."

She released him—

—and SLAM—

He crashed into the ridge behind him, the stone wall cracking behind his spine, his body slumping in a puff of red dirt.

Greah exhaled, stepping toward him slowly, hand extended.

"I'll make this painless. You were a beautiful man, Andrew Lonek."

 

[Andrew Lonek]

"Yeah?"

His voice rasped.

"Still am."

 

[Greah Dobson]

Her eyes widened.

 

[Andrew Lonek]

From the treeline beyond the ridge—
a sudden whistle-scream cleaved the sky.


SSS-CHUNK.


The first gauntlet SLAMMED onto his arm.
Then the other.

"Command acknowledged."
"Synchronizing armor integrity."

CHUNK.

Greaves locked onto his legs.
The armored collar formed around his neck.

His HUD blinked online. The world dimmed into targeting filters.

"Didn't you wonder why I let you bring me outside?" Andrew growled, standing fully now, dust sloughing off him like ash. "You gave me reception."

The chestplate rocketed onto him with a sonic thrum, locking into place just as the back vents ignited.

BOOM.

Andrew Lonek, in full combat gear, rose from the ridge in a vertical lift-off, debris blasting from around his boots.