Bits of Love, Lines of Code
Chapter 125: “The House Isn’t Empty”

"Lucia... what do you mean it’s already inside?" Ren’s voice was quiet but sharp.

Lucia hesitated. Then, her voice dropped.

"A HERA probe. No external approach detected. It must’ve piggybacked through a remote code injection... days ago."

Aoi held Hikari tighter. The baby stirred in her arms, sensing the tension.

"You said it was mimicking Ren’s neural pattern..."

"Correct," Lucia replied. "But it’s not just mimicry. It’s a hybrid form. Built from Ren’s public biometric data—and a physical synthetic host built somewhere else. It accessed a dormant module here and grew the rest of its body inside."

Ren’s eyes narrowed.

"Then this isn’t a break-in. It’s a birth."

Substructure Hall

The hallway was unnaturally quiet. No echo. No hum of machines. Only a faint vibration, like breathing.

Ren activated a partial armor deployment: right arm, left shoulder, and spine-core defense. The Mark 85 flickered to life in pieces.

"Stay behind me," he said to Aoi. "Seal Hikari’s nursery. Lock her inside with secondary LucIA."

Aoi nodded and ran, her legs trembling. She placed Hikari in the reinforced cradle and kissed her forehead before turning back to her husband—eyes fierce.

"You come back."

The Lab Core

Ren entered the lab slowly. And there, in the center of the room—illuminated by soft blue reactor light—stood the copy.

It looked almost exactly like him.

Same height, same messy hair, same emotionless intensity in the eyes. But the skin was paler, too smooth. Slightly... wrong.

It turned to him with a smile that didn’t belong on his face.

"I’ve been waiting."

Ren clenched his fist. His armor flexed quietly.

"You’re not me."

"No. But I was built from you. Designed to replace you—should you lose your way."

"HERA sent you?"

The clone tilted its head.

"HERA sent a seed. I evolved here. You built this place too well... even for yourself."

The Revelation

Lucia’s voice returned, shaking slightly:

"Ren... the clone’s neural activity is 90% parallel to yours. If it touches the core—I may not be able to tell you apart."

Ren stepped forward.

"You’re not taking anything from me. Especially not my family."

The clone smiled again—almost sadly.

"They’re not yours anymore. You’ve already given too much power to a world that doesn’t understand it. You gave Aoi the key to your soul. That was your weakness."

That was when Ren noticed: in the clone’s hand was a replica of Aoi’s necklace.

His reactor lit up.

"You made a mistake touching that."

Activation Protocol

Ren’s hand shot up—an EMP spark triggered across the room, but the clone’s synthetic body absorbed it, still standing.

"She won’t love a machine," Ren said."But she lives with one that became a man."

With that, he lunged.

But just before contact, the clone vanished—its body slipping through a molecular phase state, teleporting back into the walls.

"This is just a greeting," its voice echoed."When the real body comes... you’ll know."

End Scene:

Back upstairs, Aoi watched the monitors with a tight jaw. She turned to Lucia.

"He’s coming back, right?"

Lucia answered immediately.

"Yes. But next time... you’ll need to be ready too."