📖 SABOTAGE – Book One: The Ghost Protocol (C-5)

✨ Chapter 5: “The Ghost Recruit”

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INT. DIVISION 9 – SUBLEVEL ACCESS

The lift moved like a coffin on a wire.

Janelle stood still, arms folded behind her back, expression unreadable. The elevator walls pulsed faint blue as internal scanners ran silently across her body—bones, muscles, emotions.

> “Vitals: stable.”

“Loyalty Signature: 96%.”

“Emotional Drift: suppressed.”

“Memory Sync: intact.”

But they didn’t know.

The readings were lies—reflections from a hollow mask she’d built over years of forced obedience.

And deep beneath the layers of implanted memory and scripted patriotism… she was wide awake.

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FLASHBACK – TWO YEARS EARLIER

A crumbling apartment. A real Nairobi, not the synthetic one built by Division 9’s towers.

Her brother, Malik, sat on the floor across from her, holding a glowing pendant.

> “They’re watching people now,” he whispered. “Not just with cameras. With code. Through memories.”

> “That’s insane.”

> “They’re rewriting activists. Hackers. Even doctors. Making them forget who they were. I found the backup servers.”

That was the last night she ever saw him.

He vanished before sunrise.

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INT. CURRENT DAY – DIVISION 9 VAULT / LAB 12

Janelle walked into a test chamber glowing with simulated memories.

A synthetic forest. A virtual fire. A projected child version of herself running in loops.

She blinked twice.

Her view glitched—briefly showing Division 9 drones replacing the trees, and control lines crisscrossing the simulation.

An agent across the room whispered:

> “Subject 118, are you stable?”

She nodded.

> “Yes. Just a ghost echo. Nothing dangerous.”

But it was more than an echo.

It was her true self, slipping through.

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INT. KIM’S MOBILE LAB – NIGHT

Kim patched into a corrupted memory file retrieved from Lency’s last escape.

A distorted image of a girl appeared—around 8 years old, clutching a cracked VR headset and a beaded bracelet. Her skin was darker than Lency’s, and her pendant glowed faint purple.

Kim whispered:

> “Who are you?”

The system pinged:

> RECORD TAGGED: SUBJECT MALIK. PROTECTED FILE.

> “No way…” Kim sat up straight. “Janelle’s not just a recruit. She’s Malik’s sister.”

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INT. DIVISION 9 – SECURITY SURVEILLANCE CUBE

Alex watched the same simulation glitch Janelle had just seen.

> “There’s something in her neurofeed,” he said aloud.

> “Shall we reset her?” a technician asked.

Alex shook his head.

> “No. Let’s follow the ghost. Sometimes ghosts lead to treasure.”

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INT. JANELLE’S SLEEP CHAMBER – NIGHT

She lay still, eyes closed.

But behind her eyelids, the memory firewall collapsed for a moment—and her brother’s voice echoed in her mind:

> “Truth always leaks, Janelle. Even through silence.”

Her eyes opened. Cold. Awake.

> “I’m coming for you,” she whispered.

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TO BE CONTINUED…