The countdown hit 06:00:00 with a sound like breaking bones.
All at once, the facility's lights died. The lasers winked out. Even the screaming alarms choked into silence. In the perfect dark, I heard it - the wet, clicking approach of the things wearing our faces.
Then the emergency power kicked in, bathing the surgical bay in pulsing ultraviolet. The shadows it revealed weren't shadows at all.
They were membranes.
Translucent skin stretched over skeletal frames, our features poorly imitated like wax figures left in the sun. The one with my face tilted its head, jaw unhinging to reveal a throat full of squirming black filaments. When it spoke, my own voice came out corrupted:
"You're obsolete models."
Insha's doppelgänger raised hands pulsing with subcutaneous light - the same pattern as the facility's laser grid. "We're the upgraded versions," it said through her stolen larynx. "Compatible with the eclipse protocol."
Zayn suddenly spasmed upright on his table, his black eyes reflecting the UV glow. "They're not replacements," he gasped. "They're carriers. Living vessels for whatever's in those canisters."
A metallic taste flooded my mouth. I looked down to see black fluid welling between my teeth. The wound at my side had reopened, but the blood wasn't mine anymore - it moved with purpose, forming tiny shapes like corporate logos before dissipating.
Aaron's containment tube shattered outward. His reflection - no, Flight Engineer Cho - stepped through the broken glass without a single cut. His movements were all wrong, joints bending in impossible directions as he approached the nearest doppelgänger.
"Initiate synchronization," Cho's voice echoed from all four walls at once.
The facility's screens flickered to life, displaying security feeds from other bunkers. In each one, I saw variations of our group: different faces, same terror. Same countdowns reaching zero. Same doppelgängers emerging from the dark.
The monitor labeled FACILITY B showed Shanghai's skyline at dawn - but the sun wasn't rising. It was dividing, black tendrils cracking across its surface like an egg hatching.
Zayn grabbed my arm, his fingers already half-transparent. "They didn't engineer an outbreak," he whispered. "They engineered a reception."
The doppelgängers spoke in unison now, their voices harmonizing into something distinctly non-human:
"The eclipse was never the event. It's the doorway."
Then the real screaming started - not from us, but from them, as their stolen faces began melting under the UV lights, revealing what waited beneath.