The sky over Tripoli was dust-stained and smoky.
Black-market ships moved through Libyan waters under moonlight, filled with old Soviet tanks, Chinese rifles, and American satellites — none of which had legal clearance, none of which had serials. Just one thing tied them together: Vekom's signature.
The clone overseeing North Africa was called "Zulu-3." He wore a patched military jacket and spoke a dialect fluent in war. He'd just finished arming a rebel cell in Sudan when a coded message flashed in his retinal display.
New Shipment Request – East Africa Command.Client: Classified.Request: 1,500 Automatic Rifles, 100 Drone Swarms, 3 Armored Vehicles (Untraceable).Offer: $120M USD. Immediate Transfer.
Zulu-3 confirmed.
Within minutes, three cargo ships were rerouted from a Turkish port. None of them flew real flags.
Each carried weapons that had never touched Earth's conventional markets.
Meanwhile, in Munich, Vekom's European clone, "Echo-2," posed as a high-end weapons consultant for private security firms.
But the clients he met weren't businessmen.
They were power-brokers — arms traffickers, deposed warlords, and even rogue EU officials who believed in prepping for a shadow war that was never officially acknowledged.
Echo-2 stood at the head of a private gala, sipping wine, eyes scanning encrypted signals in the background.
On a marble display stood three new prototypes:
A railgun embedded in a titanium briefcase.
A sniper rifle that fired hypersonic rounds guided by ocular implants.
And a compact drone swarm capsule that responded to biometric triggers.
The crowd didn't clap. They bid.
By the end of the night, Vekom's European pipeline had brought in $310 million.
System Update: Europe Armory Active.New Contracts Pending: Serbia, Belarus, Ukraine (Black Ops).
Total System Funds: $35.3B.
But Vekom wasn't interested in numbers anymore.
What he needed now was infrastructure.
He ordered the clones to initiate Project Crucible — a secretive global factory network buried beneath abandoned mines, islands, and failed cities.
Each Crucible node would:
Manufacture weapons using replicated blueprints from Earth's history.
Host clone training and cybernetic augmentation labs.
Operate as independent, undetectable supply hubs, resistant to satellite surveillance.
The first was constructed beneath the ruins of an old jungle prison in Panama. The second — inside a glacier fissure in Greenland. The third — a hidden black site in eastern Ukraine's conflict zone.
They weren't just factories.
They were warfoundries.
As his empire expanded, Vekom sat in a fortified observatory atop the Andes, alone — the original.
Below him, clone command centers buzzed.
A hologram map tracked every operation:
Arms flowing through Nile tributaries.
Drone fleets deployed along the Balkans.
Vaults in Argentina now turned into conversion labs for illicit currency.
And at the center of it all — the Lord of Arms System.
It pulsed, evolving.
System Level Up: Dominus Bellum – Tier II Access.New Feature Unlocked: Clone Assimilation.Description: Integrate clone consciousness into targeted host bodies. Permanent control. Global manipulation.Caution: High system exposure risk.
Vekom didn't flinch.
He gave the go-ahead.
First test: a Colombian general, long retired, now a consultant for the DEA.
Within minutes of contact, his brain patterns were overridden. His eyes turned hollow. He saluted the air — and then whispered his first command.
"Awaiting upload."
Within the hour, Vekom controlled his first infiltrated government official.
Second test: a private tech CEO in Texas.
Third: an international banker in Zurich.
Each success meant more access. More intelligence. More tools to manipulate the playing board.
But even Vekom knew shadows cast shadows.
Back in Washington, the Operative Omega contact sent another encrypted warning.
"We're not the only ones watching. London is moving. So is Beijing. The Vatican wants a dossier on you."
Vekom leaned back in his chair, smiling.
Let them watch.
Let them guess.
None of them knew the system existed.
That same week, in Iraq, Saddam Hussein sent a message.
He wanted an entire mobile weapons factory moved into the desert — something no satellite could see, something that could shift with the dunes.
The cost?
"Name your price," the message said.
Vekom replied: "Three oil fields. Lifetime control."
Hours later, a map blinked into his console. Three red dots marked in the heart of Iraqi land — untouchable by conventional forces.
The deal was done.
System Update: Global Fuel Source Secured. Energy-Cost-Linked Weapons Now Free to Produce.
The game had changed.
Back in Medellín, the streets were quieter now. The era of flamboyant kingpins was over. Pablo Escobar's name faded into graffiti, his empire gutted.
But the real power?
It had shifted to shadows.
Vekom controlled every former smuggler route. Every corrupt port. Every gun-toting barrio that once served Escobar now answered to a faceless dealer whose name no one knew.
Except those who tried to stop him.
And they were dead.
A drone feed buzzed alive in his observatory.
One of his American clones had just infiltrated a weapons summit in Nevada, hosted by rogue CIA splinter cells. They were planning to hijack global arms deals and track illegal networks using A.I.
The clone walked through the crowd.
He smiled.
And then — detonated.
Operation Firewall Complete.23 Rogue Analysts Terminated.Network Surveillance Delayed by 18 Months.
No hesitation. No witnesses.
Only results.
As the sun set over the Andes, Vekom stood alone at the edge of his platform.
He had no army.
He had clones.
He had no nation.
He had networks.
He had no flag.
He had the system.
And now, the world was his chessboard.
The next step wasn't profit.
It was dominion.