They left the motel just before dawn.That night, Sophia hadn’t written a thing in her sleep. Ever since the humming stopped, she hadn’t said much. It was like she was following an internal path, completely lost to the outside world.Ash checked the vehicle’s black box twice. Still no signal. Still no pulse. Damien wiped the windshield with his sleeve, waiting for somethinganything to happen.They drove in silence along back roads until they stumbled upon a half-flooded gas station near a deserted checkpoint.No cameras. No bodies. No lights are working.A perfect spot to disappear.Ash offered to scout the supply route to the east exit while Damien stayed back with the car. Sophia sat inside, her hand pressed against the glass.The air felt heavy.He turned his back for just seven seconds to pop the trunk and check the fuel converter.When he looked back, Sophia was gone.No sound.No movement.No footsteps.No alarm.Just emptiness.He called Ash on the short band.She was back in t

The trail led them to a dead graveyard.Not for people.For satellites.A stretch of fenced-off government land in Nevada, littered with the remains of old surveillance gear, tangled fiber coils, and antenna masts half-buried in sand.The maps labeled it a waste site.The system called it quiet.Beneath the central basin lay an access node.Not military.Civilian-flagged, decommissioned, no paper trail.That’s where they found him.Dr. Ira Kemble.A mathematician. A signal theorist. He used to work as a predictive behavior analyst for Eclipse Phase I.He hadn’t spoken to anyone in four years.He opened the hatch before they even knocked.Kemble lived in a square concrete cell, about four meters underground.No books.No bed.Just a desk and one wall plastered with printouts. All numbers. Line after line. Each one was manually printed.No system in sight.Ash stood at the door, watching him closely. Damien stayed near the exit, while Sophia stood still in the middle of the room.Kemble

The signal hit Ash’s internal node at 3:12 a.m.No ping. No breach alarm.Just a quiet auto-download marked as private.The file name didn’t mean anything it was just a jumble of numbers followed by the word “mirror.”She didn’t open it right away.Instead, she copied it to a secure offline slate, disconnected the node, and stepped outside.The others were still asleep.Or maybe just pretending.She settled beneath the leaning tree outside the safehouse and hit play.The footage was crystal clear.No static.No flicker.The scene unfolded in a long corridor. Steel walls. Harsh yellow lighting.At first, there was no sound.Then came the footsteps.Damien appeared at the far end.Calm. Tactical.He walked with purpose, head down, weapon drawn.From the opposite side, Sophia entered.She wasn’t in a rush.She was waiting.He raised the weapon.She stopped.Then he pulled the trigger.Ash paused the video.Tried to rewind.The controls didn’t budge.The image resumed.Damien stood over S

The coordinates were already there.After the reset, Ash handed Damien a note.It wasn’t sent through a message.She had tucked it away in her left boot.No time stamp.No signature.Just numbers.Damien read the numbers twice, keeping quiet.Sophia glanced at them and nodded.She said she recognized the pattern from her dreams.Claimed she had walked through that place before in silence.Ash said she didn’t recall being there.But her heart raced when Damien mentioned the name.Grey Hollow Substation.Abandoned since Eclipse Phase One went dark.Officially decommissioned.But really? It might as well have never existed.They drove through the rain.No radio.No map.Just their instincts and the sound of silence.Ash kept her gaze fixed ahead the whole time.Sophia sat in the back, resting her hand on her chest like waiting for something to kick back in.Damien gripped the wheel tighter than he needed to.They stopped about five miles from the site.Ash marked the perimeter.No guards

The rifle felt heavier in her hands.Ash stared across the stark white room at another version of herself. Same stance. Same breathing rhythm. Same scar under her left eye.But something was off about this mirror Ash.Her grip was too steady.No sign of hesitation.Ash shifted her footing.The other one mirrored her move a moment later.That tiny delay was telling.She wasn’t seeing herself; she was being copied.Eclipse wasn’t just reflecting her; it was studying her reactions.A voice echoed from above.Not spoken, really.Just hung in the air.You are the baseline. She is the divergence.Ash responded silently.No microphones in the room.Just her will.Prove it.The ceiling lit up with two heart rate readings.Both the same.Then one started to climb.The other stayed steady.Ash watched closely.The climbing heart rate suddenly dropped.It matched hers again.Then the mirror Ash took a step forward.Ash raised the rifle.The other didn’t move.Instead, it spoke.In her voice.Sam