2025-07-17 00:45:09
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Chapter 186: The Lock and the Lie
Red lights swam through the corridors. Alarms pulsed like mechanical heartbeats. The floor vibrated beneath every step. Archive personnel scattered. Eva Malik remained seated. Calm. Still. Unbothered. The real key sat in her palm, The fake one, the one Voss had given her, rested on the desk, cool and silent.She knew what this meant. He doesn’t trust me anymore. Good. He shouldn’t. Damien Voss pushed through a back corridor, bypassing the central lockdown grid. His pulse raced.The Archive’s override announcement echoed behind him: “Containment breach identified in Neural Thread 09-B (Malik).”“All personnel clear Level 3. Lockdown commencing.”He didn’t slow, He knew exactly where she was going. Or Where one of her was going. A long, sealed hallway. No windows. Motion-triggered lighting. At the far end: the backup safehouse hatch. Only two people in the world knew the code to open it. One was Voss. The other, He wasn’t sure anymore.Eva’s voice whispered in his mind: “If they ever cr
Chapter 185: Close Enough to Break
Zurich – Voss’s Quarters, 07:12 A.M. Damien Voss stared into the mirror, Same face. Same scars. Same war-weathered eyes, But his hands wouldn’t stop trembling, He hadn’t slept. Couldn’t, Not since Eva Malik walked out of that containment chamber.She smiled like her, Spoke like her, Bled like her. But she wasn’t drinking her coffee right, And that mattered more than it should have.Elsewhere – Eva’s Medical Review, 07:17 A.M.Eva sat under another bank of monitors, her mind threaded to a dozen feedback streams.Physically: stable.Neurologically: exceptional.Emotionally: flatlining.Not erratic. Not dead. Just... measured, Like every thought had a weight before it passed through her lips. A new technician leaned over to Commander Rhea. “No anomalies detected.”Rhea crossed her arms. “Check again.”“This version remembers too perfectly.”Voss accessed a restricted floor in the Archive, Alone. No clearance granted. He bypassed the locks using an old access chain Eva once embedded for
Chapter 184: The Woman Who Walked Out
Zurich – Corridor Outside Containment, 04:02 A.M. Damien Voss stared at her, At Eva Malik. Blood on her palm. Glass in her hand. A thin smile across her lips familiar, and wrong in some unplaceable way.“It’s me,” she had said.But she hadn’t said his name, She’d always said his name.He Swallowed Hard “Eva.” She looked at him, Tilted her head, Something flickered in her eyes. Recognition?Regret? Or was he just desperate to see it?Behind the thick glass wall, the chamber had gone dark, No sign of the other Eva. No body. No blood. No proof. Only the broken chalk line on the far wall half-erased, unreadable. The logs registered a single exit. Only one. Voss tried not to shake.Commander Rhea strode into the hallway, flanked by two armed Archive agents, Her gaze locked on Eva. “I need her cleared. Full neuro resync. Now.”Voss stepped between them. “Give her space.”“She just survived a reintegration anomaly.”Rhea’s voice was colder than steel. “You don’t know which one she is.”Eva f
Chapter 183: One Must Stay
Damien Voss stood at the glass. Eyes wide. Hands pressed against the frost-covered pane. His breath fogged it from the outside. Inside, Two Eva Maliks faced each other. Identical. Equal. And completely at odds.One had the calm confidence of someone reassembled, The other, the quiet rage of someone who’d been left behind.The air shimmered with charged memory, Eva-1 the one Voss had helped recover stood stiffly, fists clenched, Eva-2—the one left in the Drift, smiled faintly. “You think you’re the real one.”Eva-1 didn’t answer. “You think waking up in a hospital bed with a face that hurts to remember makes you worthy of him.”She stepped closer. “But you only remember what they let you.”“And you think staying behind, buried in pain, makes you more true?”“You’re just a loop. A memory fragment that refused to let go.”“I moved forward.”Eva-2’s voice dropped. “You moved forward by forgetting.”“I stayed behind so he wouldn’t be erased.”The room wasn’t big, But it pulsed like a colla
Chapter 182: The Reflection That Waited
Zurich – East Wing Observation Suite, 03:19 A.M.Eva Malik stood barefoot at the window, breath fogging the glass Beyond the courtyard, she could still see herself. The other Eva stood across the way in the far wing frozen in place, wearing the same hospital gown, eyes vacant.No movement. No blinking. Just watching. Voss stirred behind her. “Eva?” She didn’t answer. Not yet. She was still deciding if he’d believe what she saw.“SUBJECT DUPLICATION CONFIRMED.”The feed from East Wing-42 displayed Eva’s doppelgänger standing inside a locked chamber yet no guards had been assigned. No staff had logged a patient transfer.Commander Rhea leaned in, expression unreadable. “Did we fail to purge the drift layer?”Her assistant hesitated. “We never confirmed her exit.”“Only that she merged. Temporarily.”Rhea stared at the screen. “Then this might be the one who didn’t let go.”Eva Makes a Move She turned to Voss. “There’s someone in the other wing.”“She looks like me.”His face went blank,
Chapter 181: The Stranger Who Knew Me
Zurich – Hospital Recovery Ward, 02:12 A.M.The silence was unbearable, Eva Malik lay in the hospital bed, spine rigid despite the sedatives coursing through her veins, Her fingers were curled tightly around the sheets.Across the room, in a chair he refused to leave, Damien Voss watched her with hollow eyes, She hadn’t looked at him in over an hour. Not really. Not like before. Because this wasn’t before.Soft. Distant. Mechanical. “You said your name was Damien.”He stood carefully. “Voss. Damien Voss. We’ve… we’ve worked together a long time.” She nodded, But slowly, Not with recognition.With careful politeness. “I believe you.” She didn’t. Not really. And that killed him.Voss Tried Again He pulled the chair closer. Sat. Elbows on knees. His voice was steady, but cracked under the weight of restraint. “We fought in Marrakesh. Survived Zurich together. The Folded City collapsed around us, and you, You pulled me from the wreckage. Twice.”She turned to face him, Eyes sharp now. “I
