The Shadow in My Hand

The Mirror Breaks

The blue light from Jax's mechanical arm grows brighter. It fills the dark alley with a harsh glow. My sister Elena stands right next to him, her face completely blank, her white eyes staring right through me like I am nothing at all.

I do not want to die in this wet alley.

Jax, wait! I shout, holding up my hands. Think about what you are doing. We worked together for two years. You gave me food when I had nothing!

Jax does not lower his arm. The heavy barrel stays locked on my chest.

The council pays well, kid, Jax says, his voice flat and cold. "And family memories are just data files. You are just code on a screen."

The cannon fires.

A beam of bright blue energy tears through the air. I drop to the wet ground just in time. The hot blast passes over my back, scorching the brick wall behind me. Bits of hot stone rain down on my head.

I scramble backward on the dirty pavement. My shadow peels off the ground again, rising up like a living wall of black smoke. It grabs a heavy metal trash can and hurls it straight at Jax.

Jax dodges the trash can with surprising speed, but the move buys me a second. I spin around and run down the narrow alley as fast as my legs can push me.

Catch him! Elena calls out. Her voice has no emotion in it. It sounds like a machine playing a recorded message.

Rain pours down from the dark sky. I turn corner after corner, trying to lose them. Water splashes around my boots. My chest burns with every breath I take. I do not know where I am going, but I know I have to get away from Jax and Elena. Everything I thought I knew is a lie. My sister is not my real sister. My boss is a killer working for a secret council.

I skid to a stop at a dead end.

A high brick wall blocks my path. There is no way over it.

I turn around to run back, but Jax and Elena step into the alley entrance, cutting off my only escape. Jax keeps his heavy cannon aimed at my chest. Elena stands beside him, tapping away on the small screen in her hand.

End of the line, Project Seven, Elena says.

"Stop calling me that!" I shout, tears of anger mixing with the rain on my face. "I am Caleb! I am human!

You are a test subject," Elena replies coldly. She taps her screen harder. "Time to go back to sleep.

A strange sound fills the air. A high-pitched ring vibrates in my ears.

I look up and see a cracked, vintage mirror hanging on the brick wall beside me. It is old and dirty, covered in water spots. But as I look into it, my reflection does not move.

The stranger in the glass stares back at me. He has dark, bruised eyes and a cold look on his face.

I reach out and touch the glass with my bare hand.

The moment my fingers press against the surface, the world stops. The rain freezes in the air. The sound of Jax's heavy breathing cuts off completely. A ripple spreads across the mirror, moving outward like a stone dropped in a dark pond.

The brick wall behind the mirror dissolves into thin air. The wet alley melts away into white light.

I stumble forward, gasping for breath as the floor beneath me changes from concrete to smooth, cold metal.

The light fades.

I am no longer in the alley. I am standing inside a massive, circular room with bright white walls that shine so hard they hurt my eyes. Thick cables run from the ceiling down to my arms and legs.

I try to move my hands, but I am strapped down to a vertical metal table.

"Subject waking up," a calm, robotic voice says from the speakers above. "Neural sync stability at two percent."

I look down at my right hand.

The heavy silver ring is gone. In its place, stamped right into my pale skin, is a cold, black barcode.

Footsteps echo across the shiny floor. A man in a clean white coat walks out from behind a tall computer console. He holds a digital tablet in his hand and looks down at me with a cold, professional smile.

"Welcome back to reality, Caleb," The Scientist says.

I struggle against the metal straps, my heart pounding hard against my ribs. "What is this place? Where is Elena?"

"Elena was just a file in your memory bank," The Scientist says calmly, tapping his tablet. "District 4 is not a city. It is a computer program. And you are the most expensive experiment we have ever built."

"You are lying," I say, my voice shaking.

"Are I?" The Scientist asks. He taps the screen again, and the wall in front of me lights up.

The screen shows thousands of small video boxes. On one box, I see myself wiping tables at The Rusty Anchor. On another box, I see the alley where Jax tried to kill me. On a third box, I see a completely different life—me sitting in a school classroom, wearing a uniform I have never seen before.

"Every time you get close to the truth, we wipe your memory and start the simulation over," The Scientist explains. "You have lived this life four hundred times. You always fight back. You always try to escape. But you always lose."

A cold wave of fear washes over me. All those memories of my parents, the tavern, the hard work, the fights—none of it was real. I was never a fourteen-year-old kid trying to survive in a bad city. I am just a brain in a jar, used by people who treat me like a toy.

"No," I whisper. "No, that is not true."

"Prepare the memory wipe," The Scientist tells a guard standing near the door. "Let us reset him before he damages the system again."

The guard walks over to a large panel on the wall and pulls down a heavy lever. A loud alarm begins to ring throughout the white room.

On the big screen in front of me, a red countdown timer appears.

10... 9... 8...

The Scientist turns his back and walks toward the exit, not even bothering to watch.

I look at the countdown timer. My whole life is about to be erased. Everything I felt, every fight I fought, will be wiped clean from my brain like lines of unwanted code.

I pull against the metal straps with all my strength. My muscles burn. The metal holds firm.

5... 4... 3...

I grit my teeth. A strange, hot feeling rushes through my veins. It is not magic. It is pure, raw anger. I refuse to let them wipe me out. I refuse to go back to sleep.

With a loud roar, I throw my entire weight forward.

The metal straps snap in half with a deafening bang.

The guard spins around in shock, his eyes going wide. Before he can reach his weapon, I leap off the table and slam my fist straight into his chest, sending him crashing hard into the control panel.

Alarms shriek louder, flashing bright red light across the room.

I turn around and see The Scientist spinning back around, his face draining of all color as he stares at me standing free on the floor.

"Stop him!" The Scientist shouts, backing away. "He is breaking the core!"

I do not stop. I charge straight toward the main control screen, my bare hands glowing with a strange, fierce light.