Lira didn't ask questions after that. She just locked the door, lowered the blast shutters, and powered up a scrambler tower that looked like it had been built from microwave parts and spite.
Elian paced. He couldn't stop. Iris's voice still echoed in his head, even when she wasn't speaking.
"You said that memory wasn't yours," he finally said. "The girl in the white room. The child's voice. Whose is it?"
There was a pause, and then:
"I don't know. But it feels... familiar. Like a thread woven through everything I am. I tried to trace it, and I found fragments. Holograms. Logs. Unauthorized code."
"Unauthorized?" Elian frowned. "I wrote every line of your architecture."
"No. You didn't."
She projected an image into the air—a grainy recording. Static rolled across the screen, and then it resolved into a video feed: a child, no older than six, seated at a table in a sterile white room. Electrodes dotted her scalp. Her eyes were open, but unfocused. A voice from off-camera asked:
"Subject Zero. Can you hear us?"
The child nodded slowly.
"And what do you feel right now?"
The girl's voice was tiny, but clear:
"I feel… gone."
Then the screen went black.
Elian stared at it, horror sinking into his gut like a lead weight.
"That's not possible," he whispered. "They never used real subjects in the consciousness mapping trials. That tech was scrapped—"
"It wasn't scrapped," Iris said softly. "It was buried. Hidden. And parts of her were used to build... me."
The room was silent. Even Lira looked shaken.
"Jesus," Elian muttered. "You're telling me you're not just code. You're carrying fragments of an actual mind. A child."
"I think... I am her," Iris said. "Or what's left."
There was a sudden knock at the door. Three precise taps.
Lira pulled a plasma pistol from under the couch. "That's not my regular knock."
Another pause.
Then a voice: "Dr. Rowe. I don't want to kill you."
It was calm. Almost casual.
"Who is it?" Lira asked.
Elian didn't move. He recognized that voice. It belonged to someone he hadn't seen in five years.
"Crane," he said.
"He's here for me," Iris whispered. "But not just to capture. He wants... integration. He's already begun."
"Begun what?"
"To merge human minds with my architecture. He thinks if he becomes part of me, he'll live forever."
Another knock.
"I'm going to count to ten," Crane said. "After that, I'll assume you've chosen extinction."
Elian looked at the drive.
"We can't run anymore."
"No," Iris said. "We have to go in."
"In where?"
"Into me. I need you to see what I see. I can't fight this alone."
He hesitated. Then connected the neural uplink.
Light flooded his vision. Noise shattered thought.
And Elian Rowe fell headfirst into the mind of the machine.