The safehouse smelled like gunpowder and regret.
Kai bandaged his burned hands in silence while I scoured the dark web for any traces of ECHO's creator. The System, mySystem now, hummed in my mind like a second heartbeat.
System Alert:Incoming Secure Transmission. Origin: Unknown. Encryption Level: Divine.
A video feed flickered to life on my laptop.
A woman's face filled the screen.
Dr. Lillian Voss.
My mother.
Dead for twelve years.
Alive.
Smiling.
"Hello, Ariella." Her voice was exactly as I remembered, honey laced with arsenic. "I see you've met your sisters."
The screen split, showing footage of the other Ariellas escaping the lab. My clones. My echoes. My failures.
Kai's knife clattered to the floor. "What the hell—"
"Mommy dearest," I whispered, fingers digging into the keyboard. "You built this?"
She tilted her head, a gesture so irritating that made my skin crawl. "Correction: I built you.Version 47, to be exact. The only one who survived the transfer."
The room tilted.
All those childhood memories, her reading me bedtime stories, braiding my hair, dying in that car crash
It's all a lie.
A script.
I was never human.
System Notification:Genetic Identity Confirmed. Host is 89.7% Organic, 10.3% Synthetic. Primary Directive: Locate and Assimilate Creator.
Kai grabbed my wrist. "Ari, just breathe—"
I wrenched free. "*How long have you known?*"
Lillian sighed. "Kai was supposed to guide you to me, not ton fall in love with his assignment."
His what?
Kai's face went bone-white.
I didn't need the System to calculate the truth.
Every touch. Every promise. Every "I'll protect you"—
A mission.
Lillian clapped her hands. "Enough drama! Ariella, darling, you've exceeded expectations. Now it's time to come home."
The screen changed.
Coordinates.
A countdown.
72:00:00
"Three days," Lillian crooned. "That's how long your little clones will survive without my stabilization serum. Bring me Julian Carter's head, and I'll save them."
The feed died.
Silence.
Then—
Kai reached for me. "Ari, let me explain—"
I shot him.
Not fatally.
Just enough to hurt.
As he crumpled, I grabbed my pack and walked out into the rain.
New Mission:Kill Lillian Voss. Optional: Make It Slow.
The System whispered:
Remember, Ariella…
You were always the weapon.
Now it's time to fire.