Security cameras outside the chamber began glitching.
Cassian noticed it first.
"She's destabilizing the room," he said to Julian, voice sharp.
Julian was already halfway to the lift. "We need to get her out."
"She's generating glyphs," Cassian snapped. "Directly into nullspace. That's impossible."
"Not anymore," Julian said. "Open the door."
Inside, Julia stood frozen as the symbols glowed brighter.
The resonance field wasn't attacking her.
It was forming around her.
Her breath came ragged.
The glyphs began spinning in slow orbits, each tethered to a part of her body—shoulders, hands, spine, eyes.
She could feel her thoughts stretching. Not in pain.
In scope.
Like her brain had started using hallways she hadn't known were there.
And with it came memory.
Not hers.
Hers-and-not-hers.
The first breach.
Not from this world.
From a lab. A room like this.
A child screaming—
Her.
No—one before her.
A prototype.
Broken.
Burned.
Terminated.
Then silence.
Then her.
