Adrian's pov
We walked until sunrise.
Until our hands blistered and our bodies shook and the key she'd pulled from her own ribs began to glow when we got close to the outpost.
Zeta was waiting.
Not alone.
With a child.
And the child looked exactly like her.
Exactly like Rhea.
Adrian's pov
They called it freedom.
But when we stepped beyond the gates of St. Augustine's, it didn't feel like freedom. It felt like surveillance without walls.
The same sky. The same wind. But underneath it all, that same watching. Like someone had only widened the cage.
Rhea hadn't said a word since we left the compound.
Not even when the last building fell. Not even when we saw the smoke curling into the dawn like it was begging the world to notice.
We had no money. No phones. Just the clothes on our backs and a duffel full of stolen drives.
And still—I'd never felt more alive.
Until we reached the city.
Then I understood.
We weren't free.
We were hunted.
---
Rhea's pov
The first thing I noticed was the billboard.
Not the lights. Not the people.
The billboard.
Downtown Core, above the hyperloop station—holographic, flickering between government-approved ads and emergency notices.
And in between them?
A face.
Mine.
Smiling. Gloved. Compliant.
> "Missing: Rhea Virelle. Subject under psychiatric observation. Do not engage."
I stopped breathing.
Adrian grabbed my arm. "That's not you."
"But it is," I whispered.
Because the girl on that screen was the version they had perfected.
And now they were offering her as bait.
---
We stayed in the shadows.
Old alleyways. Rooftop vents. Anywhere off the grid.
Adrian kept his hand around mine like he thought I'd vanish.
I didn't blame him.
I felt half-vanished already.
"They're rewriting the world," I said once, barely loud enough to be heard.
Adrian didn't answer. But he looked at me the same way he always had.
Like I was still the real one.
---
Adrian's pov
I found us shelter in an abandoned train station on the outskirts of Sector 9.
Dust thick enough to choke a man. Surveillance long since dead.
We slept in shifts.
Or tried to.
She never slept.
Just stared at the ceiling like it was whispering things only she could hear.
"You're still here," I said to her one night.
She blinked at me slowly. "I am."
"Why?"
She hesitated.
Then whispered, "Because you looked at me when there was another version of me in a tank—and still chose this."
---
On the third day, we broke into a Foundation facility.
Low-security. Outer district.
We needed access. Answers.
But what we found wasn't data.
It was a video feed.
Live.
Of us.
> Walking through Sector 7.
> Standing in line at a bakery that didn't exist.
> Kissing outside a subway terminal we'd never seen.
All in perfect detail.
But we'd never been there.
"They're manufacturing sightings," I realized.
Rhea's voice was dry. "They're rewriting the future in real-time."
---
Rhea's pov
They were spreading us like a virus.
Every screen. Every channel. Every whisper on the street.
But it wasn't us.
It was the story of us.
Curated. Sanitized. Romanticized.
The monster and the girl. The experiment and the anomaly.
They were building a legend so that no one would ever believe the truth.
"They're not just hunting us," I said, almost laughing.
"They're mythologizing us. So when we die—no one questions it."
Adrian's jaw clenched.
"Then let's make the myth bite back."
---
Three nights later.
We hacked into an info-hub during the blackout window between 3:04 and 3:07 a.m.
That's when we found the real files.
> A new initiative.
> ECHO+.
Funded by the same lab that had built me.
A list of cities. Names.
And at the top:
"Adrian Vale – Reinstatement Candidate"
My throat closed.
He didn't blink.
But his voice was cold.
> "So now they want me as the program."
---
Adrian's pov
They thought I was broken.
Now they wanted me back.
As their weapon.
They were building a new facility in Sector 12.
Codename: The Vessel Project.
They'd put a face on it. Mine.
But it was always about her.
Because as long as she lived—so did the loop.
"They'll try to make me forget again," I said.
Rhea met my eyes.
> "Then we make sure there's nothing left to forget."
---
We left the info-hub in silence.
The streets were colder now.
Not from wind—but intent.
I could feel the world turning toward us like a compass toward blood.
But for the first time…
Rhea turned to me in the dark and didn't look away.
And she said:
> "They want to erase us."
> "Then let's make sure they remember what happens when you try."
Adrian's pov
It was always going to end in fire.
We just didn't know whose.
The plan was simple—find the new facility, wipe the servers, destroy the backups, vanish again.
Except nothing involving the Foundation was ever simple.
And when Rhea said, "We're not breaking in to sabotage. We're breaking in to burn the future before they light it,"—I knew she meant it literally.
We'd become the kind of story that only ended in ash.
But no one told us the building had already been watching.
---
Two Hours Earlier
Sector 12 was quieter than we expected.
Too quiet.
The compound was sleek—new concrete, glass-walled corridors, fiber-optic veins under the floors. No guards. No obvious cameras.
Rhea's jaw tightened.
"They're letting us walk in."
I nodded. "Which means they want something."
"Or someone."
We split at the upper mezzanine—her to the data core, me to the incineration archive.
Standard mission.
But when I reached the lower hall, my name was already on the door.
> A-03: ACCESS GRANTED.
And that's when I knew.
We'd walked into a test.
Again.
---
Rhea's pov
The new data core was colder than I remembered.
Clinical. Silent.
Rows of machines that purred like something was breathing inside them.
I didn't wait.
I jammed the override spike into the port.
Files blurred past too fast to catch.
Then froze.
One folder lit up.
> PROJECT: BURN PROTOCOL
Inside: My name. Adrian's. A new list of protocols.
One that chilled me.
EMOTIONAL SEVERANCE INITIATIVE — LIVE TESTING IN PROGRESS
Target: A-03
> "They're not here to catch us," I whispered.
"They're here to rewrite us."
---
Adrian's pov
The moment the alarms blared, I knew she knew.
The compound didn't seal.
It breathed.
Doors locked.
Then unlocked.
I ran.
The hallway curved back into itself like an Escher drawing. I reached the same spot three times. Then a new room appeared—
White. Perfect.
And in the center, a chair.
Straps. Syringe.
Mirror.
Rhea stood on the other side.
Or—someone who looked like her.
She smiled.
> "You were always meant to return, A-03."
> "This is where you complete."
---
Rhea's pov
They duplicated me.
Or rather, copied the version of me they wanted him to remember.
The girl who smiled. Who never disobeyed.
I watched her on the monitor—watched her touch Adrian's face.
He didn't flinch.
He didn't fall.
But he didn't walk away either.
And that was enough.
The panic was cold. Precise.
Because I didn't fear she would hurt him.
I feared he might believe her.
---
Adrian's pov
The fake Rhea's voice was so close.
Her touch. Her mannerisms. Everything engineered to be familiar.
She said things the real Rhea hadn't.
> "They made you for me," she whispered.
"You don't have to hurt anymore."
She reached for my hand.
But mine was already clenched.
Because real love doesn't echo like programming.
And real Rhea?
She'd never ask me to be less than I was.
I stepped back.
"I wasn't made for you," I said.
"I chose her."
---
The lights glitched.
The walls split.
And then the real Rhea crashed through the door—eyes blazing, holding the same crowbar she'd used the first time we escaped.
She didn't wait.
She swung.
The duplicate's face shattered like glass.
Because that's what it was.
A projection.
A test.
One he passed.
One we passed.
And as the walls began to melt—screens distorting, system glitching—the real message came through.
> "TARGETS CONFIRMED: CORE VARIABLE STABLE UNDER EMOTIONAL PRESSURE."
> "RECOMMEND PHYSICAL SEPARATION. INITIATE ISOLATION EVENT."
And then—
The floor beneath Adrian collapsed.
Gone.
---
Rhea's pov
I screamed his name.
Too late.
He vanished into black.
The system had him.
And I had three minutes before the compound erased itself.
So I ran.
With the spike drive.
With the last uncorrupted files.
With the truth that they knew he'd choose me—
And had planned for it.
Because the Burn Protocol wasn't about fire.
It was about severing.
---
Adrian's pov
I woke in a chamber with no doors.
No sound.
No sky.
Just one screen.
A loop.
Rhea crying.
Then Rhea burning.
Then nothing.
A voice spoke:
> "You love what you remember. So we're going to take that, too."
And I knew—
They weren't killing me.
They were rewriting me.
From the inside.
Again.