The outer doors creaked as they opened — slow, heavy, frozen in place.
Adanna stepped inside the Arctic base, pulse steady but alert. Her breath came in sharp clouds, her boots crunching against the frost-laced floor.
No alarms.
No movement.
But she felt it — eyes, sensors, something unseen.
Watching.
Always watching.
Silas followed with his scanner humming quietly. "No EM signals, no heat. Place is running on backup power."
"And yet," Malcolm muttered, "the doors opened."
Adanna didn't speak. She already knew.
It wanted them in.
They reached the central corridor.
A long stretch of steel and frost, littered with sealed chambers labeled in cryptic shortcodes: SP-01, SP-02… SP-19.
"Subjects," Silas whispered. "All test variants."
Adanna paused in front of SP-07.
Something tugged in her chest.
A feeling.
Recognition.
She wiped frost from the glass.
Inside was a tank.
And floating in the murky suspension — a body.
Small. Female. Scarred.
Dead.
She looked like Adanna.
But… not quite.
"This one didn't survive," Silas murmured.
"She's me," Adanna said, voice hollow.
"No," he said gently. "She was before you."
Adanna backed away slowly. "How many?"
"Twenty-two," Silas said. "You're SP-22."
In the center of the base was the Archive — a sunken chamber with glowing data walls, pulsing slow and steady.
She stepped into it alone.
Malcolm and Silas stayed back — it was her past. Her burden.
The Archive lit up at her presence.
A voice crackled to life.
Neutral. Genderless. Monotone.
"Spindle Prototype 22. Query: Status?"
Adanna swallowed.
"Alive. Unshackled. Disconnected."
"Irregular. Proceeding with final log release."
Screens ignited around her.
Footage.
Of her childhood.
Her surgeries.
Her neural conditioning.
The moment Cade took her hand for the first time and whispered: "You're going to save everything."
She watched it all.
Every lie.
Every manipulation.
Every time she thought she made a choice — it had been prompted.
Guided.
Programmed.
The Archive voice returned.
"Final command authorization requested. Shutdown sequence available."
Adanna stared at the interface.
Just one button.
One touch.
She could wipe it all — the experiments, the records, every trace of Spindle.
And herself.
All gone.
Malcolm's voice buzzed faint through her earpiece. "You don't have to do this alone."
But she already was.
She raised her hand.
Paused.
And said, "Initiate shutdown. Preserve subject memory log. No erasure."
The Archive hesitated.
"Purpose?"
Adanna looked at the flickering footage.
And smiled.
"So I remember what they did — and make sure no one else forgets."
The room went dark.
Then still.
Then silent.
Outside, she stepped back into the snow.
The wind hit different now.
Cold, yes. But honest.
For once, the silence didn't feel like surveillance.
It felt like peace.