PART 1: Signal from Paris
Southern Île-de-France — October 29, 2025 // 01:38 a.m.
Inside an unmarked signal van – A7 autoroute, inbound to Paris
The van's interior was lit only by instrument screens, throwing soft glows across Evelyn's face as she leaned over a cluttered workspace. Jack sat nearby, half-silent, staring at a topographical map of the city on a mounted tablet.
Izzy stood against the side panel, arms crossed, watching the night blur past through a tinted window slit.
Evelyn didn't speak for a while.
Then—
"She's not hiding."
Jack looked up.
"Leah?"
Evelyn shook her head.
"The other one."
She tapped a string of code on her screen. A neural pattern lit up: spectral rhythm, vocal cadence, subsynthetic trace. Matched against a recent broadcast.
"Name's Diane Corveau. Public figure. Founder of NeuroMir — a Paris-based biotech firm claiming to be building 'consciousness-integrated therapeutic modeling.'"
Jack blinked. "That's a lot of syllables for something no one understands."
Evelyn half-smiled. "Because it's not meant to be understood. It's camouflage. But she's using the same cognitive interface pattern Leah responded to. Down to the modulation timing. That's not a coincidence."
Izzy leaned in. "You think she activated Leah."
"I think," Evelyn said carefully, "she helped call her in."
She brought up a still image from a recent NeuroMir symposium.
Diane Corveau stood at a podium, backlit by an abstract blue-white logo. She wore a dark suit, minimal jewelry, eyes sharp as glass. Same bone structure as Leah. Same smile. But older. Colder. Composed in a way no eighteen-year-old ever was.
Jack stared.
"I know that look."
Izzy turned. "What look?"
He didn't blink.
"The one someone gives when they're not trying to be you.
They're trying to replace you."
PART 2: Ghosts of the Seine
Paris — October 29, 2025 // 21:03 p.m.
NeuroMir Gala Barge, Port de Solférino – moored on the Seine
Paris glittered just enough to make danger look like a painting.
The NeuroMir barge floated under the shadow of the Musée d'Orsay — a sleek, silver-hulled vessel converted into a mobile showroom for elite biotech demonstration. Invitations were printed on metal foils and only responded to by encrypted RFID handshake.
Izzy adjusted the neckline of her formal jacket and slipped an earpiece into place.
"Three guards at the boarding ramp. Don't act curious. Act entitled."
Jack frowned at his tuxedo's tight sleeves. "Do I have to?"
Evelyn walked ahead of them, hair pinned and sleek, a borrowed clutch in one hand and a tap-activated data relay embedded in her bracelet.
"Relax. You already look like a morally flexible accountant."
Jack opened his mouth to retort but didn't. They were waved through.
Inside, the gala was silent opulence. Polished chrome beams. Frosted display tanks. Projected neural diagrams ghosting across pale walls. French and German drifted through the room — murmurs of investors and dignitaries.
And then she stepped out.
Diane Corveau.
Same eyes. Same jawline. Her hair was swept into a strict knot. Her voice rolled smooth and deliberate.
"We are standing at the edge of a mirror," Diane said from the stage.
"The question isn't whether it reflects us—
It's whether we'll recognize what's looking back."
Jack froze.
It wasn't Leah.
But the shape of her. The architecture. Like someone had folded her into a corner and sharpened the edges.
Izzy murmured into the mic, "See the guards? Patterned shoulder seams. Internal comms. Not decorative."
Evelyn nodded. "She's not just projecting power. She's preparing for something else."
"Like what?" Jack asked.
Evelyn's eyes tracked the room.
"Like someone's coming who might not agree with her being alive."
PART 3: The Fracture
Paris — October 29, 2025 // 21:15 p.m.
Aboard the NeuroMir Gala Barge, Port de Solférino
The barge swayed gently against the quay, moored in silk-black waters that mirrored the city lights like a trembling constellation. Above them, the sky had cleared. No clouds. Just the open dark — crisp and endless, sharpened by the chill that always came early to Paris in late October.
A line of soft golden lanterns rimmed the deck, casting slow-dancing reflections along the Seine. The Eiffel Tower pulsed in the distance, flashing once every minute like the slow heartbeat of something enormous pretending to sleep.
Guests had begun to quiet.
The soundscape fell to murmurs, champagne flutes clinking softly, footsteps absorbed by velvet carpet. Then the lights dimmed — not sharply, but like a theater curtain easing down across the day.
That's when Diane stepped onto the stage.
Alone.
No escort. No title card.
Only her, beneath a ring of subtle white lights that gave her the pale, deliberate glow of something carved rather than born.
She stood still for a moment — letting the silence deepen.
And then she spoke.
"Good evening.
We are standing, tonight, at the edge of a mirror.
And like all mirrors — it does not show us the future.
It reflects our hesitation.
For centuries, the mind has been treated as the final frontier of medicine.
We mapped the body. We decoded the genome.
But we still fear ourselves.
We fear what we are when the noise is stripped away.
What if that fear is misplaced?
What if consciousness isn't a singular flame, but a signal — transferable, expandable, maybe even recursive?
What if we stopped asking 'how do we cure the mind'…
and started asking: 'how do we evolve it?'
NeuroMir isn't building an upgrade.
We are not gods.
We're cartographers.
We study the topography of thought, emotion, and intent —
and we draw new lines.
Safer ones.
Sustainable ones.
Scalable ones.
And yes — we begin with the sick.
But not because they're broken.
Because they are closest to change.
What you're investing in tonight is not a product.
It's not even a therapy.
It's an architecture.
You're not funding a fix.
You're helping build the next standard.
Thank you."
Paris – NeuroMir Gala // 21:52 p.m.
Service corridor behind the projection stage
The crowd applauded softly as Diane exited the platform, her smile fading the moment she passed through the curtain.
She was alone for six steps.
Then Izzy stepped out of the shadows, arm rested casually on a railing, like she'd been waiting for hours.
"Hell of a speech. Almost made me forget you're not human."
Diane didn't flinch.
"Detective Diaz. The soldier who became a watchdog."
Izzy smiled faintly. "Still better than a ghost that thinks it's earned a body."
They walked in a slow parallel — an orbit that neither broke.
"You came for Leah," Izzy said.
"No," Diane replied. "She came for herself. I only made the door visible."
Izzy's hand hovered near her sidearm, but didn't move.
"You're manipulating her."
"She was manipulated before she could speak," Diane said. "By Arthur. By Jack. By you. I simply offered a choice."
Izzy stepped in close now.
"You think you're the next step."
"I know I'm the surviving version."
There was no arrogance in Diane's tone. Just clarity.
"You look at me and see a reflection. But what I see—" she paused, eyes cool "—is divergence. Evolution isn't about compassion. It's about continuity. I remember what Leah fears. I just… stopped fearing it."
Izzy didn't speak.
"You're trying to protect something that's already shedding its skin."
Izzy leaned in, voice low.
"If she dies because of you—"
"Then I'm all you'll have left," Diane said, evenly. "And I won't need your permission to continue."
They stood there.
One made from steel.
The other from precision.
Only one of them was breathing harder.
PART 4: Digital Tether
Paris – Safehouse, Rue des Fossés Saint-Jacques
October 30, 2025 // 00:27 a.m.
The flat was sparse — hardwood floors, exposed beams, blackout curtains. Izzy had used it during a Europol sting a decade prior and never erased the access code.
Evelyn sat cross-legged on the floor with her laptop propped on a canvas stool, a half-eaten apple forgotten beside her. Jack paced in the corner. Izzy checked weapons and watched the street through a sliver in the curtain.
"There's a node," Evelyn said, finally.
Jack paused.
"Where?"
"Montparnasse. Old fiber route buried beneath an abandoned maintenance line. It's been quiet for years, but something reactivated it last week."
She pulled up two side-by-side signal maps. One from Salamanca. One from Paris.
"Same handshake. Same microburst timing. Almost identical cognitive compression envelope."
Jack frowned. "So Diane was reaching out."
Evelyn hesitated.
"No. Leah was."
She turned her screen.
"Diane didn't build the channel. She kept it open."
Izzy looked over.
"For what?"
Evelyn met her gaze.
"Not to trap her. To meet her. Synchronize. They're not just clones, Izzy — they're iterations. Parts of the same algorithm, expressed in different lives. Diane's been broadcasting this whole time."
Jack exhaled, stepping back.
"So Leah didn't run to anyone."
Evelyn nodded. "She ran with someone."
PART 5: Sibling Logic
Paris – Safehouse, Rue des Fossés Saint-Jacques
October 30, 2025 // 04:12 a.m.
The city outside was asleep — all glass and sodium orange, the rain coming down now in light, meticulous threads. It hadn't been forecasted.
Jack leaned against the window, one hand pressed to the cool pane. Evelyn sat cross-legged on the bed, her laptop humming quietly on the blankets. Izzy hadn't spoken since they got back. She was in the next room, cleaning her pistol like it could give her an answer.
Then the alert pinged.
One message. No metadata. No IP trace.
The file name read:
"Sibling Logic"
Evelyn opened it.
A video. Sixty-one seconds.
Leah sat in a chair — dark background, neutral light. Not hostage video. No duress. Just her, speaking plainly.
"I know you're watching this," she said.
"You're probably already trying to find me.
Don't."
She looked slightly to the side — not quite into the lens.
"I'm not gone. I'm not in danger.
I'm going with them.
Not because I believe them — not yet.
But because I need to know what I am, away from all of you."
A breath.
"I don't know who started this.
But I know it won't stop with me."
Her eyes came back to the lens.
"I'm not your secret anymore."
The screen went black.
Silence.
Jack replayed it. Once. Then again.
He didn't cry. He didn't curse. He just sat down slowly on the floor, like gravity had renegotiated its terms.
After a long beat, he asked the only question that felt real.
"If she made her choice…
what does that make us now?"
No one answered.
Outside, the rain continued. Slow. Unapologetic.