SERA POV
The white light faded.
I gasped for air, holding my head. The burning had stopped but my brain felt like it was splitting open.
"Sera!" Dante grabbed my shoulders. "Look at me. Focus."
But I couldn't think. Because I could see things that weren't there.
Numbers. Floating in the air. Code scrolling past my vision like I was looking at a computer screen. Except my eyes were open and I was looking at Dante's face.
"Something's wrong with my eyes," I whispered.
"Let me see." He tilted my face toward his flashlight.
His face changed. Fear flashed across his features.
"What? What is it?"
"Your left eye. There's something—" He swallowed hard. "There's a screen inside it. I can see it flashing."
My heart stopped. "That's impossible."
"So is everything else about you." He helped me stand. "Come on. There's a bathroom down this tube. Old subway stop. The mirrors might still be intact."
We stumbled through the darkness. My legs felt weak. The numbers kept floating past my vision, showing information I didn't understand.
NEURAL INTEGRATION: 47% MEMORY RESTORATION: ACTIVE TIME UNTIL FULL ACTIVATION: 71 HOURS, 23 MINUTES
"What does that mean?" I asked out loud.
"What does what mean?" "The countdown. In my idea. It says seventy-one hours until full operation."
Dante stopped walking. "The voice in your dream. It said seventy-two hours until the second Pulse."
We stared at each other.
"I'm the trigger," I whispered. "When my implant fully activates, something bad happens."
"Then we stop it from activating."
"How? It's inside my brain!" My voice rose. "How do you stop a computer that's part of your body?"
"I don't know. But we'll figure it out." He squeezed my hand. "First, let's see what we're dealing with."
We reached the bathroom. Dante's flashlight showed cracked floors and broken sinks. But one mirror was still mostly whole.
I stood in front of it with shaking hands.
My image looked normal at first. Same face. Same scared eyes. Same hair falling in my face.
Then I leaned closer.
My left eye—deep in the pupil—something flickered. Like a tiny television screen buried in my eyeball. Code scrolled across it. Too fast to read but definitely there.
"Oh god," I breathed. "There really is a computer in my head."
"The neural implant," Dante said quietly. "You created it yourself. The most advanced technology ever made. It was meant to survive the Pulse."
"Why? Why would I make something that could survive when everything else died?"
"Because someone needed to remember. Someone needed to take humanity's knowledge forward." He stood beside me at the mirror. "You made yourself into a live library. Every book, every science formula, every piece of technology from before the Pulse—it's all stored in that implant."
The weight of his words crushed me. "So I'm not really human anymore."
"You're more human than anyone I know." His voice was strong. "You gave everything—including your humanity—to save people you'd never meet. That's the most human thing possible."
I wanted to believe him. But looking at my reflection—at the computer screen where my eye should be—I felt like a monster.
Then I noticed something else.
"Dante. Look at my hands. " The wiring patterns were back. But faint now. Like scars instead of burns. They traced delicate lines from my fingers to my wrists. Beautiful and scary.
I pulled up my sleeve. The circuits continued up my arm. I pulled my shirt collar aside. They spread across my neck toward my heart.
"How far do they go?" I whispered.
"All the way." Dante's voice was sad. "The implant links to every major nerve cluster in your body. That's how it interacts with your brain. That's how it survived the Pulse—it's not different from you. It IS you now."
I traced the lines on my arm. They felt slightly raised. Like scars from burns that never quite healed.
"When did this happen to me?"
"The night before you hit the button. You had the surgery. Helena placed the implant while you were under anesthesia." He paused. "You didn't know about the circuits. That wasn't meant to happen. Something went wrong during installation."
"Everything went wrong." I dropped my arm. "I was supposed to forget. Live a normal life. But instead I'm remembering everything, and my body is changing into a machine, and in seventy-one hours I'm going to—what? Explode? Kill everyone?"
"We don't know what happens. The other you—the voice—she didn't explain."
"Maybe because it's too terrible to explain."
We stood in silence. The flashlight made our shadows huge on the cracked walls.
Then my view flickered. New text emerged.
INCOMING MESSAGE SOURCE: KRONOS FACILITY SENDER: HELENA VOSS
"Helena's sending me a message," I said. "Through the implant."
"Don't open it. It could be a trap."
But I didn't have to open it. The text appeared instantly.
SERA— I know you're reading this. The implant links to our old network. I can track you. I know about the start countdown. I know what happens when it hits zero. Come back to New Haven. Let me remove the implant before it's too late. This is the only way to save everyone. You have seventy-one hours to decide: give yourself, or watch everyone die. Again. — H
My blood went cold.
"She wants to cut it out of my head," I whispered.
"She wants to control the technology. Big difference." Dante grabbed my arm. "Don't trust her. She's the one who put that chip in you without explaining the risks."
"But what if she's right? What if I am about to kill everyone?"
"Then we find another way to stop it. Together." He turned me away from the mirror. "You're not alone in this. Remember that."
But I felt alone. Completely alone with a countdown in my vision and circuit scars on my skin and a computer in my brain that might murder billions of people.
New text emerged.
NEURAL INTEGRATION: 48% WARNING: MEMORY SURGE IMMINENT PREPARE FOR CONSCIOUSNESS TRANSFER
"What's consciousness transfer?" I asked.
Dante's face went pale. "No. Not yet. You're not ready."
"Ready for what?"
"The other you. The original Sera. She's saved in the implant's memory. When merging hits fifty percent—" He grabbed my shoulders. "You need to fight it. Don't let her take control."
"I don't understand!"
"The device doesn't just store information. It saves personalities. The woman who ended the world—her awareness is in your head. And when the merger is complete, she'll wake up." His hands shook. "She'll try to take over your body. Replace you completely."
Terror shot through me. "How do I stop her?"
"I don't know. You're the one who designed this scheme. You tell me."
But I didn't know anything. I was just a scared girl with difficult scars and seventy-one hours before—
The world turned.
My view went white.
And I heard her words. Loud. Clear. Angry.
"Finally," the other Sera said. "I've been stuck in this digital prison for three months. Now move away, little girl. I'm taking my body back."
Pain exploded in my brain.
I fell to my knees, screaming.
Dante was yelling something but I couldn't hear him over the noise in my head.
"You were never meant to exist," she told me. "You were just a filler. A temporary awareness while my real body healed. But now I'm strong enough. Now I can come back."
"No," I gasped. "This is MY body. MY life."
"It was mine first." Her laugh was cold. "And I need it back. Because in seventy-one hours, my plan completes. The second Pulse starts. And four billion more people die."
"Why? We already saved humanity!"
"We saved the wrong ones." Her voice turned nasty. "I've been watching through your eyes. Seeing what the survivors became. Violent. Stupid. Cruel. They don't deserve to restart. So I'm going to finish what I started."
"I won't let you!"
"You can't stop me. You're not real. You're just facts. A copy. A ghost." The circuits on my arms blazed. "Now disappear."
The pain increased.
I felt myself slipping.
Fading.
Dying.
And the last thing I saw before darkness took me was Dante's face, yelling my name while something else—someone else—opened my eyes and smiled.