Riley Cross stood in the center of the lab and tried to breathe.
Air came in, but it felt borrowed—like someone else had taken the first half of every inhale and left the rest for her. Her fingers still trembled with the residual hum of chamber energy. Her skin was softer now, her limbs longer, but it was her spine that felt most foreign. It thrummed—like a violin string someone had just plucked.
She wasn't used to being this still.
Or this loud inside her own head.
Behind her, Daphne Thorne adjusted the calibration device mounted on the wall, her movements steady, methodical. The woman had been silent for nearly fifteen minutes, running quiet diagnostics, reworking the lab feed, sealing off any trace of their illegal transformation.
Riley finally broke the silence.
"I feel like I'm vibrating."
"You are," Daphne said without turning. "Your soul is still syncing. It takes time."
"How much time?"
"A few days. A week. Longer if you fight it."
"I'm not fighting anything."
Daphne looked over her shoulder. "You're arguing with the way your lungs work now."
Riley huffed—and coughed.
Daphne returned to the panel, smirking.
Later, back in the sealed observation dorm, Riley stood in front of the full-length mirror mounted to the inside of her locker. Not because she wanted to admire herself. But because she couldn't stop looking.
She turned her head to the side.
Hair longer now. Cheekbones are a bit higher. Shoulders narrower.
Everything felt like her, but slightly... out of order. Like someone had remade her from memory, and gotten the parts mostly—but not entirely—right.
The strangest part, though, wasn't what she saw.
It was what she felt.
Daphne was near.
Not just in the next room. Not just physically.
She could feel her—like pressure behind her eyes, like warmth humming just under her ribs. She could tell when Daphne moved, even without seeing. Could feel when her heartbeat accelerated—usually when she was concentrating.
I could feel it when she smiled.
And she could feel her watching.
Riley turned around.
Daphne stood in the doorway.
"You're not subtle," Riley said.
"You're not quiet," Daphne replied. "Your thoughts are leaking."
"Sorry," Riley muttered. "Still adjusting."
Daphne entered, placed a small packet on the desk—compressed nutrition wafers and a cup of mineral broth.
"You'll need to eat more. The chamber burns energy you don't have. Your new muscle mass is still acclimating."
"Does this mean I get out of physical training?"
Daphne snorted. "It means we double it."
They trained in secret—early mornings, after curfew, between scheduled drills. Daphne disabled lab door logs and jammed the biometric readers while Riley ran simulations and movement calibrations. Everything about her was faster now. Stronger. But also... more connected.
She could dodge a drone before she saw it.
Sense movement behind walls.
Sometimes, she said something just as Daphne thought it.
And then stopped. And stared.
"I didn't mean to—" Riley started.
"You didn't read my mind," Daphne said quickly. "It's not telepathy. It's... alignment. Soul resonance."
"But it's not supposed to be this strong, right?"
"No," Daphne admitted. "Most Soul Links take weeks to cohere. But ours—" She paused. "Ours fused in under twelve hours. That's... unprecedented."
"Does that scare you?"
Daphne met her eyes. "Yes."
Riley looked away.
The nightmares started on the third night.
Not screams or monsters—though there were echoes of those too. What haunted Riley's sleep were fractures.
Memories that didn't belong to her.
Snowfields and burning trenches. A red-haired girl dying in her arms.
A whisper: Hold on.
She awoke drenched in sweat, heart pounding.
Daphne sat across the room, eyes wide open. She didn't ask what Riley had seen.
She had seen it too.
And it had been hers.
"You said the bond nearly killed you when your partner died," Riley said the next morning, holding her protein pack between her fingers like it might vanish if she stopped paying attention.
Daphne nodded slowly. "Yes."
"So if something happens to you—"
"We don't talk about that," Daphne said sharply.
"But we have to."
Daphne looked at her—really looked. "Do you regret it?"
Riley didn't answer right away.
Then: "No."
Silence.
"You?" she asked.
Daphne didn't move. Her eyes softened, but her jaw stayed tight.
"No," she said. "But I am terrified."
"Of dying?"
"No. Of what we've become."
A week passed.
And it became clear that whatever they were—it wasn't normal.
The resonance only deepened.
When Riley focused, she could see electromagnetic trails left by machines.
When Daphne touched a piece of burned-out divine tech, she could hear its last function echoing back through her fingers.
They started communicating in complete silence—finishing each other's gestures, thoughts, breath rhythms.
At night, Riley dreamed of things she shouldn't know: ancient texts, pre-Divide rituals, languages she'd never studied. Daphne awoke muttering war chants in dialects only the upper command would recognize.
"We're not just linked," Riley whispered one morning. "We're... rewritten."
Daphne didn't argue.
Because she'd started to feel it too.
They weren't just connected.
They were becoming something else.
It wasn't long before the veil of secrecy began to fray.
Riley's new ID—synthetically generated, buried under layers of fake logs and field deployment records—had been accepted without question.
But Brael returned.
The inquisitor.
He didn't speak to them.
Didn't stop them.
But watched.
Too long.
Too still.
And Riley felt it—like a thread being tugged behind her ribcage.
He knew.
One night, she told Daphne everything she'd felt.
Daphne sat at the lab console, staring at the reflection of their data files on the black glass of the monitor.
"If he finds out," Riley said, "he'll report us."
"No," Daphne said.
"Why not?"
"Because I deleted his clearance."
Riley blinked. "You what?"
"I rewrote his access feed. He thinks he's been monitoring us through a secure line." Daphne looked at her, calm. "He's been watching a simulation I rendered in the lab. A fake version of you, linked to a deceased operative and a training log loop."
Riley stared.
"That's terrifying," she said.
"That's necessary," Daphne replied.
Later that night, as they stood on the balcony of the lab tower, looking out at the burned skyline of the Gray World, Riley finally asked the question she hadn't dared voice since the chamber.
"If we're stronger than the others... what happens if they find out?"
Daphne's answer came too fast.
"They'll dissect us."
"Oh."
Riley leaned on the railing, wind biting her face.
"But if we stay hidden—what's the point?"
Daphne turned to her.
"That's the wrong question," she said.
"The question is—what are we going to do before they find out?"
The wind howled over the towers of Nova Veil.
Far below, the transformation pods glowed with the newest initiates.
Above them, hidden in plain sight, Pair 8112 stood in the shadows—no longer Owen and Evan. No longer waiting. And for the first time since the sky split open—They were not afraid.