Chapter 19 - The Fuse
The gas was everywhere.
My lungs burned.
Emily collapsed.
I caught her.
“Emily!”
David tore open a panel.
“There has to be a shutoff.”
Reyes shot the control box.
Sparks exploded.
Nothing changed.
The countdown kept falling.
Sarah stared at the monitors.
“They're uploading something.”
“What?”
“Profiles.”
“Whose?”
She looked at Emily.
“Hers.”
My daughter struggled to breathe.
“Mom…”
I lifted her.
“I'm here.”
“She said…”
“Who?”
“Grandma.”
“What did she say?”
Emily coughed.
“She said I was the second key.”
My mother's words came back.
You are the only surviving person who knows where the original archive is.
But she had been wrong.
The archive wasn't inside me.
It was in my daughter.
Or perhaps the system had always intended it that way.
I looked at the monitor.
MIRROR ZERO.
SUBJECT ELENA HART.
SUBJECT EMILY HART.
PRIMARY TRANSFER.
My heart stopped.
“They're transferring my identity to her.”
David understood.
“They're creating the next Victoria.”
“No.”
I grabbed the keyboard.
“Stop it.”
A voice came through the speakers.
My mother.
The real one.
“Don't.”
I screamed.
“Why?”
“Because the transfer isn't what you think.”
“Then what is it?”
Silence.
“Mom!”
“The system isn't copying you into Emily.”
“Then what?”
“It's opening you.”
My blood went cold.
“What does that mean?”
“You have the archive.”
I looked at the monitors.
“What archive?”
“Your memory.”
I froze.
She continued.
“Your father knew the Prescotts would eventually get access to the system.”
“So he hid everything inside me.”
“Yes.”
“Every identity?”
“Yes.”
“Every person they changed?”
“Yes.”
The room went silent.
Emily opened her eyes.
“Mom.”
I looked at her.
She pointed at the monitor.
A new file appeared.
ELENA HART — ORIGINAL MEMORY INDEX.
I stared.
My name.
My real name.
And then another.
VICTORIA HART — ARCHIVE KEY.
I understood.
Victoria had not simply been an identity.
She had been the key to the archive.
And I had inherited it.
The countdown hit twenty.
Sarah shouted,
“We have to choose.”
“Choose what?”
“Whether to destroy the system or let the transfer finish.”
David looked at me.
“If we destroy it now, your memory goes with it.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“You'll lose the archive.”
“And everyone trapped inside it.”
“Yes.”
Emily whispered,
“Mom…”
I knelt beside her.
“I won't trade you for information.”
David looked at me.
“You're sure?”
“Yes.”
I grabbed the control panel.
“Then destroy it.”
Sarah hesitated.
“If I destroy Mirror Zero, every backup activates.”
“What?”
“There are six other facilities.”
My blood ran cold.
“Where?”
“Unknown.”
David swore.
“Then we're not just dealing with one system.”
“No.”
Sarah looked at the screen.
“It's a network.”
The countdown hit ten.
Nine.
Eight.
My mother came through the speaker.
“Victoria.”
I looked up.
She was crying.
“There is one thing you don't know.”
“What?”
“You were not the only child who survived.”
The system flashed.
SUBJECT: VICTORIA HART — ACTIVE.
I stopped breathing.
“No.”
David stared at the screen.
“That's impossible.”
The door behind us opened.
A woman stepped inside.
Dark hair.
Same height as me.
Same scar above the eyebrow.
My face.
Sarah backed away.
“No.”
The woman smiled.
“Hello, Elena.”
I couldn't move.
She walked closer.
“I've been waiting twenty-eight years.”
Emily whispered,
“Mom…”
The woman looked at her.
“Hello, little sister.”
I stared.
“Victoria.”
She smiled.
“Yes.”
The building shook.
The lights failed.
And she said the one thing that terrified me more than seeing her face.
“Your mother didn't save you from me.”
May you like
She stepped closer.
“She saved me from you.”
