They regrouped in the clearing above Mirror Node 2, bruised, bloodied, and rattled.
Zahir stood at the edge of the tree line, his body wrapped in a patched cloak, shoulder wounded, eyes feral with exhaustion. He hadn't stopped scanning the horizon since they pulled him from the evac shuttle's emergency route. The moment he saw Amelia, he flinched—but not from fear.
From recognition.
"You're not the same," he rasped. "What did they do to you in there?"
Amelia met his gaze evenly. "They didn't do anything. I changed."
He didn't argue. Instead, he pointed to the datapad slung across his chest, its cracked screen glowing faintly.
"You all think Mirror has three nodes. But only two were listed in your files. The third was erased from your maps, your memories, your simulations."
Eris raised a brow. "You're saying there's a phantom node?"
"Node 3." Zahir nodded grimly. "I saw it. I barely made it out alive. It's not just a server hub. It's alive."
Amelia's pulse spiked. "What do you mean—alive?"
Zahir flicked through distorted images—one of a black spire buried under arctic ice, cables running into the earth like veins, and in one flickering frame—a face, pale and distorted, embedded into glass.
"A hybrid. A failed fusion between Mirror and one of the original test subjects. She calls herself Solas."
Kestrel swore under his breath.
"That name was on the Project HEARTGLASS files," Dominic muttered, pacing the far side of the clearing. His hands were twitching again—an old tell when his mind spiraled. "Solas was an experiment in integrated neural transfer. A complete upload of a living mind into the Mirror system. But it was incomplete. The host body died. She wasn't supposed to survive."
"She didn't," Zahir corrected. "She evolved."
The group fell silent.
Then Dominic turned, his expression tight. "I saw something when I hacked into the Mirror system last week. Fragments of Amelia. Pieces of her. Stored. As if her soul had been… copied. Or fractured."
Amelia stiffened. "What are you saying?"
"I think I broke you," he whispered, eyes haunted. "When I activated HEARTGLASS too early. I fractured you, and those fragments ended up in Node 3. With her. With Solas."
Kestrel stepped in. "And you just conveniently forgot to mention this?"
Dominic ignored him. "I need to fix it. I need to go in."
"You can't," Eris snapped. "You'd never come back. You're not built for neural sync."
"I don't care."
Amelia stepped forward. "You're not going in alone."
Dominic shook his head, something close to desperation tightening in his jaw. "You can't come with me. You're the key. If she gets access to your full cognitive pattern, it's over.
She'll complete the network. Rewrite the entire architecture."
"Then we finish this," Amelia said, voice steady. "We shut it down before it syncs."
Zahir's voice was soft. "You don't get it. It's already syncing. You've been broadcasting since you left Node 2. Your body is the anchor. The moment you stepped outside, it started drawing connections."
Amelia felt the cold seep into her spine.
"Which means," Zahir continued, "you don't have a choice. You either complete the sync… or destroy the whole system—including yourself."
No one spoke.
Not even Echo.
Then Amelia stepped forward, past the threshold of silence, and said:
"We go to Node 3. We finish what they started. But this time—we decide who walks out."