The world unraveled in seconds.
Footage looped endlessly across every network: Amelia, framed in crisp security cam feed, raising her hand—then the flash of a shot. A global delegate falling in slow motion. Panic erupting in the room. The timestamp was irrefutable. The angle damning.
By the time Kestrel dragged Amelia out of the summit's lower tunnels and into the pulse-lit streets of New Marrakesh, her face was plastered across every public screen.
"They think I did it."
Her voice was a breath, stunned, raw. She hadn't stopped shaking since the moment the gun fired—someone else's hand, her own face. Echo had gone silent, a vacancy in her head where instinct once burned. Even her breath felt borrowed.
"You didn't," Kestrel said without hesitation, pulling her through a neon corridor toward the underground safe route Eris had pre-planned. "That wasn't you."
"But it was my face. My body." Her knees buckled slightly. Kestrel caught her, his arms wrapping around her waist like armor. She didn't want to be held, but she needed it. "Kestrel… if they find me—"
"They won't." His grip tightened. "I won't let them."
Across the city, sirens bled into each other. News drones zipped overhead, scanning for heat signatures. Mirror enforcers were deploying neural scramblers—tech designed to flush out anyone flagged in the system. And Amelia's code had just become top priority.
——-
Dominic sat cuffed inside an interrogation cube, his neural chip dampened by the room's EM field. Across from him, a young official paced, nervous, her hands trembling despite her practiced tone.
"You were seen with her," she said. "You didn't report her instability. You're complicit."
Dominic stared at the blank table, jaw clenched. He said nothing. He hadn't spoken since the arrest. Not when they surrounded him at the summit, not when they dragged him in. Silence was safer.
In his mind, VIREN whispered beneath the dampeners—quiet but present.
Let them believe what they want. They're playing a game with half the board missing.
Dominic's fingernails bit into his palms. "Then show me the other half," he thought silently.
In time. But your Echo-twin has moved faster than expected. That wasn't Amelia. You know that. But the world doesn't care. Truth is a tool, not a refuge.
Midnight.
Eris's secure bunker outside the city lit up with chaos. Zahir had dumped a cache of stolen Mirror documents into the open net—he claimed it was the only way to fracture their narrative. A wildfire of revelations followed.
Mirror had known about the clone project. They'd tested neural grafts without consent. A dozen potential heirs like Amelia had been terminated silently. And buried deep in the data: a file labeled ECHO_SPLICER_7X—a design map for weaponized doppelgängers with imprint memory.
Zahir's voice came through the encrypted comms. "That wasn't her. The footage is real. The face isn't."
"I know," Eris said tightly, scanning the footage over and over. "But the world doesn't see code. It sees blood."
Amelia sat in an abandoned metro station, hands trembling, eyes wide with a surreal stillness. Kestrel was nearby, wiring a signal blocker into the rails. The old power systems hummed around them.
She had no tears left. Just weight.
"They believe I did it."
Kestrel didn't look up. "They want to."
"I saw the shooter. She looked exactly like me."
He did glance up now. "We'll find her."
"No," Amelia whispered. "She found me first."
Two hours later.
The clone waited for her on a rusted rooftop in Sector 12, hood pulled low, the city glowing behind her like a dying star. Amelia's heart slammed as she stepped into the open, Kestrel's backup a block behind with sniper eyes on.
"You killed him," Amelia said, voice flat. "You wore my skin and pulled the trigger."
"I wore what's mine," the clone said softly. Her voice was identical, but her posture was wrong. Stiffer. Sharper. "I didn't kill him. I executed justice. And I did it with precision.
You… you hesitate."
"I'm not a weapon."
"You were designed to be. You failed. I didn't."
Amelia's fingers curled at her sides. "Why me? Why do this?"
The clone pulled back her hood. She was flawless. The same eyes, the same mouth. But no warmth. No humanity.
"I was Echo's original host," she said. "Before you. Before they split us apart. Solas rebuilt me. Gave me clarity. You're a deviation. A ghost wearing a stolen purpose."
"You're a lie," Amelia spat. "And you framed me."
The clone tilted her head. "The world needs a symbol. You're too soft to survive what's coming. Solas needs an heir who can lead without doubt. That's not you."
A pulse of pressure struck the air—Kestrel's EMP scrambler firing remotely. The clone winced, her Echo reflexes slowing for just a beat.
Amelia surged forward. Their hands collided—same strength, same rhythm. Mirror on mirror.
And for a terrifying moment, she felt her mind slide… like the other Amelia was inside her skull, too.
Then: gone.
The clone vanished in a blur, leaping from the rooftop with inhuman grace.
That night.
Kestrel helped Amelia wash the blood from her knuckles. Neither spoke.
When she finally looked up, eyes red, jaw clenched, she said, "I'm going to find her again."
He nodded.
"I'm going to destroy her."
Kestrel didn't argue.
Instead, he handed her a new comm band. Reinforced. Trace-blocked. Engraved inside were three words:
You are real.
Cliffhanger:
Across the city, Dominic's cell door slid open without warning. Alarms didn't trigger. Guards didn't react.
A figure in white stood in the corridor—sharp eyes, familiar gait.
It was Solas, wearing a face from his memory.
"I thought you'd come," Dominic said, stepping forward.
Solas smiled. "You left Zahir behind once. Will you leave her, too?"
Dominic didn't answer.
He followed.