"A lie repeated becomes memory. A truth forgotten becomes law."
— Orin Archive AI Log #0-190-B
Berlin was a city rebuilt on silence. Steel and shadow interlaced with new spires that pierced the sky like cold fingers. Above ground, it gleamed. But below, in the underbelly of a world run by recursion, Coreframe Prison pulsed like a second heart—caged, forgotten, deadly.
Sera stood at the edge of a railcar tunnel two kilometers outside the perimeter. The air stung with old oil and data static.
She stared at the holomap Elias had reconstructed from Orin's files. Yasmine watched over her shoulder, quiet but alert.
"Black Gate is buried ten floors beneath the surface," Elias said. "Access requires Echo credentials—voiceprint and DNA."
"And who has those?" Sera asked.
He met her eyes. "You do."
---
Their infiltration team was small: Sera, Yasmine, Elias, and a runner named Kaito—ex-security with optic implants and hands built for ghost hacking.
The plan was suicide dressed as strategy.
They'd piggyback an encrypted freight capsule entering the base on routine supply—just long enough to slip inside the thermal dead zone between the walls.
From there, Kaito would loop the surveillance.
Yasmine would disable pressure alarms.
Elias would navigate the inner sanctum.
And Sera—she would open the final lock.
To reach Iris.
---
Inside the capsule, silence stretched.
Sera kept her eyes closed, recalling Elias's warning: "Iris isn't you. She remembers everything they made you forget. That includes the things you might not want to recover."
The moment the capsule docked, the cold hit them. Hard. Sterile.
They moved quickly. Five minutes of stealth time before shift rotation updated the scan logs.
Three floors in, Sera felt the recursion whisper again.
"Do not release her. You will lose yourself."
She shoved it down. Moved forward.
By Floor -7, the corridor lights flickered.
Black Gate's main vault loomed ahead, guarded by biometric locks and a sentient firewall coded in an ancient language—uncrackable by modern AI.
"It's waiting for your voice," Elias whispered.
Sera stepped forward, heart racing.
She placed her hand on the panel. Spoke softly:
"Layla Sera. Archivist clearance. Override under Directive Twelve. I request access under pain of recursion nullification."
A pause.
Then the door opened.
The room was dark.
And in the center—
A woman.
Bound in electric chain.
Face identical to hers.
Eyes sharper.
Darker.
---
"Iris," Sera whispered.
The woman looked up. No surprise in her gaze.
"I wondered how long they'd let you stay free."
Yasmine raised her gun. "Careful. She's dangerous."
Iris didn't blink. "She's weak," she said. "And I'm what she'll become if she survives."
---
Sera stepped closer. Her mind buzzed.
"I came to free you."
"No," Iris said. "You came because you're incomplete."
She leaned forward.
"They took your memories. But not just to weaken you. They stored them… in me. I am your missing years."
Sera froze.
Elias stepped forward. "We have fifteen minutes. We need to extract."
But the air shifted.
A klaxon screamed.
Lights turned red.
Kaito's voice came through the comm: "We've been flagged. Something's wrong. They've activated an internal trigger—Sera, get out now!"
But Sera didn't move.
Because Iris was standing now.
Chains falling.
And she was smiling.
---
"Who do you think opened the gate?" Iris said.
Yasmine spun. "What?"
Elias cursed. "No—she triggered it from the inside. She wanted us here."
The recursion in Sera's skull surged.
"Protocol Echo Activated. Host memory is now shared."
Sera collapsed to her knees.
Memories flooded in—visions of war, of betrayal, of kissing Elias in a burning data vault—
And of murdering someone.
Someone she didn't recognize.
But Iris did.
"Welcome home," Iris whispered.