The steel beneath his boots sang with each step.
Not loud. Not sharp.
Just steady.
Cassian Voss moved like a man who had no need to rush—because he already believed the ending was written.
He passed the empty barracks.
The flickering hall lights.
The severed cables in the security wing.
Everywhere, SH-0's presence crackled in the wires. Not just dormant code—living resistance. The kind of thing no handler had ever planned for.
But Cassian didn't hesitate.
He walked the same path he had ten years ago—when the chamber first sealed and SH-0's eyes had finally stopped tracking him.
Back then, she was docile. Empty. Manageable.
Back then, Liam still followed orders.
Now?
Now everything had unraveled.
Cassian paused beside a wall panel, ripped it open, and dragged his fingers over the exposed conduit. Warm. Alive.
"She's listening," he muttered.
He bent closer to the wall and whispered:
"I made you. I can unmake you."
The lights didn't flicker.
They flared—hot and red.
A warning.
Cassian smiled.
"Good," he said. "You remember."
At the end of the corridor, the chamber loomed ahead—sealed, pulsing with that strange blue light she now controlled.
He could feel Liam's presence beyond it. Elena's. And the girl—the key.
Miri.
They were all inside.
Waiting for him like a final act already written.
He reached up, slowly unbuckled his coat, and let it fall to the floor.
Beneath it: weapons. Tech. Blood-stained leather gloves.
He cracked his neck.
Then drew a knife from his belt—not to use, but to hold. Something grounded. Something real.
Because whatever happened next—
It wouldn't be clean.
And it wouldn't be silent.
Inside the chamber, the lights dimmed again.
SH-0 turned her head slightly. "He's here."
Miri clutched Elena's hand tighter.
Liam raised his weapon.
Reign muttered, "Remember when this job was just data retrieval?"
"No," Liam said.
Elena's voice was flat. "We fight together."
Then—the doors hissed.
And Cassian stepped inside.
His silhouette cut sharp against the glow, his eyes finding Liam first, then SH-0.
But when he saw Miri—really saw her—he paused.
And smiled.
"So that's what you've been hiding."
Cassian stepped inside the chamber like a man entering his own cathedral.
No hesitation. No weapon raised.
He scanned the room.
First, Liam—weapon up, jaw tight, storm in his eyes.
Then Elena, body tensed but still as stone, shielding Miri without even blinking.
Reign, to his left, half-shadowed, already calculating.
And finally—SH-0, who stood in the center of it all like a living monument, pale and silent, but more awake than he had ever seen her.
Cassian smiled.
"Well," he said, voice smooth and unhurried. "Isn't this familiar."
No one responded.
He took another step forward.
The chamber door slid closed behind him with a soft, final hiss.
"You always did like dramatic entries," Liam muttered.
Cassian's eyes flicked to him. "And you always liked pretending you weren't part of the same story."
"I'm not," Liam said.
Cassian chuckled. "You were the page they turned when I got too messy."
Elena's voice cut in, sharp. "You're not here to talk, are you?"
Cassian tilted his head toward her.
"Elena Rivera," he said, drawing her name out like a thread. "You were supposed to be a whisper. A variable. Instead…" He motioned toward Miri. "You became an origin point."
Liam stepped between them. "Don't."
Cassian's smile didn't fade. "Still protecting the illusion. That's sweet."
Reign raised her pistol slightly. "You've got thirty seconds to explain what you want before I turn your chest cavity into a window."
Cassian turned toward her slowly, eyes cool.
"Reign. Of course. Always watching. Always twitching. You never did handle guilt well."
"Try me."
He looked back to SH-0.
"But her," he said, voice softening. "She's different now."
SH-0 didn't speak.
But the screens around the room flickered to life again—this time showing Cassian, years ago, younger. Smiling beside a medical table. A much younger SH-0 strapped to it. Unblinking. Silent.
Liam's jaw clenched.
"You really kept footage of yourself torturing children?" he growled.
Cassian glanced up at the screens. "Documentation. History. If we don't record what we build, how do we perfect it?"
SH-0 finally spoke, her voice quiet but echoing oddly in the room.
"You called me a failure."
"You were," Cassian said, matter-of-fact. "Too human. Too slow to detach. But I underestimated your ghosts. I didn't expect you to remember warmth."
Miri flinched slightly, but Elena pulled her closer.
"You underestimated more than that," Elena said. "You thought breaking people would make them loyal."
"Loyalty," Cassian mused. "Funny word for those who run from their orders."
He looked at Liam again.
"Did you ever tell her what happened in Libya?"
Liam didn't flinch. "She knows."
"She knows you lied on your final op report? That you pulled a civilian asset from a black site and forged a death certificate to cover your tracks?"
Liam stepped forward. "She knows who I am now. That's all that matters."
Elena's voice, calm but steely: "And I'm still here."
Cassian's smile thinned.
"Touching," he said. "But you still don't understand. This isn't about loyalty. Or guilt. Or even survival."
He pointed to SH-0.
"She's not a girl anymore. She's a key. A bridge between command and chaos. And now—"
He turned to Miri, and something cold flickered in his eyes.
"Now there's another one. Unmodified. Unmonitored. Raw potential."
Liam's weapon shifted upward half an inch. "Don't even think it."
"I don't need to," Cassian said, stepping closer to SH-0. "Because I already wired her to find the next."
He looked at SH-0. "And you did."
SH-0 blinked slowly. "I found something better."
Cassian raised an eyebrow. "What's that?"
Her voice was clear now. Solid.
"A choice."
Then the screens behind him went black.
Every lock in the room snapped open.
Reign's comm flickered back to life.
The lights glowed white.
And SH-0 took a single step forward.
"I'm not yours," she said.
"And neither is she."
Cassian's smile finally cracked.
"Then I'll burn both of you down."