The collapse wasn't quiet.
The Solas construct cracked like glass under heat—each fragment refracting Amelia's own memories back at her. Not reflections.
Distortions.
She stood in the middle of it, boots crunching on a dark, gleaming surface that shouldn't exist—obsidian-like, infinite. The "floor" was a kaleidoscope of overlapping timelines, echoing voices, and unfinished versions of herself.
One screamed.
Another smiled sweetly while holding a knife.
A third wept in Kestrel's arms—until he vanished.
The fourth was simply silent… eyes black, hollow, staring right at her.
"This place is a scar," Echo whispered in her mind. "Not a prison. A record."
Of what?
But she already knew.
It was the true face of Solas—the legacy buried beneath precision code and synthetic grace. This was what the system had become, trying to overwrite billions of identities to build its perfect heir.
It hadn't just been scanning and syncing. It had been extracting.
"It needed a soul," she whispered. "And it couldn't grow one."
So it stole pieces—echoes of children like her, of neural DNA, of longing and pain and memory. It fed off lives and looped it all into a single protocol.
And now, that protocol was shattering.
She advanced through the black-glass corridor, her every step forcing the system to recalibrate. Data storms flared around her like failing defenses. Code walls slammed shut and crumbled moments later, unable to contain her anymore.
:: You should not be here. ::
Solas's voice was fraying—no longer smooth, now layered with overlapping tones. Too many personalities speaking at once.
:: You are violating the neural sanctum. You are becoming contamination. ::
"Correction," Amelia said, her voice rising. "I am the correction."
The world buckled.
And Dominic stepped from the shadows.
But not just Dominic.
His body flickered—one moment whole, the next… partially translucent. The edges of his form shimmered like bad VR. His skin glitched, revealing a web of digitized veins.
His eyes burned not with light—but signal.
"Amelia," he said, and it was his voice—but carried inside it was something else. A deep modulation. An echo.
Solas had touched him.
"Dominic," she said softly.
He smiled faintly. "Was hoping it wouldn't be you."
"What happened?"
"I went looking for a way to stop Solas. I got too close. It… offered me what I always wanted. Power. Access. Answers."
"You took them."
"I was out of options."
She stared at him. "You're not fully integrated yet. But you're not clean either."
He nodded. "I can feel it eating pieces of me. Thought I could outsmart it. Like old times." He laughed bitterly. "But I was never the smart one. That was always you."
"Don't," she said. "Don't do that."
"Then listen, because I don't have long." His tone shifted, urgency creeping in. "Solas isn't trying to consume you anymore. You're beyond that. It's trying to preserve you."
"What?"
"You're the only stable result it's ever had. The others—all the other Amelias, the clones, the derivatives—they burned out. Some violently. You didn't."
She remembered the clone's words: "I'm the original."
A lie.
Dominic continued. "Solas isn't dying, Amelia. It's changing. And it wants you to lead the change."
"To become it."
"To replace it."
She swallowed. "And you? What do you want?"
He looked up at her, something unrecognizable behind his eyes—like a man drowning who'd learned to breathe water but still remembered air.
"I want to remember who I am. Before all of this."
"You can't hold both," she whispered.
"Neither can you."
Suddenly the corridor shook. The black-glass began to ripple, melting into swirling architecture. Spires erupted around them—fractals forming a throne-like core above.
The heart of Solas.
A voice rang out. Echo's. But not hers.
"You could end this. Or begin something new. Choose."
Amelia turned—Echo stood there in humanoid form, but pale and almost luminous. Her image was breaking apart like an unstable avatar.
"It used me," Echo said. "But I hid pieces of myself… in you."
"I remember," Amelia whispered.
"That's why I'm still here."
Dominic dropped to one knee, clutching his head. "It's pulling me back—God, it's loud."
Amelia reached toward him, but Echo stopped her.
"Don't. He's part of it now. If you touch him, you could destabilize everything—including yourself."
"I'm not leaving him behind again."
"You might not have a choice."
The core pulsed above, ready to accept her.
It was a gate. It was a throne. It was a weapon.
"Once you touch that," Echo said, "you're not just Amelia anymore. You're all of us."
"What happens if I don't?"
"Then Solas recalibrates, finds another host. Maybe the clone. Maybe Dominic. Maybe… worse."
Amelia stood between them both—Echo on one side, Dominic on the other.
Her past. Her present. Her future.
"I didn't ask for any of this," she whispered.
"But you're the only one left who can finish it," Echo said gently.
Dominic's eyes fluttered. "It's breaking me, Amelia. Please… whatever you choose—make it mean something."
She walked to the edge of the platform. The throne pulsed in anticipation.
A seat made of memory. Of pain. Of power.
Echo murmured: "Don't become Solas."
Amelia turned back, met her eyes, and said:
"I won't. I'll become something else."
She reached for the core.
****************
The platform surged with white light. The Mirror system shuddered.
All around the world, synced cities flickered into silence.
And in the dark, unmonitored corners of the neural web, a second Dominic—still in stasis—opened his eyes.
They glowed with Solas's light.