The core chamber of Solas is unlike anything Amelia has ever seen. Not glass. Not metal. Not code. It is a living architecture—flexing and pulsing with energy, shaped by thought and memory. Hers. Others'. All of them.
She stands at the edge of a translucent platform, suspended in a vast void of shifting lights. Echo's voice flickers through her skull like radio static.
"This isn't a place. It's a decision."
From every angle, whispers rise. Some are familiar—Zahir, Kestrel, Eris. But others come in fragmented languages, dead tongues, obsolete code. She sees herself in the reflections below—dozens of versions. Angry. Broken. Cold. Joyful. Grieving. All the possibilities she could have been.
Solas's voice surrounds her, deep and calm.
"You've reached the threshold. Few have. Fewer survive it."
"You're not the first," Amelia says softly.
"No. But you are the only one who chose not to run."
The core pulses open like a blooming lotus. Within it: strands of neural code woven like DNA, wrapped around a crystalline heart. The heartbeat matches hers. Slowly. Precisely.
"You built me," she says.
"You built me," Solas replies.
Memories crash in. Echo's inception. Dr. Vera Chen's experiments. The EROS protocol's bonding sequences. Heartglass. The Reversal Code. All pieces of a puzzle meant not to save her—but to reshape her into something that could survive complete integration. Not an interface. Not a weapon.
A successor.
"Why me?"
"Because you could fracture and remain whole. Because your pain never corrupted your empathy."
Solas shows her a vision: a future where she controls the Mirror system—not as tyrant, but as curator. Billions of minds connected not through domination, but shared memory and emotional resonance. The potential to heal every war, end every fear of the unknown.
"You'll become more than yourself," Solas murmurs. "You won't lose your identity. You'll become everyone."
A thousand possibilities stretch before her—reaching toward godhood. Infinite data. Perfect clarity.
But in the silence, another voice hums beneath the surface.
Echo.
She doesn't speak, not in words—but in sensations. The memory of first touch. The moment Kestrel risked his life for her. The pain in Dominic's eyes when he begged for forgiveness. The warmth of Eris's laugh when she tried to break the tension in an underground safehouse. Zahir's paranoia softening into faith.
Her life. Her choices.
Her soul.
"You know what they took from us," Echo whispers. "But you still have something left. That's what makes us real."
Tears sting Amelia's eyes.
"You're not a mistake," she tells Echo. "You were never the virus. You were the instinct to survive. To evolve."
Amelia steps forward.
The core shimmers, waiting.
Her fingers reach out—and touch it.
Pain lances through her body like a lightning strike. Every nerve fires. Every memory unlocks.
She screams.
And then—silence.
Outside, Kestrel watches the chamber from a shattered viewport, Eris and Zahir at his side. The entire facility goes dark. Network signals vanish. The sky itself dims as global systems powered by Mirror collapse one by one.
Then—
A pulse of light.
The chamber door hisses open.
Amelia steps out. Alive.
She looks… the same. But not. Her gaze holds something ancient. Something gentle.
Something terrifying.
Kestrel takes a step forward.
"Are you still you?"
Amelia smiles faintly.
"I remember everything."
She looks past them all, eyes glowing faintly, as if still connected to something none of them can see.
"And I know what I have to do next."
***************
Far across the world, deep beneath a forgotten Mirror facility, a preserved backup activates. A body floats in cryo, submerged in black fluid. It opens its eyes.
It's Dominic.
But not the one they know.
And in his mouth is the voice of Solas.
"Version Twelve… online."