The knife at my throat drew a thin line of fire, but it was Anya's eyes that burned the deepest—alive with a fury I hadn't seen since the first loop. Real blood trickled down my neck, real sweat dripped from her brow, and for the first time in what felt like lifetimes, I knew this wasn't another illusion.
"Prove it," she hissed again, pressing the blade deeper.
I reached up slowly, ignoring the steel biting into my skin, and touched the scar behind her left ear—the one she'd gotten in Budapest, the one no simulation had ever replicated. "You hate when I mention this," I said, "because it's where you got sloppy."
Her breath hitched. The knife didn't waver.
Then—a gunshot rang out from somewhere in the burning facility, and in that split second of distraction, I rolled us behind a toppled lab table just as the ceiling caved in where we'd been standing.
Anya's blade found my ribs. "That doesn't prove anything."
"It proves I remember," I gasped, clutching my side. "The loops, the heir, the fucking *house*—none of it was real. We're still in Mu's lab."
The ground trembled. From the flames emerged a figure—not the heir, not Mu, but the original Lu Chen, his clothes smoldering, his face a mask of fresh burns. In his hands he carried two things:
1. A syringe filled with swirling black liquid
2. The scalpel I'd left behind in the basement
"Took you long enough," he croaked, tossing me the blade. "Now finish what we started."
---
THE FIRST CUT
The facility wasn't burning.
We realized it too late—the flames were an illusion, a projection from hundreds of screens lining the walls, each showing a different version of us dying in different ways. The real horror was beneath our feet:
A massive circular platform etched with nine concentric rings, each containing rows of surgical tables. And strapped to every table—
Clones.
Dozens of them.
All in various stages of dissection.
Anya retched at the sight. "What the hell is this?"
"Harvesting floor," the original said, limping toward the center platform. "Mu wasn't studying time loops. She was farming *us* for the heir."
I stepped closer to the nearest table. The clone's chest had been cracked open, its heart removed, but its eyes—*my eyes*—tracked me with terrifying awareness. Its lips moved soundlessly:
"Key..."
The scalpel in my hand grew warm.
---
THE SECOND CUT
We found Mu at the center platform, her body fused to a machine by dozens of wires snaking into her spine. Her head lolled, her mouth slack, but her eyes—those damned golden eyes—were wide awake.
The original didn't hesitate. He plunged the black syringe into her neck.
Nothing happened.
Then—
Mu's back arched violently as the machine came alive, its screens flashing with rapid-fire images:
- A child with golden eyes being born in a lab that didn't exist
- The same child, older, strapped to a table as surgeons implanted something in its skull
- The heir standing over Mu's comatose body, whispering "Thank you for the vessel, Mother"
The original grabbed my arm. "It was never about controlling time. It was about finding the perfect host."
A tremor ran through the facility. From the shadows emerged him—the heir, but different now. Taller. Older. His golden eyes glowing with an intelligence far beyond human.
He smiled at Anya.
"Hello, Mother," he said. "Ready for our final lesson?"
---
THE THIRD CUT
The heir moved faster than anything human should. One second he was across the room, the next he had the original pinned to a surgical table, his fingers buried in the man's chest.
"Always the hero," the heir sighed, as the original screamed. "But we both know how this ends."
Anya fired three rounds into the heir's back.
He didn't flinch.
The bullets clattered to the floor, melted.
I looked at the scalpel in my hand, then at the machine Mu was connected to, and understood.
The heir followed my gaze and laughed. "Going to stab a god, Father?"
"No," I said, and turned the blade on myself.
The scalpel sank into my stomach with shocking ease. Golden blood—*real* blood this time—poured onto the platform's center ring.
The heir's smile vanished.
The facility shook.
And from the shadows, they emerged—
Every version of me from every failed loop, their bodies mangled, their eyes burning with the same realization:
We'd been looking at the equation backward.
The heir wasn't the lock.
I was.
---
THE FINAL CUT
The clones rose from their tables.
The original Lu Chen, despite the hole in his chest, sat up and grinned.
Anya's gun clicked empty just as the heir reached for her—
And then—
Darkness.
Silence.
A single heartbeat.
When the lights returned, we stood in a white room with no doors. No windows. Just a mirror spanning the entire far wall.
The heir stared at our reflections, his golden eyes wide with something almost like fear.
In the glass, our images didn't move.
They watched.
And then my reflection stepped forward, pressing its palm to the glass.
"Almost time," it said.
Behind us, the facility's ruins flickered back into existence—only now, the surgical tables held different bodies.
Familiar bodies.
Li.
Anya.
Me.
The heir turned to me, his composure cracking. "What did you do?"
I wiped my bloody hands on my shirt.
"Changed the menu."
---
THE CLIFFHANGER
The mirror shattered.
Not outward.
Inward.
And from the broken glass poured *them*—the things that had been watching, their forms shifting between human and something else entirely.
The heir screamed as the first one reached him.
Anya grabbed my arm. "Chen—"
But I was already moving toward the reflection that wore my face, its golden eyes brimming with terrible understanding.
It spoke with my voice:
"Welcome to iteration zero."
Behind us, the facility doors locked.