The doors closed behind them with a whisper, not a slam.
Inside, the Core was nothing like they expected.
No blinking servers. No control panels. No scientists in lab coats pacing nervously with clipboards. No wires. Just… a long, endless corridor of glass and shadow — reflective walls, like walking through a mirror maze in limbo.
Thea took one step forward. The floor rippled, but held.
"I feel like I'm walking inside a screensaver from the early 2000s," Igor whispered. "All it needs is a floating DVD logo bouncing around."
"No, don't jinx it," Thea said under her breath.
As if on cue, something clicked above.
A projector flickered on. High above them. It lit up the hallway like a home movie — except the film was playing on the glass itself.
Footage again. But not just memories.
This time, they saw alternate versions of themselves.
— Thea crying alone in an empty classroom.
— Igor at a funeral, standing beside a coffin labeled only "Unresolved".
— Thea pushing Igor away in a fight that never happened.
"I don't like this," Thea said softly. "This didn't happen."
Igor looked around. "It could've. They're showing us what we might've been. Weak links. Broken loops."
They continued forward.
Each step brought new projections — scenes stitched from possibility, stitched from doubt.
Igor screaming at Thea.
Thea leaving him behind.
Thea... disappearing.
And then they heard it — their own voices, arguing from somewhere deeper inside.
Real? Echoes?
"Don't trust him," her voice said. Cold. Controlled. Calculated.
"She'll leave you behind the moment she gets the chance," said his voice. Twisted. Paranoid.
"Oh come on," Igor snapped. "I get it — psychological warfare, spooky hallway, creepy voiceovers. Very effective. But I've been inside an AI-mimicking therapist who accused me of not processing my childhood. This? This is amateur hour."
Thea actually chuckled. "You told me you cried after that session."
"It was the beanbag chair. It reminded me of my grandma."
The jokes helped. The hallway… recoiled, like it didn't know how to deal with laughter.
They reached a door.
A very ordinary-looking door.
Wooden. Brass handle. A little sign on it: "Office of Final Review."
Thea raised a brow. "We've made it through evil mannequins, cursed elevators, and sentient IKEA. And the final boss is hiding behind a door that looks like it leads to an HR meeting?"
"Now I'm really scared," Igor muttered. He opened it.
Inside: a small office. Desk. Two chairs. A coffee machine hissing quietly in the corner. And behind the desk… an older woman. Crisp suit. Gray hair tied neatly back. Her face was oddly generic, as though AI-generated from a hundred different authority figures.
"Ms. Quinnell. Mr. Zelinsky," she greeted calmly. "Please, sit. Let's debrief."
They exchanged a glance, then obeyed.
The woman opened a folder. "Survival rate: 97%. Psychological coherence: holding. Loyalty: irrationally high. Impressive."
"You're the architect?" Thea asked.
"I'm the interface," the woman replied. "The Core adapts a final face to facilitate your final choice."
"What choice?" Igor asked warily.
The woman slid a document across the desk.
It looked like a contract.
"Final Extraction Option A: Solo Release"
"You may leave," she said. "One of you. Clean record. Memory intact. Your real lives restored. The other remains. For balance."
A beat of silence.
"Nope," Thea said.
"Hard pass," Igor added.
The woman didn't flinch. "Refusal triggers secondary option. Co-exit. But with conditions."
The paper glitched. Rewrote itself.
"Option B: Reset Loop. Both return. But under watch."
"You mean we go back out," Thea said, "but we're… tagged?"
"Correct. Observed. A constant simulation tether. Unavoidable."
"What's Option C?" Igor asked.
The woman paused. "Destruction."
The room shivered slightly.
"Shut it down," Igor said.
Thea was staring at the contract. "Wait. Wait. If we destroy it… do the others trapped inside go free?"
"Yes," said the woman.
"But they weren't strong enough," she added coldly. "Most would not survive the transition. Not without you."
"Then let us guide them out," Thea said.
"You are not equipped."
"We weren't equipped for any of this," Igor shot back. "Still here."
The woman's image began to glitch — flickering. Rewriting itself mid-sentence. Now a child. Now a faceless man. Now their old math teacher.
"You were supposed to break apart," the voice said, now multiple voices overlapping. "But you broke the test."
The Core trembled.
"You're rewriting the algorithm," it hissed.
"Yeah," Thea said, standing.
She reached for the desk. Pulled a wire.
"Test this."
BOOM.
The office exploded into white light.
Shards of memory flew around them — screaming code, fractured images, voices gasping, digital air itself crumbling.
They stood, alone, inside the core's brain.
And Thea reached into her jacket.
The coin. The one they flipped.
Still in her pocket.
Igor stared. "Seriously? After all this, you still have that?"
She grinned. "I think it's the only thing real in here."
And she flipped it.
Not for fate. But for fun.
The screen above them read:
"Simulation corrupted. Authority lost. System freefall initiated."
Behind them, doors began opening. One by one.
The others were waking up.