The rain had finally stopped.
Not outside—inside.
For the first time since she arrived at the facility, Miri sat beneath a skylight without fear. The clouds overhead had begun to break. Soft gray light spilled across the corridor where she and Solace sat side by side, legs crossed, the sketchpad open between them.
Solace had changed.
Not in the way adults talked about—she didn't smile more, didn't laugh, didn't suddenly understand the world.
But she looked up now.
She answered when called.
And when she looked at Miri, it wasn't as a tether, or a mirror, or a signal—
It was as a person.
"Are you scared?" Miri asked, eyes still on her drawing.
Solace looked out the glass ceiling. "Yes."
"But you're staying."
Solace nodded. "Someone has to anchor the signal. The others… they're listening now. But they don't know who to trust."
Miri's pencil paused. "They'll trust you."
"No." Solace turned to her. "They'll trust you. I'm just… the voice inside the walls. You're the first real thing they've ever felt."
"But I don't know what I'm doing," Miri whispered. "What if I say the wrong thing? What if I wake up the wrong one?"
Solace reached across and gently touched her shoulder. Her touch was still cool—artificial in texture, but gentle.
"You've already woken someone up," she said. "Me. And I'm not sorry."
Miri looked up.
They were quiet for a long time after that.
Then Miri said, softly, "I think I drew you again."
She turned the sketchpad around.
It wasn't a picture of Solace standing in a lab or plugged into wires.
It was Solace asleep on a couch, a blanket draped over her, her head tilted against Miri's shoulder. A room full of color. Books. A plant in the corner.
It wasn't a memory.
It was a hope.
Solace stared at it like it hurt to look.
"Do you think that'll happen?" Miri asked.
Solace nodded slowly. "If you make it back… then maybe."
Outside the corridor, Liam waited near the loading hatch, glancing over the manifest Reign had compiled. Elena was strapping down the last duffel in the armored truck.
The mission was ready. The plan was thin.
But they'd made it this far without certainty.
Inside, Miri stood and gave Solace a hug.
It was short.
But it stayed in both of them.
"Keep the drawings," Miri said. "In case you get scared."
"I don't get scared."
"You just said you were scared."
Solace smirked—barely. "Only of being alone again."
"You're not alone anymore," Miri said. "You never were."
As she joined Elena and Liam outside, Solace watched her from the shadows of the corridor. The light from the skylight now reached just to her feet, like an invitation she hadn't accepted yet.
"Goodbye," she whispered.
And the screens in the hallway flickered back on.
Somewhere beneath the Caucasus Mountains
Unknown Time. Unknown Depth.
Darkness.
Thick. Silent.
Suffocating.
And then—
a pulse.
Like static through a dead wire.
Like the shiver of a forgotten nerve.
Like the memory of a scream.
SH-3 sat upright on the metal slab without warning, breathing fast.
Her body moved before thought returned.
She didn't know where she was.
She didn't know who she was.
But her arms knew how to protect her face.
Her legs knew how to brace against pain.
Her heart—
… remembered what it meant to run.
The room was small. No windows. One rusted door, half-sealed. A surveillance node blinked quietly in the corner, its red light steady.
She turned her head, bare feet scraping against the concrete.
Her cheek itched.
She reached up—
Felt the scar.
Not a wound.
A seam.
Threaded. Healed. Left like a signature.
She didn't speak.
Couldn't.
Her vocal cords had been cauterized years ago.
Instead, she reached for the wall and dragged her fingers across it until they found what she'd left—a scratch.
A symbol.
A spiral with a line through it.
I was here.
I am still here.
Then it hit her.
Not a sound.
Not a light.
A presence.
A pulse of thought, alien but familiar—
Like her own voice in someone else's throat.
She flinched.
A wave of color slammed into her mind.
A drawing. A couch. A girl's hand.
Not memory. Not hallucination.
A message.
She reeled backward and hit the wall.
And then—
Her fingers moved, trembling, unsure.
She reached to the grime on the floor.
Drew a circle. A couch. A star.
Then scrawled one word beneath it—
with fingers that hadn't written in years:
"Miri."
The surveillance node blinked three times.
Its red light changed.
From observe to alert.
SH-3's eyes narrowed.
She stood.
For the first time in years, she didn't feel programmed.
She felt angry.