The hum of the machines had become a heartbeat. Slow. Relentless.
Every pulse of light from the capsule washed pale over the walls of 3B, making the room feel alive, breathing in rhythm with her fear.
Clara's hand was still against the glass.
On the other side, Adrian floated motionless, suspended in that cruel calm between life and death. The lines on the monitor blinked steady and perfect, too perfect, as if mocking what real life should look like.
Rinaldi's reflection appeared beside hers, two silhouettes sharing one outline.
His tone was smooth, practiced.
"You're extraordinary, Clara. The only one who made it this far. But this…" he gestured at the console, "is where you decide whether your story ends or begins."
Her throat tightened. She couldn't look at him. She kept her eyes on Adrian instead, his face serene, unreachable.
Don't listen to him, his voice came, faint but steady in her mind.
You were never his experiment.
She pressed her forehead to the glass, whispering,
" I don't know what's real anymore."
Me. You. That's real enough.
Rinaldi stepped closer, slow and confident, the way he did before giving bad news he had already accepted.
"He's inside you, Clara. That's the beauty of it. The bond you feel isn't love, it's data overlap. A neurological echo. You think he loves you because the signal needs a form to survive."
Clara trembled.
"No. You're wrong."
"Am I?" he murmured, smiling faintly. "Then prove it."
The console came alive between them.
Two options glowed through the glass:
TRANSFER: return the power to Adrian. The system completes. She dies.
INTEGRATE: merge entirely. She becomes the perfect subject. But Adrian is erased.
"Choose," Rinaldi said. "One of you will live.
Or neither."
Clara stared at the screen until the words blurred. Her breath fogged the surface.
Don't let him choose for you, Adrian whispered. Choose for us.
She turned her head slightly toward the sound, though she knew he wasn't there.
Her lips parted. Her voice was barely a breath:
"I already did."
The lights flickered. Something deep within the building groaned.
Rinaldi's expression shifted, annoyance first, then uncertainty.
"System instability," he muttered, adjusting his tablet. "Residual interference. Nothing more."
But the hum in the air grew thicker, heavier, like a living pulse. The floor beneath them vibrated. The screens on the walls began to flash fragments of data too fast to read.
SYSTEM ALERT – SIGNAL CROSSFEED DETECTED
SOURCE UNKNOWN
Rinaldi straightened, barking orders to the empty air.
"Override protocol! Contain it!"
No answer. Only the rhythm, faster, louder.
The monitors flickered again, and for a split second, Clara saw something impossible:
her own reflection on the glass… but with Adrian's eyes.
She stumbled back. Her pulse skipped.
Clara, he said inside her, the voice sharper now. Don't move. Whatever happens, stay with me.
Rinaldi grabbed her arm.
"Step away from the console!"
She tore free.
"You don't control this anymore."
"You have no idea what you're touching!" he shouted, slamming his hand against the override.
The console ignored him. Instead, the display brightened, white light spreading outward in thin, trembling lines that crawled across the floor and up the walls like veins of electricity.
The hum became a roar.
The air pressed heavy against her chest, a vibration that made her teeth ache.
Every machine, every wire, every heartbeat in the room seemed to sync into a single pulse.
Adrian's voice was suddenly everywhere, inside her, around her, through her.
Clara… I'm here.
She turned to the capsule. The fluid inside shimmered as if stirred by an unseen current. Her vision blurred with tears.
"Adrian, tell me what to do…"
You already know.
Clara looked at the console.
At Rinaldi, shouting into a dead comm.
At the blinking words that seemed to breathe. Her hand rose, slowly, as if lifted by something beyond her.
Rinaldi saw the movement and froze.
"Clara, no, don't!"
But she didn't stop. Her hand hovered above the panel. Her fingertips trembled in the white light, inches from the choice that would change everything.
She exhaled.
And then… The room exploded in light.
A shockwave rippled through the air, bending sound, crushing silence. Monitors shattered.
The capsule's glass bloomed with cracks.
A scream, his or hers, or both, echoed through the roar.
Rinaldi stumbled back, shielding his face.
The console's display split in two, words flickering and merging until only one message remained:
SYSTEM OVERRIDE – SOURCE UNKNOWN
Clara stood frozen, her hand still pressed flat against the glowing surface. Her face was lost in the glare. For one impossible instant, it looked as though the light itself was coming from her. Then everything went white. And through the storm of sound, just before it all vanished, she heard him, soft, close, unbroken:
I'm coming for you.