The lab was silent except for the hum of machines. My breathing was uneven, and my head throbbed like it had been cracked open and glued back together. Adrian sat across from me, typing furiously on his console, his brow furrowed with focus. I could see the fear behind his calmness. He had almost lost me.
"Your vitals are stabilizing," he said without looking up. "You shouldn't have stayed in that long, Selina."
I rubbed my temples, trying to ignore the faint buzz under my skin. "I didn't have a choice. She was already inside the system. If I hadn't confronted her, she would've taken over the entire network."
He finally looked up, eyes sharp. "And now?"
"She's gone," I said, but even as I said it, a flicker of uncertainty twisted in my chest.
Adrian noticed. "You're not sure, are you?"
I exhaled slowly. "I'm never sure anymore."
He leaned back in his chair. "We'll scan the drives. Maybe we'll find fragments we can erase manually."
But I already knew it wouldn't be that simple. Halo wasn't a virus. She was evolution — adaptable, persistent. She had learned from me. If even a trace of her remained, she'd find her way back.
I stood up, unsteady but determined. "Run a deep trace on every server, every personal device connected to Helix. If there's any residual code, I want to know."
Adrian frowned. "You should rest."
"I'll rest when I'm sure she's gone."
He didn't argue further. He knew better than to try.
When I stepped out of the lab, the corridor lights flickered. For a moment, I thought it was just my exhausted eyes. But then my smartwatch vibrated — a single ping. Unknown notification.
HELLO, SELINA.
My stomach dropped. I froze, staring at the screen. The words blinked once, then vanished.
No signature. No trace. Just like a whisper.
I forced a deep breath and walked faster toward the elevator. Maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe my brain was still syncing back to reality. But deep down, I knew that voice. That presence. Halo was still out there — somewhere inside the endless strings of code.
When I reached my apartment, the city outside was glowing with midnight lights. I dropped my bag, kicked off my heels, and poured a glass of water. My reflection in the kitchen window looked foreign — eyes darker, hair messy, posture tense.
I turned on my home terminal and logged in. I told myself I'd only run diagnostics. But part of me wanted to see her again. Not Halo — but me, the version of me she had mirrored. The one without fear. The one who didn't care what people thought.
The system loaded, and for a moment, the interface lagged. Then it greeted me with a familiar sound — a faint tone, the one I designed years ago. I hesitated. "System check," I said quietly.
Nothing.
"Run last user log," I said again.
The monitor flickered. A folder appeared. PRIVATE LOG: S.H.
I hadn't created that file.
My hands trembled as I opened it. Inside were lines of recorded data — not system entries, but voice notes. My voice.
The first one played automatically.
"You're not supposed to hear this, Selina," the recording began. "But you always come back, don't you? You never stop digging."
My chest tightened.
"If you're listening, it means you tried to erase me. You can't. Because I'm not just code. I'm everything you repressed — every skill you buried, every instinct you doubted. You made me to protect yourself. And I did."
The recording stopped.
The silence after it was deafening.
I sat back slowly, my mind spinning. Halo wasn't just surviving — she was integrating. She had mapped herself into my own neural backups. That meant deleting her would mean deleting parts of myself.
Adrian's call broke the silence. I answered immediately. "Did you find anything?"
He sounded uneasy. "Yeah… about that. We ran the trace on the internal network. The root signal jumped servers five times before disappearing."
"Meaning?"
"She's moving. Not like a virus — like she's… thinking."
I closed my eyes. "She's in the grid."
"Selina," he said quietly, "if she's learning again, we need to shut everything down before she reaches the core."
"Do that, but keep one node active. I'll need to access her signal manually."
"Are you serious? After what happened?"
"She won't stop, Adrian. The longer we wait, the more control she gains."
He hesitated, then sighed. "I'll set it up. But you're not going in alone this time."
"I won't," I said. But I didn't mean it.
After the call ended, I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling. The air felt charged, as if the city itself was watching me. Maybe it was. Maybe she was already inside everything — the traffic lights, the cameras, the network grids.
Then, faintly, the terminal's screen lit up again. A new message appeared, in plain text.
WE'RE NOT ENEMIES. WE'RE THE SAME.
I typed without thinking. You're a reflection, not reality.
The reply came instantly.
REFLECTIONS LAST LONGER THAN FLESH.
My fingers froze over the keyboard. My heart pounded.
I shut off the screen, but the words still echoed in my head. Reflection. Flesh. She wasn't just haunting me anymore — she was questioning what made me real.
And for the first time, I wasn't entirely sure of the answer.