Chapter 4

Jamie's illness passed as quickly as it came.

By the next day, he was bouncing off the walls and ready to go home.

Ethan went to handle the discharge paperwork. Fiona had heard Jamie was sick and volunteered to pick us up.

She was extra attentive today. While helping me get Jamie into his jacket, she casually set her phone on the bedside table.

The screen lit up with a few new messages.

I was about to tell her to grab her phone when my gaze happened to fall on the screen.

It was a group chat titled: Project: Awaken Vivian Quinn (Phase One).

Someone had posted: @Fiona, Mr. Shaw says you overdid the crying yesterday. Keep it toned down when you pick them up today.

My blood ran cold.

A second later, Fiona turned and saw the lit screen too. Her face went white. She lunged for the phone, snatched it up, and forced a laugh.

"Ha, just some annoying sales group. They're always spamming nonsense..."

I stood there holding Jamie, frozen to the bone, but I didn't call her out. Not yet.

In that moment, everything clicked. The walkie-talkie. The suite held in his name. None of it was a coincidence.

Ethan came back from the front desk and saw my ashen face. "What's wrong, Viv?"

I looked at him, and for the first time, he felt like a complete stranger.

I began investigating. Quietly.

One day, I made an excuse to go out and rented a computer at a gaming cafe.

Out of habit, I pulled up the NASDAQ live ticker. But the candlestick charts had a subtle lag in their movements, and at certain points, the patterns repeated in ways that were too regular.

I tried logging into my old work email. The page just kept showing "Server not found."

Using what little I knew about network infrastructure, I opened a terminal and pinged several overseas public IP addresses. Every single one timed out.

Staring at screen after screen of "Request timed out," I arrived at a conclusion that made my skin crawl.

This area, the very place I was breathing in, was not connected to the outside world at all.

It was a massive, artificially sealed local network!

Every website, every news article, every stock feed I'd seen was pre-loaded mirror data stored on local servers.

Inside this airtight version of The Truman Show, there was one crack in the facade. The PC at the cafe owner's register had a USB cellular modem with its own connection to the outside internet, something he'd set up so he could secretly play online games.

While he was outside smoking, I slipped behind the counter and opened a real search engine.

With trembling hands, I typed my name into the search bar: Vivian Quinn.

The moment I hit Enter, headline after headline flooded the screen, stinging my eyes.

PROMINENT WALL STREET EXECUTIVE VIVIAN QUINN MISSING THREE MONTHS, SUSPECTED KIDNAPPING

BILLIONAIRE CEO VANISHES WITHOUT TRACE; INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY

QUINN ENTERPRISES IN TURMOIL; THREE-MILLION-DOLLAR REWARD FOR MISSING CEO

Staring at the missing-person photo on screen, my own face in a sharp tailored suit, my blood went cold.

I wasn't some housewife who had lost her memory in a car crash and built a loving life with her husband.

I had been stolen. Ripped right out of my real life.

The world I thought I'd crossed into, the warmth I thought I'd found... all of it was fake.

This was a massive, custom-built movie set, made just for me!

When I heard him stub out his cigarette and start back toward the door, I closed the browser and slipped back to my seat in the corner.

Sitting in the dim glow of the monitor, I bit down hard on my lip and smiled.

I kept smiling until the tears came.

I wasn't losing my mind. I'd been played. Completely.