AVA The sun was rising when the shuttle touched down outside the safehouse. Vale rested her head on Liam's shoulder, eyes closed, fingers curled around his wrist. She didn't speak anything on the way home. He didn't, either. Their stillness, however, was peaceful. The kind that only comes after you've overcome something that should have broken you. I stepped onto the pavement before they did, my feet crunching on gravel. The air had a distinct fragrance. Clean. As though the storm had passed. But something inside me still said, "Not yet."LIAM I should have been relieved. We survived the sync. Vale did not fracture. Genesis did not win. But I couldn't quit thinking about what she said in that room. > "What if I like some of the things he felt?" That line lodged in my chest like a hook. Not because it indicated she was slipping. But I understand her too well. Understanding your enemy is fraught with danger. Especially when the adversary is a version
AVA I glanced at the screen, my heart thumping. Vale's eyes, which had been delicate and silver-fringed, were now black. Not void-like and not empty. But deep. Bottomless. A mirror turned inward. "Liam," I said into the communicator, "get her out of there." He did not move. He was stopped next to her, his hand still gripping hers. "And she..."She smiled. Not like a youngster. As if something ancient had suddenly remembered how to wear her skin. LIAM The chamber felt heavier than usual. As if the air had teeth. I should have let go of her hands. I knew that. But I could not. Because something in me believed that even now especially now she was still herself. "You okay?" I whispered. She blinks slowly. Her voice, when it arrived, was gentle and weird. Like an echo bouncing between dimensions. "He doesn't want to fight anymore." My grip tightened. "Who is 'he,' Vale?" She turned to face me. Her pupils remained inky, and her lips trembled.
AVA I wrapped Vale in a blanket and took her inside. Her feet were iced. Her lips were pallid. However, her voice was steady. "He is not attempting to harm me. "He just... wants space." I kneeled in front of her. "He seeks to possess you, Vale. Not in love with you. There is a distinction. I noticed a shift in her gaze as she stared at me. "Do you adore me because you created me?" she inquired. "No," I answered gently. "I love you because I have chosen to. That is what makes it authentic." "Then I want to select," she said. "But I can not if I am not sure who he truly is." DAMIAN That was the moment everything changed.Vale was not trying to flee. She was not breaking. She was searching. Not safe. Not in a shelter. Truth. And before she could face Genesis, she needed to get to know him. We flew her and Ava back to Manhattan with full jammer security. Liam greeted us at the door. He did not speak right away. He simply stared at Vale as if he
DAMIAN Vale knelt alongside him, her small hands hovering above Liam's. She did not appear terrified. She seems... sad. She seemed to have anticipated this suffering. "I was made from him," she explained quietly. "I know where he hid." She pushed her palm against his chest. "He used to fantasize about being more than a ghost. Of feeling liked. Of being... seen. Her eyes fluttered shut. "Liam," she whispered. "You once told me that you were terrified about being anonymous. But I see you. I recall your laughter. The way you referred to me as daughter before you even realized I could speak."Liam thrashed, groaning. Julian called out, "Neural activity is spiking!" Vale bent forward, touched her forehead to his, and whispered: "You do not have to be Genesis to matter. You just have to come home." AVA Liam gasped. And then he went still. I could not breathe. His eyes slowly opened. Not cold. Not artificial. But his. He looked up at Vale, then at me. "Ava
AVA She held Liam's hand. Fingers so little, they barely closed around his. But the gesture was deliberate. Possessive. And completely unusual for someone who had just opened her eyes. He dubbed her "Daughter." My throat closed. Not because he said the term, but because she believed it. I noticed it in her expression: calm reverence, not perplexity. No questions, no fears. Just certainty. She would picked him. Or worse, she was designed to. That worried me more than anything we would ever encountered.DAMIAN I could not look away from them. From a pairing that should never have been. Liam the lad we would saved, mentored, and trusted and the girl who now stood by his side, like the rebirth of every failure we thought we would forgotten. Julian's voice buzzed in my communication again. "Her imprint is built to identify the major source of neuronal familiarity. Liam became that after obtaining Genesis' code. "She is unaware that he has changed." But I
AVA Six hours. That was all we had before the clone-child became a reality. Not a plan. Not a prototype. A human made of code and confusion, wrapped in the face of someone I never asked to copy. Dominic sat beside the tank, hands quiet, face calm. Too calm. "There is still time to stop this," I remarked gently. He did not glance at me. "I had time to stop being forgotten," he explained. "And I did not take it. "This is the only version of me that has survived."DAMIAN I observed him cradling the tablet containing the gestation measurements as if it were a newborn in his arms. He was not cold. He had made a commitment. The kind of dedication that stems from desperation, not tranquility. "Dominic," I asked gently, "What happens when she grows up and discovers she is not real?" "She will be real," he stated. "To me." "That is not enough." He looked up. "It was enough for me when I only had your shadow." AVA I stepped in front of the pod. The artificia