LOGINX-One, X-Two, and X-Three collapsed completely. Blood dripped from their noses. Their eyes rolled back. The separation I'd forced had damaged them more severely than I'd anticipated.But they were still breathing. Still alive. Still dangerous."Eva, we need to move—" Subject Seven grabbed my arm."No." I pulled free. "This is what Dr. Chen wanted. She said I was the catalyst. Said she needed them desperate enough to reveal their true capabilities. But she was lying. She needed them separated. Needed them vulnerable.""Vulnerable to what?"Before he could answer, the three figures on the ground began convulsing. Not from pain. From something else. Something invading them through the severed quantum network."Override protocols," X-One gasped. "System compromised. Primary consciousness experiencing—"His words cut off. His body went rigid. When his eyes opened again, they were different. Still his eyes. But something else looking through them.X-Two and the real X-Three experienced the
Forty-eight hours after deploying the corruptions, everything accelerated beyond our projections."This is wrong," X-Three said, staring at surveillance feeds from seventeen locations simultaneously. "X-One should still be investigating. Should still be building certainty. But he's already mobilizing assets. Already moving quantum weapons into position near X-Two's primary facilities.""Maybe our corruptions worked better than expected?""No. This is too fast. Too decisive. Like someone else is pushing them toward confrontation ahead of our timeline." X-Three magnified one feed. "Look. X-Two's bioweapon facilities are activating. Not just defensive protocols. Full offensive preparation. He's getting ready to release them."My blood went cold. "How long until—""Unknown. Could be hours. Could be minutes. The acceleration suggests external interference. Someone else is playing this board.""Dr. Chen.""Has to be. She said you were the catalyst. Said she needed X-One and X-Two desperate
The phase-tunnel deposited us in an abandoned subway station beneath Chicago. Water dripped from rusted pipes. Rats scattered from our sudden appearance. The smell of decay and forgotten infrastructure filled my lungs."This location is clean," X-Three said, pulling up a portable holographic display. "No surveillance. No quantum signatures. We have maybe six hours before X-One's detection grid adapts to find us again.""Six hours to start a war between gods." I paced the crumbling platform. "How do we begin?""With information. X-One's greatest strength is also his greatest vulnerability—he sees everything. Processes billions of data points simultaneously. But that much information requires interpretation. Requires filtering. Requires trust in the systems doing that filtering." X-Three pulled up network diagrams that looked like digital nervous systems. "We poison the interpretation. Make his systems lie to him. Subtly. Gradually. Until he can't trust what he's seeing.""And X-Two?""
The facility shook again. Harder this time. Support beams groaned. Emergency lighting flickered between red and darkness."We have maybe two minutes before they breach the inner sanctum," X-Three said, moving with practiced efficiency. "Grab the emergency pack. North corridor. There's a phase-tunnel that leads—""You knew." I grabbed his arm, spun him around. "That voice. They said we couldn't think you were helping me. Past tense. Like you were never actually on my side.""Eva, there is no time—""Make time." I phase-shifted partially, let quantum instability crackle around my hands. Three months of training made me dangerous now. Made me capable of things I hadn't been before. "Tell me the truth. Right now. Or I scatter your atoms across seventeen dimensions and let X-One find the pieces."X-Three looked at me. Really looked. And for the first time since I'd met him, I saw something like respect in his expression."You've learned well. Faster than anticipated. More adaptable than pr
Three months in the Null Zone felt like three years.Every day the same routine. Wake at 0500. Quantum combat training until 0800. Breakfast consisting of nutrient paste that tasted like regret. Intelligence briefings until 1200. Tactical simulations until 1800. Physical conditioning until 2100. Sleep that never quite came because the isolation was suffocating.X-Three was a relentless instructor. Patient but unyielding. He taught me how to phase-shift without equipment, how to read quantum signatures like tracking footprints, how to fight enemies who could exist in seventeen places simultaneously."Again," he would say when I failed. "Faster. More precise. X-One will not give you second chances."I learned. Adapted. Became something between human and quantum phenomenon. Could hold myself in phase-shift for minutes now instead of seconds. Could detect surveillance systems before they detected me. Could move through spaces X-One thought were secure.But the isolation was destroying me
"You want me to die," I said to X-Three as federal agents closed in around us. "Publicly. Convincingly. How?""Quantum dissolution. The same thing killing Grace before I cured her. Except controlled. Witnessed. Recorded. You scatter into probability clouds in front of two hundred federal agents. They document your death. File reports. Close the case on Eva Morrison. And you—" X-Three pulled out a device I did not recognize, "—you get reconstituted somewhere X-One and X-Two cannot track. Somewhere they think you cannot be because you are officially dead.""That is insane—""That is survival. X-One specializes in surveillance. X-Two specializes in assassination. Together they have made you the most watched, most targeted person on the planet. But dead people are invisible. Dead people can move freely. Dead people can hunt their enemies without being hunted back."The phase-shift was collapsing fast. Seconds left before I returned to normal reality and federal custody."If I do this, if







