Chapter 10 · The Other Ivy

Cole's hand was already on Ivy's wrist before the scan finished rendering.

"Don't," he said.

She pulled away. Not hard. Just enough that he felt the warmth of her pulse slip through his fingers. The drone's thermal overlay painted the clinic floor in blues and grays, and eight feet down, past concrete and rebar, a single red bloom pulsed slow and steady. Human. Alive. Alone.

"That's me," Ivy said. Her voice had gone flat.

Cole didn't answer. He was watching the signature's breath rate. Sixty-two beats per minute. Unconscious or sedated. The shape was smaller than Ivy by maybe fifteen pounds. Could be starvation. Could be blood loss. Could be that whoever put her down there hadn't planned on keeping her long.

"Cole." Ivy turned to face him. The gun wasn't on him yet, but her hand had drifted to her hip. "That's me. How is that me?"

"I don't know."

"You're lying."

She was right. He'd seen this before. Loop Forty-Seven. They'd found a body in a freight container, tagged for incineration, dental records matched Ivy's. Loop Sixty-One, a Jane Doe in a Shanghai morgue, same birthmark on her shoulder, same scar from a childhood bike wreck.