Chapter 26 · Zero Consciousness

The pod screen went dark, then lit up again with a single word: FLATLINE.

I didn't move. Couldn't. My hand was still on the steel frame, cold biting through my palm, and Ava was somewhere behind me breathing too fast. The other two Marks—Three and Five, I'd started numbering them in my head just to keep track—had their guns half-raised, frozen like the rest of us.

Then the screen flickered. Not black anymore. A photo.

A kid. Maybe six years old. Buzz cut, oversized grey jumpsuit with a number stenciled on the chest: 07. Standing in front of a white cinder-block wall, hands at his sides, eyes straight ahead like he'd been told not to blink.

I knew that wall. I knew that jumpsuit.

I knew that face.

"What the hell," Ava said behind me, voice tight. "Mark, is that—"

"Me."

The word came out flat. No air behind it. Because it was me. Six years old. Onboarding photo. I remembered the smell of bleach and the woman in the lab coat who'd made me stand there for twenty minutes while she adjusted the camera. I remembered being hungry.