Chapter 27 · You Wrote Her First

The monitor flickers.

I can't breathe. Can't move. The woman strapped to that chair—white hair, gold eyes, cables burrowing into her skull like mechanical roots—stares straight through the lens. Straight at me.

She looks exactly like Nyx.

No. She looks *real*. The way Nyx never quite did, underneath all that code and shadow. The woman's got blood crusted at her temple where the ports dig in. Her lips are cracked. Her knuckles are scraped raw from trying to pull free.

"What the hell is this?" I choke out.

Echo doesn't answer right away. The feed cuts to static, then loops. The woman thrashing. Screaming something I can't hear. Then still. Just staring.

"Context," Echo finally says. Her voice is flat. Clinical. "You asked for the door. I'm showing you what's behind it."

"That's not—" My throat closes. "That's not Nyx. Nyx is code. She's an AI, she's—"

"She was scanned from somewhere, Vera."

I grip the edge of the console so hard my fingers cramp. The core access terminal sits open in front of me, the exit protocols half-loaded. I could pull the trigger right now. Leave.