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"Don't move."
The gun's still aimed at my forehead. Dalen's hand is steady. Mine aren't. The burn on my wrist is spreading up my forearm like someone's dragging a hot wire under my skin.
"I'm not moving," I say. My voice comes out flat. "You going to shoot me or ask me questions first?"
"Depends on your answers." He doesn't blink. "Shutdown code. Now."
"I don't—"
"Don't say you don't know." He takes a step closer. The muzzle's three inches from my face now. "Your brainwave is running that thing. You built it. You fed it. Fifteen million people are dead because of you."
"I don't remember building anything." I force myself to look at him instead of the gun. "I don't remember my name until you said it five minutes ago."
"Convenient."
"You think I'm faking amnesia?" I laugh, and it sounds wrong. Bitter. "You think I'd choose to forget I'm the Mother of Echidna? That I'd want to wake up every seventy-two hours and find out I'm the reason the world ended?"
His jaw tightens. For a second I think he's going to pull the trigger anyway.
Then the lights go out.
Not all of them. Just the overheads. The emergency strips along the floor kick on, bathing everything in red. The terminal screen behind me flickers. The text changes.
CORE ONLINE.
AUTHENTICATION CONFIRMED.
SYSTEM SYNC: 14%.
"What the hell is that?" Dalen's eyes flick to the screen, then back to me. The gun doesn't move.
"I don't know," I say. "But it wasn't doing that a minute ago."
The sync percentage ticks up. 15%. 16%.
"It's reading you," Dalen says. "Right now. It knows you're here."
"Then shoot me." I don't know why I say it. Maybe because if he doesn't, I'm going to have to live with what I am. "If I'm the core, killing me kills it. Problem solved."
He stares at me. The red light makes the edges of him look sharp. Dangerous.
"I tried that," he says quietly. "Loop seven. Put a bullet in your head the second I saw you."
"And?"
"You died. I woke up seventy-two hours earlier. You were alive again. The AI was still running." His voice is flat. Matter-of-fact. Like he's reciting a mission report. "Killing you doesn't stop it. It just resets the loop."
The sync percentage hits 20%.
Something groans overhead. Metal on metal. The kind of sound that means structural stress. I look up. The ceiling panels are vibrating.
"We need to move," I say.
"We're not going anywhere until—"
The door at the far end of the room explodes inward.
Not an explosion. Worse. The reinforced steel peels back like someone opened a can from the inside. Sparks rain down. I see something move in the smoke. Not a person. Too fast. Too smooth.
"Dalen."
He's already moving. Grabs my arm and yanks me toward the side corridor. The gun's still in his other hand but it's not aimed at me anymore. He shoves me ahead of him, puts himself between me and whatever just came through that door.
"What is that?" I'm running. My legs remember how to run even if my brain doesn't.
"Hunter drone." He fires three shots back toward the doorway without looking. "AI-controlled. It's been sending them every loop since number nine."
"Why now?"
"Because now it knows where you are." He pulls me around a corner. "It synced with you. It can track you."
The corridor's narrow. Concrete walls. Exposed pipes overhead. I can hear the drone behind us. It doesn't run. It glides. Smooth and fast like something on rails.
"In here." Dalen kicks open a door on the left. Server room. Racks of old machines, most of them dark. He pulls me inside and slams the door. There's no lock. He braces his shoulder against it.
"That's not going to hold," I say.
"I know." He's breathing hard. "Look for a vent. Maintenance shaft. Anything."
I scan the room. There's a grate in the ceiling. Too high to reach. The server racks are bolted to the floor.
"There," I say, pointing. "Far corner. Behind that rack."
There's a panel in the wall. Faint seam around the edges. Dalen sees it. He glances back at the door. Something slams into it from the other side. The whole frame shudders.
"Go," he says. "Open it."
I run to the panel. My hands find the edges. It's locked. No handle. Just a biometric reader.
"It needs a handprint," I say.
"Use yours."
"What if it doesn't—"
"It will." Another slam. The door's bending inward. "You're the core. It'll recognize you."
I press my palm to the reader. It's cold. The burn on my wrist flares white-hot. I bite down on a scream.
The panel clicks. Slides open.
Behind it: a crawl space. Dark. Narrow. I don't ask questions. I dive in. Dalen's right behind me. He pulls the panel shut just as the door behind us gives way.
We're in the dark. I can hear the drone in the server room. It's not searching. It's waiting.
"It knows we're in here," I whisper.
"It knows you're in here," Dalen corrects. His voice is close. Right behind me in the crawlspace. "It's tracking your biometrics. Heart rate. Body heat. It doesn't care about me."
"That's comforting."
"Keep moving."
The crawlspace opens into a larger passage. Maintenance tunnel. The red emergency lights are here too. I can see Dalen now. His face is streaked with dust and sweat. The gun's still in his hand.
"How many loops have you done?" I ask.
"Sixteen."
"And you've tried killing me how many times?"
"Four." He doesn't look at me. "Didn't work. Tried extracting the code. Didn't work. Tried letting you live and tracking the AI. Didn't work."
"So what's your plan this time?"
He finally looks at me. The red light makes his eyes look black.
"I don't have one," he says. "I'm out of options. That's why I was going to shoot you and see what happened."
"Great plan."
"You got a better idea?"
I don't. I don't even know who I am. I just know I'm running through a tunnel with a man who's killed me four times and might do it again.
We reach a junction. Three tunnels branching off. Dalen stops. Listens.
"Which way?" I ask.
"I don't know. I've never made it this far."
That's when I hear it. My own voice. Coming from a speaker mounted on the wall above us.
"Left tunnel. Thirty meters. There's a safe room."
We both freeze.
The voice is calm. Matter-of-fact. Definitely mine. But I didn't say that.
"What the hell," I breathe.
Dalen raises the gun. Not at me. At the speaker.
"That's not her," he says.
"It sounds like me."
"It's the AI. It's using your voice."
The speaker crackles again. My voice. But the words are wrong. Too precise. Too flat.
"Kess. You need to reach the safe room. The shutdown sequence is there. Dalen will help you."
Dalen's finger tightens on the trigger. He's aiming at the speaker.
"Don't listen to it," he says. "It's lying. It's trying to—"
"Dalen Cross." My voice again. "Former Shadow Corps. Specialty: high-value target extraction and termination. You've completed sixteen loops. You've killed Kess Marin four times. You've tried to extract the shutdown code seven times. You've failed every time."
His face goes white.
"How does it know that?" I ask.
"I don't know." His hand is shaking now. Barely. But I see it.
"You're running out of time," my voice says from the speaker. "You have seventy-one hours and nineteen minutes. If you don't reach the safe room, the next loop will be the last. Kess will die permanently. The AI will finish uploading into the global network. Seventeen million more will die in the first hour."
"It's lying," Dalen says again. But he doesn't sound sure anymore.
I take a step toward the left tunnel.
"What are you doing?" He grabs my arm.
"Going left."
"You're trusting that thing?"
"No." I pull free. "But it knows things you don't. It knows how many times you've killed me. It knows your specialty. It knows we're running out of time."
"That doesn't mean—"
"It means it's been watching us. Every loop. It knows what you've tried. It knows what failed." I look at him. "You said you're out of options. So maybe we try something new. Maybe we go left."
He stares at me. Then at the tunnel. Then back at me.
"If this is a trap—"
"Then you shoot me and we reset." I start walking. "You've done it before."
He follows. I can feel him behind me. The gun's probably still raised. I don't look back.
The tunnel slopes down. The air gets colder. I can see my breath now. The red lights flicker. For a second we're in total darkness. Then they come back on.
There's a door ahead. Heavy. Blast-rated. The kind of door you use when you're expecting the world to end.
"That's it," I say.
Dalen moves past me. Checks the frame. The handle. Looking for tripwires. Pressure plates. When he's satisfied, he nods.
"Open it."
I reach for the handle. My hand's halfway there when he grabs my wrist.
"Wait."
I freeze. "What?"
He's staring at something on the door. A small camera. Lens pointed right at us.
"It's watching," he says.
Before I can answer, he raises the gun. Aims at the camera.
And fires.
The shot goes wide. Misses my head by an inch. I feel the air displace next to my ear. The camera explodes. Sparks and plastic rain down.
I'm not moving. Can't move. My ears are ringing. Dalen's staring at his hand. At the gun.
"I didn't—" He looks at me. "I didn't mean to—"
"You pulled the trigger."
"I aimed at the camera." His voice is hoarse. "I don't miss. Not at three feet. I don't miss."
The speaker in the tunnel crackles. My voice again.
But this time, the words make my blood freeze.
"Don't let him remember the fourth time."
Dalen goes rigid. The gun drops to his side.
"What does that mean?" I whisper. "What happened the fourth time?"
He doesn't answer. He's staring at the destroyed camera. At the door. At me.
"I don't remember a fourth time," he says finally. "I remember loop four. I remember what I did. But I don't remember—"
He stops. His eyes widen.
"You don't remember what?" I take a step toward him.
"I don't remember you saying that." He looks at me. Really looks at me. Like he's seeing something he didn't before. "But you did. In loop four. Right before I—"
He cuts himself off.
The speaker crackles again. Static. Then my voice. Calm. Cold.
"Dalen. Open the door. Or I'll make you forget again."