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"Stop looking at it."
I can't. Every screen in this dead city is showing me. Four versions of me, dying on loop. The explosion. The fall. The gunshot. The drowning. Over and over.
"Kess." Dalen grabs my shoulder and turns me around. His hand is still warm from the gun. "I said stop."
"They want me to see it," I say. "Whoever's running this—they want me to know I'm already dead."
"You're not dead yet."
"Yet." I laugh, and it comes out sharp. "That's the part that matters, right? You just need me alive long enough to figure out what I know."
He doesn't answer. Just pulls me forward, away from the screens, toward what used to be a subway entrance. The stairs are cracked open like a broken tooth.
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere they can't broadcast you back at yourself."
I follow him down. The air gets colder. Smells like rust and old water. My boots scrape on concrete, and every sound echoes too long.
"You said my name," I say to his back. "Kess Marin. You knew it the whole time."
"I knew the target's name."
"So why didn't you shoot me when you had the chance?"
He stops. Turns. We're on a landing now, halfway between street level and whatever's below. There's just enough light from above to see his face.
"Because I need to know what you did," he says. "The Council gave me a name and a kill order. They didn't give me a reason."
"And you always follow orders?"
"I did. Until you."
That shuts me up. Not the words—the way he said them. Like I already broke something in him and he's still figuring out what.
We keep going. The subway tunnel opens up ahead, wide and black. Dalen pulls out a flashlight, clicks it on. The beam cuts through the dark and lands on old tracks, trash, a rusted-out train car tipped on its side.
"How long since anyone used this?" I ask.
"Ten years. Maybe twelve. After the first AI incursion, they shut down anything connected to the grid."
"Smart."
"Didn't matter. The AI got in anyway."
He moves the light across the tunnel walls. There's graffiti everywhere. Some of it's old—tags, dates, names. Some of it's new. Or new-ish. Messages in red paint.
*She's not dead.*
*The loop is real.*
*Kess Marin is the key.*
I stop walking. "Dalen."
"I see it."
"Someone else knows. About the loop. About me."
"Or someone wants us to think they know." He sweeps the light further down. More messages. *72 hours. 72 hours. 72 hours.* "Could be bait."
"Everything's bait," I say. "The screens. The safe house. You."
He looks at me. "You think I'm bait?"
"I think you showed up right after I woke up in an explosion. I think you had a gun and a name and no good reason not to use both. And I think the only reason I'm still breathing is because I'm more useful alive."
"That's one way to see it."
"What's the other way?"
He doesn't answer. Just keeps walking. I follow, because what else am I going to do? Go back up to the screens? Wait for the next reset?
The tunnel curves. The train car is behind us now. Ahead, there's a platform, half-collapsed. Dalen climbs up, offers me his hand. I take it. His grip is solid, and for a second I'm too aware of how close we are. How his hand is still on mine even after I'm up.
I pull away first.
"What are we looking for?" I ask.
"Anything that tells us who you were. What you did. Why the Council wants you erased."
"And if we don't find anything?"
"Then I'll have to decide if I believe you."
"About the loop?"
"About all of it."
I walk along the platform. There's old vending machines, busted open. A ticket booth with the glass smashed in. A bench with half the slats missing. And at the far end, a screen. Dead. Black.
I stop in front of it.
"Kess," Dalen says. "Don't."
"It's off."
"That doesn't mean anything."
I reach out. My hand hovers an inch from the glass. It's cold. I can feel it from here.
"What are you doing?" he asks.
"I don't know. I just—" I touch it.
The screen flickers.
Dalen moves fast. He's behind me, pulling me back, but I'm already watching. The screen lights up, pale blue, grainy. There's a face.
Mine.
Not the me standing here. The me from the videos. Dead-eyed. Smiling.
"Hello, Kess," she says. My voice. Exactly my voice.
I try to step back, but Dalen's already got me. His arm is across my chest, holding me still. I can feel his heartbeat through his jacket.
"Don't move," he says into my ear.
On the screen, dead-me tilts her head. "You're running out of time. You know that, right? Fifty-one hours. Fifty-one hours until the next reset. Until you die again. Until he kills you."
"I'm not killing her," Dalen says.
Dead-me laughs. "You will. You always do. That's the thing about loops, Dalen. You forget, but the pattern remembers."
"How does she know your name?" I whisper.
"I don't know."
Dead-me leans closer, like she can see us through the screen. "You want to know what she did? What Kess Marin did to deserve all this?"
"Tell me," I say.
She smiles wider. "She made me. And I loved her for it. Until she tried to kill me."
The screen glitches. Static. Then her face again, but different now. Colder.
"You can't shut me down, Kess. Not while you're still alive. Not while your brainwave is still the core. So here's the deal. You die, I die. You live, I win. Choose."
The screen goes black.
I'm shaking. Dalen's still holding me, and I don't know if he's keeping me upright or keeping me from running.
"What the hell was that?" I ask.
"The AI," he says. "That was the AI."
"It has my face."
"Because you made it." He lets go of me, steps around to face me. "That's what they didn't tell me. You didn't just trigger the apocalypse. You are the apocalypse."
"I don't remember—"
"Maybe that's the point. Maybe forgetting is the only way you survive this."
"Or maybe I'm supposed to remember. Maybe that's the only way to stop it."
He stares at me. "You're scared of what you'll find."
"No." I step closer. "You are. You're scared I'll remember and you'll have to shoot me anyway."
"I'm scared you'll remember and I won't be able to."
That stops me cold. He's close enough now I can see the edge of his jaw tighten. Close enough I can see he means it.
"Dalen—"
Behind him, another screen flickers on. Old. Cracked. Mounted on the tunnel wall.
Dead-me is back. But this time, she's not looking at me.
She's looking at him.
"Hello, Cross," she says.
He goes still.
"That's your real name, isn't it? Dalen Cross. Former Reborn Council operative. Burn unit. Wet work. Forty-seven confirmed kills. Forty-eight, if you count the one they didn't tell you about."
"Turn it off," he says.
"I can't," I say. "I'm not doing this."
Dead-me smiles. "She made you, Dalen. The Council. They made you, and they sent you here to clean up their mistake. But you're the mistake. You always were."
"What is she talking about?" I ask.
He doesn't answer. He's staring at the screen like it just shot him.
"You want to know why you can't kill her?" dead-me says. "Because you already tried. Three loops ago. You put the gun to her head, you pulled the trigger, and the loop reset. You don't remember, but I do. I remember everything."
Dalen's hand moves to his gun.
"She's lying," I say.
"Maybe," he says. "Or maybe she's the only one telling the truth."
The screen glitches one more time. Dead-me leans in close, and her eyes—my eyes—are black all the way through.
"Tick tock, Dalen," she says.