Chapter 12 · The Witness Room

"Don't touch that."

Ada's hand froze an inch from the panel. The door behind us had sealed the second we stepped through, and now we were standing in what looked like an execution chamber. Not the kind with a chair and a viewing window. The kind with a glass cylinder in the center and a ring of cameras bolted to the ceiling, all of them blinking red.

"Too late to get shy now," she said, but her voice had that edge it always got when she was about to do something stupid.

I grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. "Look at the floor."

Scorch marks. Recent ones. They radiated out from the cylinder in perfect lines, like someone had drawn them with a ruler. The glass was clean, but the metal base was warped. Something had burned hot enough to bend steel.

"Previous contestant didn't make it," Ada said.

The panel lit up. White text, no preamble:

**INSTANCE-00012 / WITNESS PROTOCOL ACTIVE** **SELECT: MEMORY OR COMPANION** **NON-COMPLIANCE RESULTS IN DUAL ERASURE** **TIMER: 120 SECONDS**

"What the hell does that mean?" Ada stepped closer to the cylinder. The cameras tracked her movement. "Memory or companion. Which memory?