Chapter 19 · Floor Zero

"Move!"

Ada shoved Victor sideways as a copy lunged from the dark. The thing had his face—scarred jaw, dead eyes—but its movements were wrong, too smooth, like it had been practiced a thousand times.

Victor hit the wall hard and fired twice. Both shots center mass. The copy dropped.

"That's seven," Ada said. She was breathing hard, back pressed to the server rack. Blood ran down her left arm where another copy had caught her. "How many more you think there are?"

"However many times I died getting here." Victor reloaded without looking. Muscle memory. He'd done this enough loops that his hands knew the magazine before his brain did. "Could be fifty. Could be five hundred."

"Great."

Another copy came around the corner. This one had Ada's build, her hair, but it moved like a puppet on bad strings. Ada put it down with a knife to the throat.

"That's the third me I've killed today," she said. "Starting to feel personal."

Victor scanned the server hall. They were deep now, past the archive floor, past the backup chambers. The walls here weren't concrete anymore. They were black glass, smooth and cold, and behind them things moved. Shadows.