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Chapter 159: The Split and the Scar

Chapter 159: Chapter 159: The Split and the Scar

The lights in Aya’s quarters were set to low-interference red — standard Mercury recovery palette — but tonight she dimmed them further, until red gave way to iron-dark. The room took on the shape of breath: still, heavy, unseen. Not silence, exactly, but pressure. Weight. The kind that settled into the joints and behind the eyes.

She didn’t sit.

The image floating above her desk didn’t invite comfort.

It was a frozen capture — low-resolution, scarred by static degradation, barely salvageable. But it held more than any pristine frame ever had. Her. Or something shaped like her. A child’s silhouette, back slightly hunched, left foot tilted inward. Posture was posture. No AI in the city could fake that level of match.

She whispered, "Enhance frame detail, layer composite 3C."

The AI responded. Its tone was clinical, unfeeling.

Match Confidence: 94.2%Subject: AYA MERCURYEstimated Age: 7 years, 4 monthsMargin of Error: ± 0.5cm bone growth regression

She didn’t blink. Couldn’t.

The slouch in the shoulders wasn’t just familiar — it was intimate. Like looking at a bruise she hadn’t realized was still healing. She’d carried that stance through every deployment. Every training sim. That slight tilt. The nervous hitch that Mercury’s instructors tried to beat out of her spine.

But it was never trained in.

It was always there.

The child on the screen didn’t have her face. The resolution wasn’t strong enough for that. But she had everything else. The weight in the joints. The hesitation in the stance. The refusal to lean left.

Aya’s breath fogged the lower part of the screen.

Then the AI flagged a second anomaly.

REFLECTIVE FRAGMENT DETECTED — 1.92 SECONDSLOCATION: GLASS SHARD, BACKGROUND RIGHT

Aya keyed into it manually. She didn’t trust automation for what came next.

The glass sliver glimmered in the image’s periphery — something cracked, catching light the wrong way. Inside the shard was motion blur, distorted — but enough for shape. For intention.

A figure.

Adult. Shoulders squared. Arm bent, one wrist resting against her hip.

And on that wrist, distorted by angle and light warp — a symbol.

Aya stilled her hands.

She adjusted the view. Reversed the mirror. Ran a distortion-compensation filter in increments of 0.1. Then again, slower.

The image stabilized.

The mark was not random.

It was a spiral. Broken at the base. With two harsh lines slicing through the curl, perpendicular and clean.

Her hand moved before she realized it — trembling fingers pushing back the sleeve of her right arm, higher, until the inside of her forearm caught the ambient red glow.

There.

A faded scar.

Pale and imperfect, almost erased. Her med file listed it as a stim-burn — a patch applied wrong, fused into the dermal layers, then cauterized. Just one of a dozen minor injuries across her years of field work.

But now it looked different.

Not an accident.

A seal.

Something implanted.

Something hidden in plain sight.

Her stomach dropped. Not in fear — in recognition.

Because her body already knew what her mind was just catching up to.

She sat slowly, fingers numb, and reached for the secure comm patch. Skipped the encryption cycle. Called Hernan directly.

It rang.

Ten... eleven pulses.

Then a soft, mechanical click.

No voice.

Just the presence.

Aya’s mouth was dry. "She’s in the frame. Calia. I ran every angle. Posture, location, body height, wrist position. There’s a reflection — she’s standing just outside the glass."

Hernan said nothing.

Aya pushed forward. "The mark on her wrist... it’s the same. I have it. Inner forearm. Scarred over. Not recorded on any of my training files. It’s from before."

Still silence.

A beat passed.

Then another.

Then Hernan’s voice came through, low, almost reluctant.

"How sure are you?"

Aya didn’t look away from the screen.

"I’m not guessing anymore."

More silence.

Then, at last, Hernan asked the question she hadn’t wanted to hear — not because it surprised her, but because it didn’t.

"Are you ready to know what they used you for?"

Aya closed her eyes.

She didn’t need the answer.

She was the answer.

"I think I already do," she whispered.

And killed the channel.

The terminal screen dimmed.

Outside, the rain resumed — not soft now, but insistent. Like fingernails tapping at glass.

Something was waking up inside her.

Not memory. Not identity.

Something older than both.

The black cell didn’t change.

That was its purpose — to deny the concept of change.

Renz sat where he had for... hours? Days?

Time bled in here. It wasn’t tracked. Just measured in breath.

Then, through the silence, came a crackle. Soft. Analog.

A tape.

Real air, real room tone — the kind that couldn’t be faked by modern filtering. It started mid-sentence.

Two voices.

One: young, male. Precise. Flat.

The other: female, calm. Detached.

Like something sacred had been replaced with something efficient.

Renz didn’t move.

He didn’t need to.

Because the boy on the recording was him.

"State your designation."

"I don’t have one yet."

"And why is that?"

"Because you haven’t chosen who I need to be."

His mouth opened slightly. Not shock. Not pain.

Muscle memory.

He had said those words. Not yesterday. Not last year.

Decades ago.

The female voice returned.

"You’ll remember when it’s safe. When the right question is asked."

And Renz answered. Now. In real time. Unconsciously.

"I’m not supposed to know the old room. I’m not supposed to know the code."

The words fell from his mouth like water — pulled from somewhere far below thought.

"They told me there were five of us," he said. "One memory. Five mirrors."

His hands tensed against the restraints.

Behind the glass, Hernan leaned in slightly, expression unreadable.

Renz kept speaking.

"I don’t remember the chair. I don’t remember her name."

"But I remember the number."

"What number?" The voice on the tape asked.

Renz said it:

"Seventy-three."

Then stopped.

His tongue moved — seeking something.

He tried again.

"Tahl... daren esh—"

But the words didn’t finish.

His throat seized.

Not fear.

Not hesitation.

Block.

A built-in failure trigger.

His body rejected the command.

He gasped softly.

Coughed.

Then slowly, deliberately, lifted his head... and looked at the camera in the ceiling.

His voice was calm. Centered.

"You’ve been watching."

He held the gaze.

"She didn’t just build me," he said. "She split me."

And for the first time in the room’s existence, the silence felt like it was listening.

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