“And I was next.”
There’s no fear in his voice.
Only clarity.
He crouches next to the screen again, pulling up another frame—a clone queue list buried in the metadata. There are names. Dozens. Some with known flags. Others I recognize from mission logs. A few still marked active, which means?—
“They already deployed some of these,” he says darkly. “And no one noticed.”
“Because no one was looking,” I say. “Obol was built under a noise floor. Deep silence ops only. You can’t expose something when everyone thinks it’s just memory glitches and psych evals.”
Tatek exhales slowly. A long, shuddering breath. Like he’s trying to unmake the weight pressing down on his spine.
“This is rewriting the species,” he says again. “Not just suppressing choice—erasing it entirely.”
My pulse kicks faster. I cross the room and sit beside him, shoulder to shoulder, needing to be closer.
“They’re not just making doubles,” I whisper. “They’re building a future where no one’s unpredictable. No one rebels. No oneremembers.”
He nods slowly. “Because it’s not about control anymore. It’s about permanence.”
That lands like a punch in my chest. Permanent compliance. Permanent obedience.
Permanent loss of self.
“No more hiding,” I say. “No more running.”
Tatek doesn’t hesitate.
“We end this,” he says.
I watch his jaw flex, the shadows under his eyes deepen. He looks every inch the soldier—scarred, hardened, coiled in purpose—but there’s something else now. Something beneath the battle stance. Something quiet and absolute.
Conviction.
“They’ll track the leak instantly,” I warn. “It won’t be subtle.”
“They don’t deserve subtle,” he replies.
My mouth curves, humorless and sharp. “So what’s the new plan?”
“We expose it. All of it. No fragments. No teases. We drop the full package into every remaining free net we can ping before they shut the lanes.”
He taps a few keys, highlighting the safest outbound relays. Not many left. But enough. Maybe.
I lean closer, lowering my voice.
“This will make us targets.”
He turns to me, gaze steady.
“We already are.”
The silence between us isn’t empty now.
It’s charged.
Forged.
