The night outside was thick with smoke and firelight, the facility behind them collapsing into ruin. But Melissa didn't look back.
They didn't stop moving until the concrete fortress was a speck behind the trees and the crackle of flames faded into silence. Caleb, limping, slumped against a tree. Ethan doubled over, hands on his knees, while Melissa stood eerily still—her mind storming.
They had destroyed the cryo archive. Dozens of backups. Versions of people—of her—now ash and vapor. But Vaughn was still out there.
And something inside Melissa had changed.
"I should feel free," she whispered, "but I don't. I feel… unfinished."
Ethan looked up at her, eyes shadowed. "That's because it's not over."
Caleb nodded grimly. "We hit the chamber. But the real seat of Requiem's power, it's not in those servers."
Melissa turned. "Then where?"
He hesitated. "In people."
There it was. The truth they'd only just brushed.
Requiem had scattered its influence not just in bunkers and programs, but in institutions, governments, networks. Its reach was global. And if Melissa was a prototype… there might be others. Watching. Sleeping. Waiting.
"We need proof," she said. "Names. Faces. Documents. Something we can take public."
Caleb raised an eyebrow. "You think this ends with an exposé? Requiem controls the channels. Every whistleblower ends up vanished or rewritten."
"Then we don't expose it," Melissa said, her voice sharpening. "We dismantle it. From the inside."
A beat passed. Then Ethan stepped forward and placed something cold in her hand.
A memory drive.
"What's this?" she asked.
His voice was quiet. "The override key. Before we blew the servers, I grabbed it from the core terminal. It's fragmented, but if we can decode it, we can access Requiem's command protocols."
Melissa stared at the tiny device. The weight of it felt heavier than steel.
"If we use this," Caleb warned, "they'll come for us harder than ever."
Melissa looked up at the sky, its stars indifferent and cold. "Then we stop running."
A new silence wrapped around them, not of fear, but resolution.
They'd burned the ghost archive. But now came the harder part:
Unearthing the living machine that built it.
And Melissa Kingsley, the girl who'd once been programmed to forget was about to become the one who taught the whole world to remember.
Melissa tightened her grip around the memory drive, its weight anchoring her resolve. They weren't running anymore. They were taking the fight to Requiem.
Caleb scanned the darkness ahead. "First step...decoding this without them knowing we have it." He turned to Ethan. "You trust anyone who can crack this?"
Ethan frowned. "There's one person. But we'll need to go underground, deep underground."
Melissa raised an eyebrow. "How deep?"
Ethan hesitated, then sighed. "Let's just say… they don't exactly live above the grid."
Caleb scoffed. "Fantastic. A hacker with a death wish."
But Melissa wasn't deterred. If they had a chance to decode the override key, to uncover Requiem's central protocol, they had to take it.
The journey led them to an abandoned metro station, long sealed off from the public. The metal gates were rusted, old transit maps peeling from the walls. It smelled like damp concrete and dust forgotten, stagnant, dead.
Except someone had kept it alive.
The tunnels pulsed with faint neon, cables snaking across the floor, monitors stacked in corners. And in the center of it all sat a lone figure, hooded, motionless, fingers dancing over holographic screens.
Ethan stepped forward. "Jay."
The figure didn't move. Then, without looking he muttered, "You're late."
Melissa narrowed her eyes. The air here was different, charged, electric. Whoever Jay was, he wasn't just some rogue coder. He was something more.
"We need this decrypted," Ethan said, placing the drive on the desk.
Jay finally turned. His sharp gaze flickered between them before landing on the drive. "Where did you get this?"
Melissa crossed her arms. "Requiem."
Jay's expression darkened. "Then you brought hell straight to my doorstep."
Caleb sighed. "Welcome to our world."
Jay didn't respond. Instead, he reached out and plugged the drive into his system.
The moment it connected, his screens flickered—glitches, code breaking apart in real time.
And then, before anyone could react—
A name flashed across the display.
Melissa Kingsley: Final Protocol – Authorization Pending.
Melissa's blood ran cold.
Jay leaned back slowly. "Well, this just got interesting."
Ethan turned to her, voice tense. "What does that mean?"
Melissa swallowed hard.
"I think," she whispered, "it means I was never just an experiment."
Jay typed something rapidly, his fingers moving faster than thought.
And then the real horror appeared.
Melissa Kingsley: Activation Window – 72 Hours Remaining.
Melissa staggered back.
Jay frowned. "Whatever they put in you, it's about to go live. And if we don't stop it..."
Ethan clenched his jaw. "Then Requiem wins."
Silence hung between them.
Melissa inhaled sharply, forcing steel into her voice.
"Then let's rewrite the system before it rewrites me."
Melissa's pulse pounded in her ears. The countdown had begun, and there was no telling what would happen when the timer hit zero. Requiem had programmed something into her, something waiting to activate.
Jay's fingers flew across the keyboard, his expression tightening as he decrypted another data block. "This isn't just some memory implant. This is a full neural override. If we don't disable it, you won't be Melissa Kingsley anymore."
Ethan stepped closer, jaw clenched. "What do we need to do?"
Jay's screen flashed red. "There's a failsafe. Requiem built an emergency reset protocol into all their subjects especially the prototypes. If we can trigger it before the activation sequence completes, we can overwrite their control."
Melissa's breath hitched. "And if we fail?"
Jay's gaze darkened. "Then Requiem doesn't need to erase you. They'll just make you theirs again."
Silence settled over them, cold and sharp.
Melissa swallowed hard. No more running. She had already broken their hold once. Now she had to shatter it completely.
"What do I have to do?" she asked.
Jay hesitated. "The override has to come from inside your neural network. That means—" He exhaled sharply. "We have to put you under."
Ethan stiffened. "You mean unconscious?"
Jay nodded. "We need to induce a deep-state neural dive. Requiem installed layers of failsafe in your subconscious, memories, commands, triggers. The only way to break them is from the inside."
Melissa felt her stomach tighten. "And how do I get back?"
Jay typed rapidly, his screen flashing new sequences. "I build an anchor. Something tethering you to the real world, to who you were before Requiem rewrote you."
Ethan stepped forward. "Then I'm the anchor."
Jay looked at him. "It has to be strong. Deep. Something she can hold onto even when the override starts breaking her mind apart."
Melissa met Ethan's gaze. There was nothing deeper than what they had survived together.
Jay exhaled. "Fine. But we have less than seventy-two hours before the activation completes. We do this now."
Melissa sat down, gripping the arms of the chair as Jay prepped the system. Ethan stayed beside her, his grip steady, firm.
As Jay connected the neural interface, Melissa closed her eyes, breathing deeply.
This was it.
She was about to step into the deepest layers of her own mind and face whatever Requiem had buried inside her.
The countdown was ticking.
And once she entered, there was no guarantee she'd make it back.
Melissa barely had time to inhale before the neural dive pulled her under.
The world around her fractured, light bending, shadows twisting, reality peeling away in fragments. She wasn't in Jay's underground station anymore. She wasn't anywhere.
Then...
A memory.
She was standing in a familiar room, the walls sterile, humming with quiet machinery. A voice echoed through the space, calm and clinical. "Subject 47 is progressing as expected. The neural imprint is holding."
She turned.
A reflection stared back at her from the one-way mirror.
But it wasn't her.
It was the prototype.
Her backup.
Melissa staggered backward, her chest tightening. This wasn't just a memory, this was a constructed reality, a simulation built from layers of programming.
Then the prototype spoke.
"You thought you were in control," it said, tilting its head, an eerie mirror of Melissa's own movements. "But control was never yours to have."
Melissa clenched her fists. "I am not one of you."
The prototype smiled. "That's what they made you believe."
Melissa felt the air shift, the walls changing. Images flickered, scenes from her past, rewritten. Conversations warped. Her choices altered.
"None of this is real," she hissed.
The prototype's smile widened. "Isn't it?"
Melissa gritted her teeth. She had to anchor herself. Ethan. Caleb. Jay. The mission. She had to get back.
Outside the neural dive, Ethan watched as Jay's monitors spiked.
"She's fighting it," Jay muttered.
"Pull her out," Ethan demanded.
Jay shook his head. "If we pull her too soon, she stays compromised. She has to break it from inside."
Inside the simulation, Melissa steadied herself. "I decide what's real," she whispered, tightening her grip on her own thoughts, forcing Requiem's programming to crack.
The prototype stepped closer. "You are no longer just Melissa Kingsley. You are—"
Melissa struck first.
Her mind lashed outward, breaking the illusion apart, sending fractures through the system. Walls crumbled, data unraveled—
Then everything went white.
Ethan grabbed Melissa's wrist just as she gasped back into consciousness.
She blinked hard, chest heaving.
The countdown on the screen had stopped.
Jay exhaled. "She did it."
But Melissa wasn't sure.
Because somewhere, deep in her mind, something else had awakened.
Something Requiem had never planned for.