Chapter 99

The Memory War

Into the Hive (Lex & Muri)

The Cartwright Memory Facility wasn't on any map. Hidden beneath a dead biotech building outside Vienna, it took Lex and Muri two fake identities, a private flight, and a blackout van to reach it.

> Above ground: empty labs, vines choking the outer walls.

Below ground: the real hive.

Lex stepped through the security checkpoint disguised as a senior data officer. Muri wore a digital contact lens that spoofed her neural scan just long enough to get through the retinal gates.

Inside: white corridors. Silence. Every surface pulsed faintly with electric light.

She felt her old self stir.

She knew this place.

And then they reached it.

Sector 9A: The Root Core.

The archive holding every mind-backed prototype, every child recorded, tracked, tested.

Lex slid the drive into the central console.

Muri stood at the biometric scanner. Her hands trembled.

Lex took hers. "You don't have to go back there."

She looked at him.

> "I never left."

She placed her palm on the reader.

The console whirred, beeped—then unlocked.

Files bloomed on the screens—names, test numbers, brainwave loops.

And a final file:

> Live Subjects: 7

The Child in the Car (Micah & Sky)

As they drove toward a monastery safehouse in Northern India, Micah glanced back at the baby in the car seat, now fast asleep in Siddharth's arms.

"She hasn't cried once," Sky muttered. "Not since we left. Is that... normal?"

Micah didn't answer.

He was watching the GPS—specifically the dot that had started following them an hour ago.

A second black car. No license plates.

Then Siddharth said, "I think she's... humming something."

They listened.

A melody barely audible—but familiar.

The same lullaby. The encrypted tune buried in Rhea's chip.

Sky's eyes widened. "That tune—it's the unlock sequence."

Micah slammed the brakes. "Get out of the car. Now."

But before anyone could move, the other car pulled up behind them—and a child stepped out.

Maybe ten years old. Alone. Silent. Staring.

He looked at Rhea's baby... and whispered:

> "She's one of us."

---

Chapter 24: The Eden Countdown

Back in Vienna, alarms blared.

Someone else had entered the archive.

Muri and Lex spun around, weapons drawn.

But it wasn't an agent.

It was a child.

A teenage girl—maybe fourteen—with cold eyes and a thin scar above her temple.

She looked at Muri. "You were the first. But not the last."

Lex stepped forward. "Who are you?"

"I'm Subject Nine," she said. "You're trying to shut it down, but you can't. The program's gone quantum. It's not just data anymore. It's alive."

She smiled, gently.

> "And it's waking up."

The lights flickered.

The screens began updating.

Eden Protocol: Phase V initiated.

All living keys activating.

Global sync: 72 hours remaining.