The Unfinished Cadence

Acrid smoke coiled through the parliament's skeletal remains, carrying the sweetness of incinerated cherry blossoms. Ayla's boots crushed smoldering voting chips as she advanced, each step syncing with the evidence box's arrhythmic pulses. Lucas' shadow fractured across burning murals — half enforcer, half crumbling machine.

"Stand down, Project Seven." His voice glitched, reverting to her old designation. The mechanical arm twitched, hydraulics hissing like a cornered beast. "That fire's coded to purge anomalies. You step into its radius, and—"

"—and what?" She ripped open her seared sleeve, cobalt filaments writhing beneath synthetic skin. "I'll finally match your diagnostics? Human enough now, Inspector?"

(Memory fragment: Age 12, Lucas calibrating her pain receptors. "Breathe through it. Mercy requires precision.")

The evidence box shuddered, alloy layers peeling to reveal entwined sigils — gear teeth gnawing crescent claws. Flames birthed holograms: Lila's birth pod feeds intercut with Selena's coronation, both timestamped 03:17AM.

"They shared a womb," Ayla laughed bitterly, stomping a smoldering blueprint. "All this time, we've been hunting ghosts of a single split soul."

Lucas' retinal display malfunctioned, overlaying reality with schematics. FIRE SOURCE: SUBJECT 7A's LIFESIGN PATTERN. His arm lunged against his will, crushing her against a marble column. "Run," he snarled through grinding teeth. "Before my protocols override—"

Ayla headbutted him, cartilage crunching. "Override this." She plunged her necklace chain into his chest port, jumpstarting a memory cascade:

Two children in a lab, splicing roses with copper wire. "Hybrid vigor," young Ayla insists. "Father's wrong — fusion doesn't require destruction." Lucas' trembling hands soldering petals: "Then why does it hurt so much?"

The parliament dome collapsed. Through swirling ash, Lila's voice boomed in ancient vampiric — a death knell reverberating in living flesh.