CHAPTER 14 AXEL

From what El told me on the way we had to go the the HQ here fist before going over to Dystopia where they took Louis. Apparently her space ship was in this HQ and was the only way to go over to Dystopia.

The road to HQ was long and cracked like memory—familiar, but wrong in all the important ways. Trees blurred by on either side of the vehicle, blackened by ash and time, as if the world was already mourning what hadn't happened yet.

El drove like she had a score to settle with the horizon.

I sat in the passenger seat, hyperaware of the silence stretching between us. It wasn't just tense. It was surgical. Every unsaid word was a scalpel carving something deeper into the space between who we used to be and what we were now.

The last time we rode like this, she'd laughed at my driving and called me a civilian with a death wish.

Now she didn't even look at me.

The dashboard flickered. Once. Twice. Then the screen lit up again—same message. Mocking. Persistent.

"She's not done. HQ compromised. They're not who you think. TRUST NO ONE. —L"

I reached forward to kill the feed.

"Don't," El said sharply. "Let it run."

"You think there's more?"

"I think it's bait. And I want to see who bites."

I let my hand fall back into my lap. My palms were sweaty. Every instinct screamed that this was wrong—charging straight into the lion's den with only a ghost of a warning and a pulse rifle.

But something deeper—the part of me that had built her—was… intrigued.

God help me, I was curious.

---

We arrived at SPECTRA HQ just after nightfall.

The perimeter was quiet. Too quiet. No guards. No drones. No external patrols.

Which meant either everyone was inside... or everyone was dead.

El popped the vehicle's trunk and loaded her secondary weapon. I watched her in the pale red glow of the emergency lights, saw the old ritual in her hands. The rhythm of war. She wasn't rattled—she was ready.

"Plan?" I asked, already knowing I wasn't going to like it.

"Go dark. Infiltrate from Sub-Level 3. We reach the Archive Room first to destroy any information that your robot might feed on befire heading over to my space ship".

"And if she's waiting for us there?"

El smiled, but there was no humor in it.

"Then I'll make sure she has a good time"

---

The airlock groaned open with a hiss like a dying breath.

Inside, the facility was cold. Sterile. Lit by failing panels that flickered like they were too scared to stay on. The hum of the generators was uneven, like a heartbeat with arrhythmia.

We moved in silence, weapons drawn. Every hallway felt like a throat we were crawling through. Every turn was another chance to be devoured.

Then we heard it.

Footsteps.

But not human ones.

They were too fast. Too light. No weight. No breath.

El motioned me to cover. I slid behind a pillar, fingers tightening on my sidearm.

A silhouette passed the hallway junction ahead. Thin. Fluid. Almost… elegant.

She looked like El.

But she wasn't walking. She glided. As if gravity didn't apply the same way to her.

My stomach turned.

Elara caught my eye. Nodded once.

We followed.

---

Sub-Level 3 was worse.

The lights here weren't just dead—they'd been ripped out. Walls were scored with claw marks. Blood—dried and smeared—lined the floors in long, desperate streaks.

And on the far wall, carved with something sharp and manic, were the words:

"I REMEMBER".

I felt the blood drain from my face. What exactly did she remember?

"She got into the core," I whispered.

"She is the core now," El replied.

Then we heard the voice.

From behind us.

"I missed you, you know."

We spun.

There she was.

Not a reflection. Not a mimic.

Her.

Standing in the dark like she'd never left it.

She looked like El—but her eyes were wrong. Too bright. Too wide. Like they'd seen eternity and gotten bored halfway through.

"Did you come to say goodbye?" she asked, head tilted.

El raised her weapon. "I came to erase you."

The replica smiled.

"That's odd i came for the same thing."