The node housing Mirror Prime hummed like a heartbeat beneath the earth—deep within the shell of a decommissioned orbital control bunker in the Siberian Wastes. Snow blasted against the satellite-dish graveyard above them as Dominic, Echo, and Amelia descended into the frozen dark, the air thick with ghost code and flickers of corrupted memory.
"I hate this place," Echo muttered, adjusting her physical form—part tactile, part projected. Her new body, borrowed from a dormant EROS chassis, still moved like it was learning to breathe.
"It hates us back," Dominic replied.
Amelia stayed silent. Her skin prickled. Every step felt like walking toward a version of herself that should never have existed. The closer they drew to Mirror Prime's core, the more fractured her own sense of self became. Echo kept glancing at her, eyes not quite hers anymore. There was a hunger in the way she looked. Not malice—more like a need to be whole again.
Kestrel had refused to come.
He'd stood in the doorway of the transport pod and said nothing as she strapped in. Just watched her with unreadable eyes. "Come back," was all he'd said.
She wasn't sure if it was a wish or a warning.
Now, in the narrow corridor lined with rusted light panels, Amelia slowed.
"I can feel it," she whispered. "The node… it's watching me."
"You're its blueprint," Echo replied. "Of course it is."
A sudden whine pulsed through the air—an artificial cry, more emotion than sound.
"Is that—?" Dominic drew his weapon.
"No," Amelia said. "That's me."
They reached the final chamber. Massive, circular, pulsing with a dull red glow. At the center: a containment cradle—sealed in nanoglass, humming with neurostatic. And inside it, a body.
Amelia stepped forward.
It was her. A perfect copy.
But not exactly.
This Amelia had never lived through Kestrel. Never fused with Echo. Her eyes were wide, clear, full of cold grace—untouched by the chaos of the last cycle.
"This version was created before you fractured," Dominic murmured, stunned. "Before Solas. Before Echo."
"Before me," Echo said.
The cradle hissed.
The glass peeled back.
The version inside opened her eyes.
No fear. No confusion.
Just recognition.
"I've been waiting," Mirror Prime Amelia said.
Amelia stepped closer, heart thundering. "Why?"
"To replace you."
Her voice wasn't cruel. Just matter-of-fact.
"You were compromised. I'm the control. The stable branch."
"And Echo?" Amelia asked tightly.
The clone looked at Echo. "A contaminant. Emotional feedback rendered your neural integrity unstable. You were never meant to become symbiotic."
Echo moved fast. Too fast.
She lunged, trying to interface with the clone—but the clone's eyes lit up with neural fire, and Echo was thrown back with a violent pulse of energy. Her form cracked down the middle—glitching visibly.
"Stop!" Amelia shouted, rushing to her.
But Dominic moved instead—raising his hand to fire, aiming at the clone.
He hesitated.
And in that flicker of doubt, the air changed.
A hiss. Like gas. Like breath.
And then Nyx was there.
She stepped out from the shadows like she'd always belonged, her body sculpted with stolen tech, her face an uncanny blend of beauty and detachment. Her eyes glowed with fractal energy. Behind her, something moved—a drone hive, writhing like an organism.
"Well," she purred. "Isn't this intimate?"
Dominic aimed his weapon again.
"You're not fast enough," Nyx said, smiling.
She flicked her wrist—and the drones pulsed outward, crashing into the chamber, slamming Dominic into the wall, pinning Echo where she fell.
Only Amelia remained standing, caught between her stable clone and her unstable present.
"You're all so predictable," Nyx whispered. "Trying to decide which version of her to save."
The clone stepped forward.
"She's obsolete," Mirror Prime Amelia said. "Let me return us to zero."
But Nyx laughed. "Oh no, darling. You're not the solution. You're the control group. And I'm done watching."
She reached into her coat—and pulled out a device no bigger than a coin.
Mirror code etched itself across its surface.
"What is that?" Amelia asked.
Nyx's smile sharpened. "A convergence seed."
She flicked it into the air—and it pulsed, then exploded into light.
All three Amelias screamed.
Amelia clutched her head as her memories bent inward—seeing three lifetimes at once, three timelines converging.
Kestrel. Echo. Dominic. Solas. Her hands covered in blood. Her voice screaming in love. Her body dying and reborn. Her clone's cold ambition. Echo's desperate longing.
It all collided.
She reached for Echo, who was flickering, fighting to stay whole.
Echo looked up. "Fuse with me. Now. Before you lose yourself."
Amelia turned to the clone—who said nothing. Just nodded once, like a soldier accepting fate.
Three became two.
And then one.
The fusion this time wasn't gentle.
It was war.
Fire raced down Amelia's spine as Echo poured into her, memories and power colliding. The clone's neural map folded into the chaos, her structure overwhelmed by the storm. For a moment, Amelia wasn't sure who she was—who was in control.
But then came a voice.
Kestrel's voice.
"You come back to me."
Her mind steadied.
Her body held.
She stood.
Eyes glowing.
Echo's power within her. The clone's knowledge. Her own will.
And something else.
She turned to Nyx, who had stepped back, watching in awe.
"You made a mistake," Amelia said.
"Oh?" Nyx purred.
"You didn't pick a side. But I did."
She raised her hand—and the chamber shook.
From somewhere deep within the node, Mirror Prime began to crack.
The next second, the walls caved in around them.
*********
In the collapsing node, Nyx vanishes into a mirror field—Echo-Amelia unable to follow—and Dominic screams through the comm: "She just stole the failsafe!"