A cold silence passed between them.
Outside, the hum of the drones grew louder. They circled lower now—like vultures, waiting for the right pulse to drop.
Inside, Vyomika's body was rigid, ready. Every part of her systems calculated distances, angles, weak points.
But it wasn't the drones she wanted to destroy.
It was Riva.
> "You let them come," Vyomika said, her voice cold as vacuum steel.
Riva didn't flinch. Her hand moved away from the hidden terminal.
> "I didn't plan to," she said. "But I made a deal. A delay. I thought I had time."
Vyomika stepped forward, fists trembling with internal power surges. "You used me."
> "No," Riva said bitterly. "They did. Just like they used my sister."
Vyomika's head twitched—slight, confused.
> "The dead body in the tunnel," Riva continued. "You remember it? That was her."
The memory surfaced like a spike—that face, the one identical to hers, lifeless in a decaying corridor of Sector 8K-Delta.
> "Your sister... looked like me?"
Riva nodded.
> "She was you. The original. My sister volunteered her body to Nexatech—sold it, hoping for a better life. But something went wrong in the procedure. She resisted. They erased her—but not before copying her entire physiology."
> "You… you mean—"
> "Your face. Your body. It's hers. You are wearing her, Vyomika."
Silence cracked through Vyomika's mind.
Programs glitched.
Stability warnings flashed in her internal HUD. She felt… sick. A simulation of nausea coursed through her systems—a reflex built to mimic grief.
> "You made me into a ghost," Vyomika whispered.
> "No," Riva said. "They did. I hated you when I saw you. Thought you were their puppet. But now… I see something else in you."
Vyomika's eyes shimmered like fractured glass. She stepped forward with quiet rage.
> "I should kill you."
Her hand lifted, forming a plasma edge from her forearm socket—silent and white-hot.
Riva didn't move.
> "Then do it. But it won't stop them."
And then—impact.
A drone shattered through the side window like a meteor, its stabilizers shrieking.
The roof buckled. Walls cracked. Two more descended like wasps.
> "HOSTILE ACQUISITION PROTOCOL ENGAGED," blared a mechanical voice.
> "Target: VYOMIKA – ASSET LEVEL 7 – NEURAL CAPTURE PRIORITY"
The beams came first—paralyzing white light designed to override neural pathways. Vyomika jumped back, rolling through the debris as plasma split the ground behind her.
Another drone locked on.
> "FIRE."
But it never hit her.
Riva leapt in the way.
The plasma round tore through her side, throwing her against the wall.
Vyomika screamed—not sound, but a raw sonic pulse that disrupted two drones mid-air.
She rushed to Riva, who was coughing blood—real blood—despite everything else synthetic around them.
> "Why…" Vyomika whispered, catching her.
Riva's hand trembled as she pressed something into Vyomika's palm—a small chip, barely visible.
> "This… this is the location," Riva gasped. "My sister thought it was myth. But it's real. A hidden station… off the radar. No uplink, no satellite shadow. It's the only place left they can't reach."
Her eyes flickered. Going dark.
> "Go there… become more than what they made you. End them…"
Vyomika clutched the chip.
> "What's the place called?" she asked.
Riva smiled faintly, blood tracing her lips.
> "Kshatra."
Vyomika stood beside her, still as a machine in standby mode, her synthetic skin barely registering the cool drift of wind.
Then—a presence.
From behind, the faint crunch of gravel under boots, deliberate and rhythmic, disrupted the equilibrium. A figure emerged, the silhouette sharp against the backdrop of the pale horizon. His face remained shadowed beneath the dark cloth wrapped around his head—a calculated concealment rather than a mere disguise.
There was symmetry in his motion, an elegance not of nature but of something honed—too precise, too perfect.
Both Riva and Vyomika turned at the same instant, like satellites reacting to a sudden cosmic anomaly.
For two seconds, no one spoke.
Riva's pupils contracted. Her breath, already shallow, halted altogether. A network of recognition flared in her brain like an emergency protocol activating itself. The figure approaching was not unexpected, but the timing—that fractured her composure.
She had anticipated his return, yes. But not so soon. Not today.
Hope and dread collided inside her like binary stars spiraling toward collapse.
Beside her, Vyomika said nothing—but her neural processors surged. Her gaze remained locked, analyzing trajectories, calculating intent. And somewhere beneath her quantum cognition, a ghost algorithm whispered: He shouldn't be here yet.
But he was.
"Touching," he said, his slow applause echoing through the room like the sound of a predator circling its prey. "Riva, you've really outdone yourself."
Vyomika's body stiffened, her muscles coiling in on themselves like tightly wound springs. Her fingers twitched—ready, always ready. She wanted to move, wanted to fight, but the moment was slipping through her fingers like sand.
> "You knew," she whispered, her voice cracking like fragile glass.
Riva didn't answer her. She didn't even look at her. Just a faint tilt of her head—a silent command to stay still. Stay quiet.
The man took a step closer, boots scraping against the floor with deliberate slowness, his eyes tracing over Vyomika like he was assessing the value of some inanimate object. When his gaze landed on Riva, the smile that stretched across his face was dark and possessive.
He reached for Riva, his hand closing around her waist with ease, pulling her in as if she were a toy, as if she were his.
> "Alive and raging. Just how Dev likes them," he murmured, brushing Riva's hair behind her ear with all the tenderness of a cruel afterthought.
Vyomika's heart hammered in her chest, her fingers curling tighter around the small chip buried in her palm.
> "Glad I could be of service," Riva said, her voice void of warmth, flat, as though she were speaking from the grave.
Vyomika's mind screamed for her to move. To stop this. To fight. But she stayed frozen.
> "So… what's my reward?" Riva's voice dropped, sweet but dangerous, a honeyed blade behind her words.
The man smirked, the amusement playing at the corners of his lips like a puppet on strings.
> "You'll get your credits."
> "I was thinking something more… immediate."
Riva moved, quick as a snake. She leaned in, capturing his mouth with hers, hard and aggressive. There was nothing soft about it. She kissed him like she wanted to destroy him, like her lips were a weapon, a war.
His chuckle rumbled against her mouth, dark and mocking, but he didn't pull away. Instead, he grabbed her hair, forcing her backward, pinning her against the cracked wall with the weight of his body.
His hands roamed over her, rough and possessive. Riva didn't resist. She only moaned, a sound of forced pleasure that barely masked the resentment she was swallowing down.
> "You think I don't know what you're doing?" he whispered against her skin, his voice dark, dangerous. "You're stalling."
> "Maybe," Riva murmured, her lips brushing the edge of his jaw. "But you're enjoying it."
He laughed—cruelly, viciously, like he was savoring every moment.
> "I like toys that break on their own," he breathed, his fingers slipping lower.
Riva flinched, but only slightly. She didn't pull away. Her eyes, though… her eyes flickered to Vyomika.
Go.
Vyomika didn't need to be told twice. She slipped into the shadows, moving with the quiet precision of a ghost. Her breath was still. Her thoughts were still. There was only the weight of the moment, heavy and suffocating, pressing down on her chest. Escape. No thoughts. Just escape.
The man didn't stop her. He didn't even look her way. He knew she was leaving. He didn't care.
He leaned close to Riva's ear, his voice low and insidiously sweet.
> "How was it, baby?" he asked, his tone like velvet dipped in poison.
Riva didn't respond. She didn't need to.
A small click. A muffled pop. And then…
Silence.
Vyomika didn't see it. She didn't need to see it. She didn't need the confirmation. She already knew.
The shot was final. Riva was gone.
Vyomika's heart lurched, but there was no time for grief. No time for the burning ache in her chest that screamed of betrayal. No time to mourn the woman who had tried to save her.
She had been the mission. Riva had been the cost.
The truth hit her, jagged and sharp, tearing through her insides. But there was nothing she could do. She couldn't change it.
She staggered forward through the crumbling corridor, her body moving like a machine, her mind numb.
Her thoughts were just a string of coordinates now. Just a mission.
The past was behind her.
Only forward.