Chapter 80 - The Mirror Shatters
Before I could answer, the iron door at the top of the shaft blew outward with a deafening crash, tumbling down the spiral stairs in a tangle of broken steps.
The duplicate descended.
She didn't use the stairs. She vaulted over the railing, dropping forty feet to the concrete floor with a bone-jarring impact that cracked the foundation beneath her boots. Her ivory gown was soaked in black lubricant and blood; half her face was exposed metal, red optical sensors whirring in the dark.
In her functional hand, she held the severed braid.
"The cycle... concludes," the duplicate rasped, her damaged vocal processor glitching between my voice and an older, deeper woman's timbre. "Host... identified."
She didn't attack us. She walked past Nicholas as if he were invisible, her glowing optic locked onto the hexagonal console in the center of the room.
"She’s going to initiate the transfer," Nicholas shouted, lunging forward. He grabbed an iron manual crank from the ballast manifold and swung it with all his remaining strength against the back of the duplicate's knee.
The metal pipe struck with a hollow clang. The duplicate's leg buckled, her servos whining in protest, but she didn't fall. With terrifying back-handed momentum, she swept her arm backward, striking Nicholas in the chest. He flew across the room, crashing against the concrete wall and sliding down, leaving a smear of red against the cold stone.
"Nicholas!" I screamed.
The duplicate turned toward me. She extended the severed braid, the silver ribbons woven into the dark, glossy hair catching the red glare of the strobe.
"Take it," the machine whispered, and this time, the voice was completely that of Miriam Vance—authoritative, cultured, terrifyingly ancient. "Reclaim what was stolen from you, daughter. The host is ready. The architecture is complete."
I looked at the braid.
I saw the years of my life. The nights I spent brushing it in front of the cracked mirror in my cold apartment, believing it was the one beautiful thing I possessed. The way Nicholas had kissed the nape of my neck on our wedding morning, whispering that he loved how soft it was. The cruel, mocking laugh of Elena Sterling as she held the shears and cut it away.
It wasn't hair. It was a prison. It was a chain forged of biological data and dead people's greed, designed to erase whoever I was and replace me with an empire's ghost.
"No," I said.
The duplicate's optical sensor pulsed. "Refusal... is an invalid parameter."
"I am not your daughter," I whispered, stepping toward the ballast console. "And I am not your host."
I didn't reach for the braid.
I reached for the emergency fuel-air purge valve—the manual override that Arthur Sterling had rigged to the Scuttle Well. The valve that Nicholas's father had warned would vaporize the vessel.
"Clara, don't!" Nicholas choked out from the floor, struggling to rise through broken ribs. "The whole ship... it will explode!"
"Better to burn as myself," I said, looking directly into the cold, mechanical eye of the thing that wore my face, "than live as a ghost."
May you like
I threw my entire weight against the brass wheel, ripping the safety pin free, and spun it counter-clockwise.
***
