Chapter 70 The Ghost and the Blade
The black ink swirled in the gel, thick and oily. It felt like snakes wrapping around my legs. I stared down at the girl beneath my feet, the real Eara. She looked peaceful. Her skin was white as milk, her hair floating like seaweed. She was the original, and I was just a copy made of memories and magic.
"Which one are you?" the blind man asked again. His voice didn't come from his mouth. It crawled inside my brain like a cold spider.
"I am Eara!" I screamed, but the gel swallowed the sound. My lungs felt like they were filling with lead.
Outside the glass, my father leaned in. He wasn't crying. He wasn't sad. He looked like a scientist watching a bug in a jar. "Don't fight it, 702. You were a great character. But the Buyer needs your heart to fix the original. You should be happy. You're finally going to be useful."
The blind man pressed his palm against the tank. The glass began to glow with a sickly red light. I felt a sharp, ripping pain in my chest. It felt like someone was reaching through my skin and pulling on my very soul.
I am a copy, I thought. The realization hurt more than the pain. Every memory of my mother, every scar on my body... it’s all fake. I’m just a ghost in a stolen skin.
But then, I felt something else. A spark.
It wasn't a memory of the past. It was a memory of Kael. I remembered the heat of his hand in the rain. I remembered the way he looked at me when the world was falling apart. He didn't love a "product." He didn't love a "subject." He loved me.
"If I'm a ghost," I whispered into the dark ink, "then I’m going to haunt you to death."
I gripped the silver pen. It was the only real thing I had. I didn't try to swim up. I dived down. I kicked past the black ink and slammed the pen into the chest of the dead girl at the bottom.
If we were the same, then our hearts would be connected.
CRACK.
The tank didn't just break; it exploded. The gel and ink burst outward in a massive wave. The force threw the blind man across the room and slammed my father against the far wall. I tumbled onto the floor, gasping, coughing up black liquid that tasted like copper and old paper.
I stood up, shaking. My skin was dripping with ink, making me look like a shadow. I looked at the tank. The original Eara was gone. She had dissolved into white light the moment the pen touched her.
"What have you done?" my father shrieked. He scrambled to his feet, his white suit ruined by the ink. "That was billions of dollars! That was the only bridge to the real world!"
"I’m the only world you have left," I said. My voice was steady now. It sounded like the sharp edge of a knife.
The blind man rose from the floor. He didn't have eyes, but I could feel his gaze burning into me. "The girl has the spark," he hissed. "She consumed the original. She is no longer a copy. She is the source."
"Kill her!" my father yelled. "If we can't harvest her, we destroy her! Delete the file!"
The blind man raised his hand. The shadows in the room began to move, stretching toward me like long, black fingers. I backed away, looking for an exit, but the doors were locked.
Suddenly, the wall behind the blind man shattered.
A figure burst through the bricks. It was Kael. But he wasn't grey anymore. He was glowing with a fierce violet light. His golden armour was cracked, but he looked like a god of war. In his hand, he held the rusted chainsaw he had taken from my father’s "doll" in the simulation.
"Get away from her!" Kael roared.
He swung the saw. The blade tore through the shadows, cutting them like paper. The blind man screamed, a sound of static and glass as the saw sliced through his shoulder. Black smoke poured out of the wound.
"Kael! "I ran to him.
"I told you I'd hold the gate," he panted. His face was covered in dust and blood, but his eyes were bright. "I found a way to bridge the code. I'm not a program anymore, Eara. I’m a virus, and I’ve infected the whole building."
The lights in the hallway began to flicker between red and purple. The computers on the walls started to melt, their screens showing nothing but my name over and over again.
"You can't win!" my father yelled, pulling a small silver pistol from his jacket. "I am the Creator! I own the rights to your lives!"
"Then consider this a breach of contract," I said.
I lunged at him. I didn't use a saw. I used the silver pen. I drove it into his wrist, and the pistol fell to the floor. I tackled him, pinning him against the wall.
"Where is the exit?" I demanded. "The real one! Not another simulation!"
My father laughed, even as he bled. "There is no exit, Eara. We’re on a satellite. We’re miles above the Earth. You can kill me, but you’ll never go home."
The building shook violently. I looked out the window. The "city" outside wasn't a city at all. It was a giant screen, and it was falling away. Beyond it was the black void of space and the bright, blue curve of the world below.
"Kael," I whispered. "He's telling the truth."
"It doesn't matter," Kael said. He looked at the control panel by the tank. "If we can't go down, we take the whole station with us."
He slammed his hand onto a red button. The alarms changed. They weren't calling for guards anymore. They were counting down.
"Self-destruct in sixty seconds," the computer said.
"We have to get to the pods!" I yelled.
I grabbed Kael’s hand, but he didn't move. He was looking at the screen. His face went pale.
"Eara," he said, his voice trembling. "Look at the pod status."
I looked. There was only one pod left. And it was already moving.
Through the window, I saw the pod shooting away toward Earth. Inside, sitting behind the glass, was the girl with the scars, my sister, Subject 703. She was smiling at me. In her hand, she held a remote.
"She’s not escaping," Kael whispered. "She’s the one who started the countdown."
The floor beneath us began to crack open as the station started to tear itself apart.