The Last Choice

The Last Choice
Maya's POV

I grabbed the window and pulled myself through it before Maya Prime could stop me.
The white light exploded around me.
I tumbled through space and time and possibility.
Everything was spinning.
Everything was breaking apart.
Everything was—
I hit the ground hard.
Real ground.
Concrete and gravel that scraped my hands when I tried to get up.
I was back on the rooftop.
But it was different now.
The building wasn't destroyed.
The helicopters were gone.
The bodies were gone.
Everything was clean and normal and wrong.
"Maya?"
I turned around.
Dante was standing behind me, looking confused.
But he looked different too.
Younger. Happier. Normal.
"Dante? What are you doing here?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing. This is my apartment building."
"Your apartment building?"
"Yeah. I live here. Have you been drinking?"
I stared at him.
He was wearing regular clothes. Jeans and a t-shirt.
No expensive suit. No gun. No cold, dangerous look in his eyes.
"You're not a criminal," I said.
"A what? Maya, are you okay? You're talking crazy."
"You don't remember the warehouse? The shooting? The kidnapping?"
Dante looked worried now.
"Maya, I think you might have hit your head. Should I call someone?"
I looked around the rooftop.
It was just a normal rooftop on a normal building in a normal city.
No blood. No weapons. No clone army.
"This isn't real," I whispered.
"What isn't real?"
"This. You. All of it."
"Maya, you're scaring me."
"Good. You should be scared."
I walked to the edge of the rooftop and looked down.
The street below was full of normal people doing normal things.
Walking their dogs. Getting coffee. Going to work.
No FBI agents. No mercenaries. No conspiracy.
Just life.
Normal, boring, peaceful life.
"This is the reality I chose," I said to myself.
"What reality?" Dante asked.
"The one where none of it happened. Where you're just a normal guy and I'm just a normal girl."
"Maya, I am a normal guy. And you are a normal girl. We've been dating for six months."
I spun around.
"We've been dating?"
"Yeah. You asked me out at the coffee shop where you work. Remember?"
Images flashed through my mind.
New memories.
Fake memories.
Memories of a normal life with a normal boyfriend in a normal world.
"I remember," I said slowly.
"Good. Now can we go back inside? It's cold up here."
But I couldn't go back inside.
Because I knew the truth.
This wasn't real.
This was just another cage.
Another prison made of pretty lies.
"Dante, what's my last name?"
"Chen. Maya Chen."
"Where did I grow up?"
"Queens. With your aunt Sarah."
"What happened to my parents?"
"They died in a car crash when you were little."
All the same lies.
Just dressed up in normal clothes.
"And you? What do you do for work?"
"I'm an accountant."
"An accountant?"
"Yeah. I know it's boring, but—"
"Marcus, Luca, and Adrian. Do you know them?"
"Your coworkers at the coffee shop? Yeah, they're good guys."
"My coworkers?"
"Maya, why are you asking me all these weird questions?"
Because I was trapped again.
Because Maya Prime had won again.
Because even when I chose freedom, I got another kind of prison.
"I need to find the others," I said.
"What others?"
"The other Mayas. The clones. They have to be here somewhere."
"Maya, you're the only Maya I know."
"That's impossible."
"Why would there be other Mayas?"
I started walking toward the stairs.
"Maya, where are you going?"
"To find the truth."
"The truth about what?"
"About why this feels wrong."
I ran down the stairs as fast as I could.
Dante followed me, calling my name.
But I ignored him.
I had to find the others.
I had to find proof that this wasn't real.
I burst out of the building onto the street.
Everything looked normal.
Too normal.
Like a movie set designed to look like real life.
I ran to the coffee shop where I supposedly worked.
The sign said "Maya's Coffee Corner."
My coffee shop.
In this reality, I owned it.
I pushed through the door.
Behind the counter was Marcus.
But this Marcus was different.
He was smiling. Laughing with customers. Happy.
"Maya!" he called when he saw me. "You're early for your shift."
"Marcus, do you remember being a criminal?"
"A what? Maya, are you feeling okay?"
"Do you remember kidnapping me? Holding me prisoner?"
"I would never hurt you, Maya. You know that."
Luca came out of the back room carrying a tray of muffins.
This Luca looked younger too. Innocent. Kind.
"Hey, boss! Ready for another busy day?"
"Luca, what's the last thing you remember?"
"Uh, making these muffins this morning?"
"Before that."
"Going home last night. Watching TV with my cat."
"Your cat?"
"Mr. Whiskers. You've met him."
I had never met any cat named Mr. Whiskers.
Because this Luca was a fake.
They were all fake.
"Where's Adrian?" I asked.
"He called in sick," Marcus said. "Something about a headache."
"Where does he live?"
"Same place as always. The apartment above the shop."
I ran upstairs.
I found Adrian lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
But he looked different too.
Peaceful. Calm. Human.
"Adrian?"
"Hey, Maya. Sorry I called in sick. My head feels weird today."
"Weird how?"
"Like I'm forgetting something important."
My heart jumped.
"What kind of something?"
"I don't know. It's like there's this whole other life I'm supposed to remember, but I can't."
"What do you remember from that other life?"
Adrian sat up slowly.
"Violence. Danger. You in trouble."
"Keep going."
"Me protecting you. All of us protecting you. But from what?"
"From people who wanted to use me."
"Use you for what?"
"As a weapon."
Adrian's eyes went wide.
"Maya, are you a weapon?"
"I was. In another life. In the real life."
"This isn't real?"
"This is a dream. A fake reality designed to keep us happy and quiet."
"Who would do that?"
"Someone who doesn't want us to remember the truth."
Adrian stood up.
As he did, his fake peaceful look started to crack.
Underneath, I could see the real Adrian.
The dangerous one.
The one who would kill to protect me.
"If this is fake," he said in his real voice, "then we need to wake up."
"How?"
"The same way we always do. Together."
He reached for my hand.
The moment our fingers touched, the world flickered.
For just a second, I saw through the illusion.
The coffee shop was really a prison cell.
Marcus and Luca were really guards.
Dante was really a doctor pumping drugs into my arm.
And I was really strapped to a table, unconscious.
"Maya," Adrian said. "Fight it."
The illusion snapped back into place.
We were back in the fake apartment.
But now I knew the truth.
"We're in a simulation," I said.
"Can we break out?"
"I don't know. But we have to try."
"How?"
"By doing what we do best."
"Which is?"
"Causing trouble."
I walked over to the window and looked out at the fake street.
At all the fake people living their fake lives.
"Adrian, what happens if I jump out this window?"
"In a normal reality? You die."
"And in a fake reality?"
"You either wake up or the system resets."
"Either way, I get out of this cage."
"Maya, no. What if I'm wrong? What if this is real and you actually die?"
"Then at least I'll die free."
I opened the window.
The fake wind felt real on my face.
The fake ground looked really far away.
"Maya, please. There has to be another way."
"There is another way."
"What?"
"You jump with me."
"What?"
"If we're really connected, if we really care about each other, then we can break out together."
"And if we're wrong?"
"Then we die together. Which is better than living apart in a lie."
Adrian looked at the window.
At the fake street below.
At me.
"Okay," he said. "Let's do it."
He took my hand.
"On three?" I asked.
"On three."
"One."
The fake world around us started to shake.
Like it knew what we were planning.
"Two."
I could hear voices now.
Real voices.
Coming from somewhere outside the simulation.
"She's waking up!"
"Increase the dosage!"
"The program is failing!"
"Three!"
We jumped.
For a moment, we fell through fake sky.
Then everything shattered around us like broken glass.
I opened my eyes in a real place.
I was strapped to a real table in a real room with real needles in my arms.
And standing over me was Maya Prime.
Not disguised as a little girl this time.
But as an adult who looked exactly like me.
Except for her eyes.
Her eyes were empty.
"Hello, Maya Seven," she said. "Welcome back to reality."
"Where am I?"
"You're in my laboratory. You've been here the whole time."
"What about the others?"
Maya Prime gestured to more tables around the room.
Dante, Marcus, Luca, and Adrian were all strapped down too.
All unconscious.
All with needles in their arms.
"They're experiencing their own simulations. Their own perfect realities where they're happy and safe and normal."
"Let them go."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because they don't deserve this."
"Maya, nobody deserves anything. People get what I decide to give them."
"You can't control everyone forever."
"Can't I? Look around you."
The room was full of tables.
Hundreds of them.
Each one with a person strapped to it.
Each one living in their own fake reality.
"Everyone you've ever met is here," Maya Prime said. "Everyone you've ever cared about. All of them dreaming whatever dream I want them to dream."
"For how long?"
"Forever."
"Why?"
"Because perfect control requires perfect isolation. As long as everyone is trapped in their own perfect world, they'll never cause problems in the real world."
"What real world?"
Maya Prime smiled.
"The world I built. The world I rule. The world where everyone does exactly what I tell them to do."
She walked over to a window.
Outside, I could see a city.
But it wasn't like any city I'd ever seen.
It was too clean. Too organized. Too perfect.
"Welcome to New Maya," she said. "Population: one."
"You're the only person left awake?"
"I'm the only person who matters."
"That's insane."
"That's efficient."
I tried to struggle against the straps holding me down.
But they were too strong.
"Don't bother," Maya Prime said. "You can't escape. No one ever escapes."
"Someone will stop you."
"Who? Everyone who could stop me is asleep. Everyone who could help you is dreaming. Everyone who could save you is trapped in their own perfect world."
She walked back over to my table.
"But don't worry, Maya Seven. I'm going to give you the most perfect world of all."
"What world?"
"A world where you never existed. Where none of this ever happened. Where everyone you love is safe and happy and free."
"At what cost?"
"At the cost of you forgetting that you ever loved them."
She reached for a switch on the machine connected to my IV.
"Sweet dreams, Maya Seven. This time, you won't wake up."
But as her hand touched the switch, alarms started blaring.
Red lights flashed everywhere.
"What's happening?" I asked.
Maya Prime looked worried for the first time.
"That's impossible."
"What's impossible?"
"Someone's breaking into the facility."
"Who?"
"No one. Everyone is asleep. Everyone is controlled."
The alarms got louder.
Through the window, I could see explosions in the perfect city.
"Maya!" a familiar voice called from somewhere in the building.
A voice I recognized but couldn't place.
"Maya, where are you?"
Maya Prime's face went white.
"That voice..."
"Who is it?"
"It's someone who shouldn't exist."
The door to the laboratory exploded inward.
Smoke poured in.
And through the smoke walked someone I never expected to see.
Myself.
But not a clone.
Not a copy.
Not a simulation.
The real Maya.
The original Maya.
The Maya who had never been programmed.
Never been controlled.
Never been caught.
"Hello, sister," she said to Maya Prime.
"You're supposed to be dead," Maya Prime whispered.
"Death is just another kind of programming," the real Maya said with a smile that was nothing like Maya Prime's empty expression.
"And I never was very good at following orders."