The facility was buried beneath a forgotten power plant on the city's outskirts. No signage. No guards in sight.
That's how Lucien knew it was real.
Aria knelt beside the old freight elevator, fingers dancing over a control panel buried under rust. A few wires, a short pulse—and the doors creaked open.
She looked up at him. "You sure about this?"
Lucien gave a small, dry smile. "If I said no, would it matter?"
They stepped into the darkness.
The elevator shuddered to life, dropping them into silence and shadow. The walls were concrete. The air metallic. Each second stretched.
Aria's voice was barely above a whisper. "He's here. I can feel it."
Lucien glanced at her. She was pale. Hands trembling slightly. Not from fear—from connection.
When the doors opened again, the corridor was sterile. Bright white light. Unnatural silence.
Like a morgue pretending to be a sanctuary.
And at the end of the hallway was a single glass door. Behind it: a chair. A console. And a screen already flickering with code.
> SUBJECT: ARIA QUINN – AUTHORIZED
NEURAL MEMORY INTERFACE ONLINE
Lucien's jaw tightened. "It's a trap."
She stepped forward anyway. "It's the only way I'll know the truth."
Before he could stop her, she was inside, strapped to the chair. The screen flared. A pulse of light hit her eyes—and she was gone.
Lucien cursed and pounded on the door. "Aria!"
But she couldn't hear him.
.....
Inside the Memory Trap
The world reformed around her.
She stood in a white lab. Her childhood self—a girl with wild curls and bruised knees—was locked behind glass. Crying.
A voice echoed overhead. Stroud's.
> "Emotion is error. Attachment is weakness. You were born to survive, Aria. Nothing more."
Scene after scene played—her training. The injections. The loneliness. K-0X, a boy with pale eyes and a kind heart, laughing beside her. The moment he was dragged away.
Then—
A new memory.
One she didn't recognize.
Lucien. Standing in a conference room. Hands bloodied. Voice cold.
> "Destroy all assets connected to Orion Sector-7. Leave nothing behind."
Her heart lurched.
What?
No. That wasn't real. That couldn't be real.
But the simulation kept playing.
Lucien ordering the shutdown of the facility that once housed her. The lab explosion. The screams.
Was he the reason she'd had to run?
---
Outside the Trap
Lucien watched helplessly as her body twisted in the chair, sweat beading down her neck. He slammed a fist into the console.
"Override it. I don't care what it takes."
Sable's voice buzzed in his comm. "Careful, Vale. You go in without a tether, you could end up worse than her."
"I'm not leaving her in there."
He hit the link.
---
Inside Again
Aria fell to her knees, shattered by what she saw—what she thought she saw.
Then—
A hand on her shoulder.
Lucien.
But different. Not the man in the suit. The one before. Younger. Unscarred. Wearing a white lab coat.
His eyes locked on hers.
> "It was a lie, Aria."
She staggered back. "You killed them."
"No. They used my name. My clearance. I tried to shut them down, not wipe them out."
"But I saw—"
"They gave you what they wanted you to see."
The simulation cracked. The walls flickered. Truth pushing back.
He reached for her. "Fight it. You know me."
Her fingers touched his.
The simulation shattered.
---
Back in Reality
Aria gasped awake, yanking off the neural band. Lucien caught her as she collapsed forward, breathing hard.
She looked up at him—anger and confusion warring in her eyes.
"I saw you. I saw what you did."
He held her tighter. "Then trust what I said. Stroud forged my clearance to execute the lab purge. I've spent years trying to clean it up."
She hesitated. "Why would you care?"
"Because I never forgot the girl with fire in her eyes and scars on her soul."
Silence.
Then her voice, barely a whisper. "You knew about me... even back then."
He nodded.
And this time, she didn't pull away.
---