The door slammed shut behind us.
The sound did not echo. It was swallowed so completely that for a moment I wondered if it had happened at all.
Then Mira’s hand tightened around my arm. The paper around her wrist tightened with it. She didn’t cry out. Her breath shortened. The vein beneath her jaw jumped once.
Pain, translated into data. That was how she survived it.
"Tell me this is temporary," Dana said. She stood three steps behind us, pipe raised, blood darkening the side of her shirt again.
"It is temporary," I said.
Mira turned her head. "You don’t know that."
"I know it’s not permanent."
"That’s the same sentence with fewer promises."
The corridor ahead was white and narrow. No seams in the walls. No ceiling. No floor tiles. Only doors, each marked with a number in black grease pencil.
1. 2. 3.
The fourth door carried a name.
MERCER.
Behind us, the door we’d entered through was gone.
Nadia touched the wall where it had been. Her fingers came back dry. The skin beneath her nails was black.
"What did it take?" I asked.
"I don’t know."
"Do you remember your brother’s name?"
Nadia’s mouth opened. Nothing came out. A muscle moved in her cheek.
"Don’t ask me that again."
The corridor lights came on. Not above us. Inside the walls. Every white surface filled with faint gray text, as if thousands of forms were being printed beneath the paint.
RECORDS PRESENT: THREE.
A fourth line tried to appear beneath it. Failed. Left a gray scar in the paint.
Dana read it. "Which one of us is refusing?"
The corridor didn’t answer.
"Convenient," Nadia said.
"No," I said. "Deliberate."
Mira pulled against the paper around her wrist. "What does it want?"
"An owner."
"Then it chose the wrong person."
She raised her free hand and pressed two fingers against the strip. The corridor buckled.
For one second, the walls became transparent.
Beyond them was a room filled with people in metal chairs. Some awake. Some sleeping. Some had no faces at all. Every person wore a white bracelet. Every bracelet carried a name.
The vision disappeared before I could count them.
Mira pulled her hand away.
"What did you see?" Dana asked.
"A waiting room."
"For what?"
Mira looked at me. "People who have not been allowed to leave."
A printer started somewhere ahead. The sound came from behind the door marked 01.
Nadia moved first. I caught her sleeve.
She looked down at my hand. "If you tell me to wait, I’m going to make a poor decision out of spite."
"Then make a useful one."
"Those are rarely available."
The door opened.
A small intake office waited beyond it. Metal desk. Three chairs. A clock with no hands. Empty folders stacked against the wall.
On the desk sat a file.
MERCER, ELIAS.
Nadia went still.
The file moved on its own, sliding toward the edge of the desk. A dark line leaked from beneath it.
Mira whispered, "The ink is wet."
The file opened. A photograph slid out.
A boy stood behind glass. The same boy from my memory. The same bracelet.
ELIAS M.
But the photograph was wrong. The boy was not looking at the camera. He was looking at me.
His mouth formed a word.
Brother.
Nadia reached for the photograph.
The desk struck her first. A strip of paper shot from its drawer and wrapped around her wrist. It did not touch her skin. It caught the shadow beneath her hand and pulled.
Nadia’s body jerked toward the office. She swore and grabbed the doorframe.
"Don’t pull," I said.
"Excellent advice. Give me something better."
"The strip is attached to your shadow."
"You said that like I could detach my shadow."
"You can."
"Of course I can." She looked at me, furious. "How?"
I did not answer immediately. That was enough for her.
"You don’t know."
Dana fired. The bullet struck the paper near Nadia’s wrist. It exploded into white fragments that smelled of burned salt.
The strip loosened.
Dana lowered the weapon. "That was my last round."
Mira stepped beside her. "Then stop firing."
She placed her palm against the strip.
A single system line appeared above the desk.
SECONDARY RECORD: NADIA MERCER.
Nadia stared at the display.
"That isn’t my name."
Mira’s hand remained on the paper. "What is your name?"
"Nadia Torres."
The system flickered.
IDENTITY CONFLICT.
The strip around her shadow began to smoke.
Dana looked at me. "Is this part of your plan?"
"No."
"That’s the first useful thing you’ve said."
Nadia’s face tightened. "My brother’s name was Elias Mercer."
The sentence left a hollow space behind it.
For a moment, she was somewhere else. A kitchen with yellow curtains. A boy sitting on the counter with a red thread tied around his finger. He had stolen a peach from the bowl and was pretending not to chew.
"If I forget you," he had said, "make me angry enough to remember."
She had thrown the peach pit at him. He had laughed.
The memory broke apart before she could reach the rest of it.
Nadia pressed her free hand to her mouth.
"I remember his voice," she whispered. "But I can’t remember the last time I saw his face."
The photograph on the desk turned toward her. The boy behind the glass lifted one hand. He pressed his palm against the inside of the photograph.
A second hand appeared on the outside. Nadia’s hand.
The two palms aligned through the paper.
Nadia stopped fighting.
The strip released her shadow and wrapped around her wrist instead.
MEMORY LINK: TEMPORARY.
Nadia looked at me. "What did it take?"
"Not you."
Her expression sharpened.
"It accepted the version of you that remembers Elias."
"That is not the same thing."
"No."
"Then get it back."
The command was not fear disguised as anger anymore. It was a demand. For once, I did not argue.
I took the split card from my pocket and pressed one half against the paper around her wrist. The black thread between the halves pulled toward the desk.
The office reacted instantly. The empty folders opened. Pages filled the air, spinning around us in a white storm. Each page carried a different version of the same people. Dana with no scar. Mira with longer hair. Nadia holding a child. Me standing beside a river with blood on my hands.
One page struck my face. I caught it.
The image showed a fourth person in the ambulance. A boy behind glass.
Elias was not in the back seat. He was standing beside the driver. His hand rested on the steering wheel.
My hand rested over his.
The page blackened between my fingers. A pressure entered my skull. Not pain.
A sentence.
YOU DID NOT DRIVE ALONE.
A second sentence appeared beneath it before the page turned to ash.
YOU GAVE HIM THE WHEEL.
I dropped the page.
Mira saw my face change. "What did it show you?"
"Nothing useful."
"Kael."
The room shook. The desk split open from the center. Two pale hands reached through the gap, each finger ending in a metal clip. They caught Nadia’s shadow again and began dragging her downward.
Dana moved in front of her. She had no bullets. She swung the pipe with both hands. The metal struck one hand and filled the room with a scream made of paper tearing.
The hand withdrew.
Dana’s shoulder hit the wall. She slid down it. The blood on her shirt had spread from her ribs to her hip.
Mira reached her first. She pressed both hands against the wound.
"You’re losing too much."
"Then stop telling me and start moving."
"You’re not moving."
"No." Dana looked up at her. "I’ll bleed here. You go."
"Like hell."
"Like reality." She looked at me. "Take her. Find the boy. Get out."
The room began to fold. The desk became a wall. The wall became a floor. The floor opened into a corridor filled with white chairs.
People sat in them, perfectly still.
One turned his head. Then another. Then all of them.
Their faces were covered with intake forms. Each form carried a single word.
NEXT.
I took Nadia’s wrist and pulled her toward the only door that remained. The one marked MERCER.
Dana didn’t follow. Mira didn’t move.
"Nadia," I said. "Get the door."
Nadia ran to it. She pushed. It opened.
Mira looked at Dana. Dana looked at her.
"I’ll be behind you," Dana said.
"No, you won’t."
"No."
Mira stood. She grabbed Dana under both arms and dragged her toward the door.
I moved to help. My left hand reached for Dana’s shoulder. It couldn’t close. The fingers were too short. The palm was too small. I pulled it back and used my right arm instead.
Dana looked at me once. At my left hand. She didn’t say anything.
We got her through the door. Nadia pulled it shut behind us.
The corridor changed. The numbered doors vanished. Only one door remained.
MERCER.
A record rested on a metal chair beneath a white light.
PRIMARY DRIVER: K. MERCER
Below it, a second line had been crossed out so violently that the paper had torn.
WITNESS: ———
Nadia approached the record, breathing hard.
"My brother was here."
"You don’t know that."
"I remember the photograph."
"Do you remember his name?"
She hesitated. The hesitation frightened her more than the room.
"Elias," she said. "Elias Mercer."
The door marked MERCER unlocked.
Inside was a single chair beneath another light. A boy sat in it. His paper bracelet was bright against his wrist.
He lifted his face toward me. His eyes were mine before they became mine.
Mira’s fingers closed around my arm. The paper around her wrist had gone red, but she did not look at it. She looked at me instead.
"Don’t go in alone."
"I wasn’t planning to."
"That’s a lie."
"Yes."
She held on tighter. For once, I did not make her release me.
Behind the boy, a pane of glass reflected the room. The reflection showed four people standing in the hallway. But inside the room, there were five.
The fifth figure stood behind my shoulder.
I turned.
No one was there.
The boy smiled.
"Your turn," he said.
The door locked behind us.
The missing line on the record filled itself in.
WITNESS: MIRA CHEN.
WITNESS STATUS: LIVING.
NEXT INTAKE: 02:13.