ELARA POV
“What do you mean, clock in twice?” I asked her, confused and, most especially, scared, because something like this had never happened before.
Or was she imagining things?
She has to be imagining things.
There is no other explanation.
“I am just arriving,” I said to her as she shrugged.
“No, you are not.
You have been here since 8:30 AM.
I arrived at 8 o’clock.
You got here at 8:30, and I even asked you why you came so early.
You said you needed to see someone.
Are you confused?” she said to me as I shook my head, utterly lost from all her explanations.
“That’s not possible.
You must be mixing things up.
I never clocked in earlier today,” I said, bringing out my ID card and pressing it to the scanner.
It showed I was already checked in.
I looked at her as she gave me a knowing look, clearly trying to tell me that she had already said as much.
“It must be a mistake,” I insisted, keeping my voice steady even as something cold crept up the back of my neck.
She folded her arms, looking more suspicious by the second.
“It’s me, Elara.
There cannot be anybody else.
I don’t know what happened.
I need to get in to find out,” I pleaded with her, and she shrugged.
“No.
I am going to call the board members.
Only they can clarify what is happening.
I can’t let you in.
The guards must have let you back in assuming you had simply stepped out momentarily and they missed it, but I won’t.
This is Axiom.
You are trying to clock in twice and acting like it is nothing.
The fact that you don’t even know you clocked in earlier is what worries me, and I have to protect the integrity of this building,” she said, already picking up the telephone and dialing.
I waited patiently because I knew, with certainty, that I had not come in earlier.
There was absolutely no way I had made it here and back without realizing it.
I know my own morning.
I know where I was, every single hour of it.
“I was at the hospital,” I stated, but she was already deep in her phone call and not listening to me.
“Ms.
She is trying to clock in again, but she is already logged as being in the lab.”
“Let me speak to her,” I said, reaching for the phone.
“No.
Only when she clarifies things with me will I hand you over to her,” she said and ignored me.
I stood there, completely lost.
Wow.
It had actually come to this.
She was genuinely suspicious of me, treating me like an impersonator.
I was not an impersonator.
I was the one who had spent three years building this lab’s research protocol from scratch, the one who knew every access code, every corridor, every blind spot in this building.
And yet here I stood, locked out of my own life.
“Please let me through.
I have urgent things that need me,” I said as she placed the receiver down.
Clearly, Raya had said something to her, either to stall me or because she was on her way.
I was prepared to wait.
This needed to be exposed and explained.
Either someone had been allowed to impersonate me, or something far stranger was happening.
And whoever it was had somehow gotten through using my fingerprints or facial recognition.
Could I even prove I was the real Elara?
And why would anyone want my identity?
Think.
Think clearly.
Whoever is in that lab right now got through every layer of biometric security this building has.
That is not a coincidence.
That is a plan.
If it was anything close to that, then this experiment had crossed into territory I was no longer sure I could handle.
Soon, Raya came storming out of the elevator, looking at me with wide eyes.
She stretched both arms out to the sides, the way you do when something makes absolutely no sense.
“I don’t know,” I said to her as she laughed in disbelief.
“This is crazy.
I spoke with you about three hours ago.
I gave you instructions, and you followed them.
You went into the lab.
How are you now standing here trying to clock in again?
Did something happen?
“Kael is not playing any trick on me.
He would never do something like that, okay?
I know him.
And besides, he does not have those kinds of abilities,” I said to her as she shrugged.
“Fine.
I am going to pull the security footage and confirm whether you are really not inside.
If you are not, then maybe you walked out without noticing, or maybe he is doing something to your mind,” she said as I let out a short laugh.
“A mind trick?
Seriously?” I simply stated.
She did not respond and instead brought out her phone, entered a password, and pulled up the live security feed.
I looked at the screen in her hands.
There I was, standing right in front of Kael.
My face.
My posture.
My coat.
Everything down to the way I hold my shoulders.
My mouth went dry.
“That is impossible.
Let me go up,” I said as she held my arm.
“I can’t, because I don’t know which one of you is the real Elara, and I cannot take that risk.
I will not put my entire career on the line,” she said.
Before I could even plead my case further, she raised her hand and signaled for the guards.
Two of them came immediately and gripped both my arms firmly.
I tried to pull free, but they held tight.
“Take her with me.
We are going to get to the bottom of this,” she said, and I was escorted to the elevator.
Something was deeply wrong, and I did not know what was happening.
Only Kael would be able to explain why someone was trying to impersonate me.
And whoever it was had somehow bypassed the building’s biometric security.
Would I even be able to prove who I really was?
And more urgently, why would anyone want to become me?
What do I have that is worth stealing?
What do I know that someone else needs to be me to access?
If this was connected to the experiment, then things had gotten far more dangerous than I had realized.