I had many questions.
The woman pointing a gun at Adrian was kind enough to make sure none of them came out in the correct order.
"Put it down," I said.
She didn't blink.
"Step away from him."
"I'm beginning to understand why people find me difficult."
"Seraphina."
The way she said my name made my skin prickle.
Not because she pronounced it differently.
Because she pronounced it exactly as I did when I was trying not to cry.
Adrian moved between us.
"Don't."
The older woman laughed without humour.
"You always do that. Stand between us. As though choosing a side could change what happened."
"Put the gun down."
"Tell her the truth, Adrian."
He said nothing.
The woman turned to me.
"Ask him why he keeps disappearing."
I glanced at Adrian.
"I'm sure we can discuss that without the weapon."
"Ask him why he remembers dying but can't remember being born."
Adrian closed his eyes.
The silence that followed was more revealing than any confession.
I took a slow breath.
"Who are you?"
The woman lowered the gun a fraction.
"I am the person you will become if you keep going."
"That is a deeply unhelpful answer."
"I'm you, Saye. Eleven years from now."
I looked at Adrian.
He didn't deny it.
"Prove it," I said.
The older woman smiled faintly.
"You hate cinnamon. You pretend you don't mind cold coffee because you forget to drink it while working. When you were twelve, you broke your mother's favourite clock and blamed the cat, even though we didn't own one."
I stared at her.
"Anyone could find those things in my memories."
"Then here's something you haven't remembered yet."
Her voice grew quieter.
"When you were seven, you woke from a dream and found your mother sitting beside your bed. You asked whether people could love someone who didn't exist yet."
I felt something inside me shift.
I had never told anyone that.
The woman continued.
"Your mother said yes. She told you that love wasn't limited by time. You asked her whether that meant you could love someone before you met them."
She looked at Adrian.
"You met him years before the first time you met him."
My thoughts tangled together.
"That makes no sense."
"Neither does your life anymore."
I pointed at the gun.
"And this?"
"I brought it because the last time I came here, I hesitated."
"What happened?"
"I let him convince me there was still a way to save him."
She raised her eyes to mine.
"And I lost eleven years."
Adrian's voice cracked.
"You didn't lose them. You lived them."
"Not with you."
The words struck harder than the weapon in her hand.
I looked between them.
"Were you married?"
The older woman gave a small, bitter smile.
"For three years."
Adrian looked away.
I should have felt jealous. Instead, I felt a strange, hollow grief for a life I hadn't lived and a love I couldn't remember.
"Then why are you threatening him?"
"Because the man standing there is not the man I married."
Adrian flinched.
The older woman finally lowered the gun.
"My Adrian died in the original experiment. This version was reconstructed from his memories, his neural recordings, and everything I couldn't bear to forget."
She looked at him.
"He remembers loving me. He remembers our wedding. He remembers the sound of my laugh. But I don't know whether those memories make him my husband."
Adrian's voice was almost a whisper.
"I know what I am."
"No," she replied. "You know what you remember."
Neither spoke.
I stepped closer to the older woman.
"Why come back now?"
"Because you're about to make the same mistake I made."
"What mistake?"
She pointed toward the ceiling.
"Believing the machine can bring someone back without taking something in return."
The lights flickered.
A message appeared on the nearest monitor.
CYCLE 12: RECONSTRUCTION COMPLETE.
Below it:
ORIGINAL MEMORY INTEGRITY: 14%.
The older woman's face turned pale.
"It's started."
"What has?"
"It's replacing you."
I stared at the screen.
"Replacing me with whom?"
"With me."
She touched her own cheek.
"I am not your future, Saye. I'm the part of you the machine saved when it couldn't save the rest."
A sharp tone sounded.
The archive cabinets began opening.
Inside each one lay a different version of me.
One with bloodless white hair.
One with a shaved head.
One wearing a hospital gown.
One smiling.
One crying.
One whose eyes were closed, though her chest rose and fell.
Every cabinet contained a different possible Seraphina Saye.
The older woman seized my wrist.
"You must destroy Archive Zero before the next countdown ends."
"Why?"
"Because if you don't, the system will finish choosing which version of you gets to exist."
"And what happens to the others?"
She looked at the cabinets.
"They become memories."
A cabinet at the end of the room opened.
Inside was a little girl holding a paper flower.
I knew that face.
I had seen it in my dreams.
The girl opened her eyes.
And spoke in my voice.
"Don't listen to her, Mum."
The older woman let go of my wrist.
For the first time, she looked truly terrified.
The little girl pressed her hand against the glass.
"She's the one who killed me."
Then every screen in Archive Zero turned red.
ORIGINAL SUBJECT IDENTIFIED.
SUBJECT 02 IS NOT THE ORIGINAL.
SUBJECT 01 IS NOT THE ORIGINAL.
A final line appeared.
ORIGINAL SUBJECT: UNKNOWN.
The older woman whispered a word I had never heard her say before.
"Liora."
Adrian turned toward her.
"Who is Liora?"
The older woman looked at me.
And I understood from her expression that the answer was going to change everything.
"She was our daughter."