The Girl Who Lit the Fuse
Outside, the city held its breath.
A soft grey mist crawled over the rooftops, smudging night into day. Streetlights blinked out one by one as the first traces of light bled through the clouds—thin, reluctant. The skyline looked half-erased, as if someone had taken a charcoal thumb to the edges of the world.
But inside the hotel room, everything was still. Not peaceful—paralyzed.
Lex stood by the window, the Geneva drive in one hand. In the other, something Rhea hadn't seen in years: her old silver locket. It swung gently between his fingers, the chain catching light like spider silk. Inside, she knew what he had found: the photo of them. Back when things were simpler. Back when memory wasn't a construct and love wasn't a liability.
He hadn't looked at her since he opened the file.
Rhea sat on the edge of the bed, blanket pulled tight across her shoulders. Her hands were hidden beneath it, clenched and cold. She watched him in silence, heart ticking like a timer.
"Lex," she said, her voice thin. "Say something."
Nothing. Not even a shift in his posture. Just his reflection in the window—taller, lonelier, distorted by the glass.
"I decoded the file," he said finally, his voice low and even. "The one on the Geneva drive. ECHO: CHILD_09."
Rhea's breath caught.
"And?" she asked, but she already knew this wouldn't be the kind of truth you survive unchanged.
Lex turned. The way he looked at her was not cruel. It was worse.
He looked at her like someone grieving.
"It wasn't a list of your memories," he said quietly. "It wasn't a diary. Or a medical file."
The locket clicked shut in his palm. The sound was so small, but it cut straight through her.
"Then what was it?" she asked.
Lex stared at her like he was still trying to see her, like maybe she'd vanish if he blinked.
"A project profile," he said. "Observation logs. Iteration data. Timelines. Termination codes."
Rhea's blood turned cold.
"What kind of project?"
He hesitated. Then:
"Cloning," he said. "Replication trials. They weren't storing your memories, Rhea. They were reconstructing someone else's."
Her lips parted, but no sound came.
He stepped forward, holding up the Geneva drive like it was a weapon made of light.
"You were trying to remember who you were," Lex said. "But you were never her."
Rhea's voice trembled. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying…" He stopped, chest rising and falling once, as if the next words might undo them both.
"I'm saying you were never Muri."
Rhea
Silence.
Rhea's body didn't move, but inside, everything recoiled—like something had snapped beneath the skin.
You were never Muri.
The words echoed through her skull like a dropped stone in a deep well. Over and over. Down and down.
Her fingers, hidden under the blanket, curled into fists. Nails bit into her palms, grounding her to something—pain, maybe. Something real. Because if Lex was right, then what was she? A replica? A placeholder? A lie wearing a familiar face?
"That's not possible," she said. She didn't recognize her own voice—shaky, dry. "I remember. I remember the lake. The fire. I remember the piano in her flat, the broken key you used to press just to annoy me."
Lex's jaw tightened.
"You remember what you were programmed to remember," he said.
"No," she snapped, louder now. "Don't do that. Don't reduce me to some… synthetic error. I bleed, Lex. I feel. I'm her."
He looked at her—really looked at her—and in his eyes was the thing that undid her most.
Pity.
"I don't know what you are," he said quietly. "But you're not her. You're not Muri Cartwright."
The blanket slipped from her shoulders. She stood—barefoot, shaking—but she stood. The room felt too small. The walls, too close. The photo in the locket pressed against her chest like it was mocking her heartbeat.
Rhea took a slow step back, then another.
Lex didn't move. He just let her go.
"I need to think," she said. "I need air."
"Rhea—"
But she was already at the door, one hand bracing against the frame like it was the only solid thing left. She didn't look back. If she did, she'd break.
The hallway outside was dim and cold. Her breath came out in sharp, uneven pulls as she leaned against the wall. Her pulse felt fractured. Her reality—a borrowed mirror, splintering.
Then who the hell am I?
And somewhere, in the corner of her mind, something stirred. A flicker. A fragment.
A girl in a lab. A different voice. A number.
Not a name.