Darkness breathed around them.
Then, light.
A single strip of white tore across the ceiling as the sound of machinery hummed to life.
Adrian's eyes opened to sterile brightness. His wrists were locked in magnetic cuffs, his body strapped to a metal chair. Every muscle ached like he'd been dropped from a height.
The air was cold and sharp with disinfectant and static.
He could hear faint murmurs, the hum of power conduits, the rhythm of distant footsteps, and something else: a voice whispering his name.
"Adrian…"
Elena.
He turned, straining against the restraints. Across the chamber, glass walls, surgical light, Elena sat bound to a similar chair, pale but conscious. Her gaze met his, and even through exhaustion, there was that spark: recognition, relief, fear.
"They separated us?" she whispered.
"Not for long," he answered, his voice hoarse.
A door hissed open behind her.
Selene entered, but not as the woman they knew. She wore the Syndicate's colors again: black armor laced with pale circuitry, her hair tied back, her expression unreadable. Two guards followed her, silent as statues.
Adrian's jaw tightened. "So that's it? Back to where you started?"
Selene didn't answer at first. She approached the console between them, fingers gliding over glass controls. The restraints pulsed faintly.
"You think I had a choice?" she murmured.
"You always had one."
Her gaze flicked up, sharp, wounded. "Not this time."
Elena leaned forward as far as her bonds allowed. "Selene, whatever they promised you..."
"It's not about promises," Selene cut in. "It's about memory."
The lights dimmed.
The walls shifted from glass to light, holographic screens forming around them.
Images flickered into existence: moments from their lives, fractured and wrong.
Adrian saw himself in Syndicate uniform, executing orders he didn't remember giving.
Elena saw her parents, alive, smiling, only for their faces to glitch and fade.
Selene turned away as her own reflection appeared, repeating an endless loop: "I built this world."
It wasn't interrogation. It was psychological erasure.
"They're rewriting your neural archives," Selene said quietly, as if to herself.
"They'll take what's left of you, reshape it into obedience. You won't even know you lost anything."
Adrian strained against the cuffs. "And you're helping them do it?"
Her lips trembled. "I'm trying to stop them from killing you outright."
"You could just set us free."
"And get you both executed before you reach the door?" She turned her head away. "No. There's another way."
Elena's eyes softened. "Selene… you're risking everything."
"I already did," Selene said quietly. "And it cost me everything I ever cared about."
The silence that followed was heavy, too full to be broken easily.
Hours, maybe minutes, passed.
The lights dimmed again. One guard left. Then another.
Selene moved closer to Adrian's chair, her voice dropping to a whisper.
"Listen to me. They're using the Eidolon core. It's fused to the mainframe. If I can get inside, I can rewrite the code from within, but I'll need your link."
"You mean my neural imprint," Adrian said slowly.
She nodded. "Yours and hers."
Elena frowned. "That could kill him."
"It could kill all of us," Selene replied. "But it's the only way."
Adrian exhaled, rough, resigned. "Then we do it."
Selene hesitated. For a moment, the mask fell, and the woman beneath the armor looked… human again.
She reached out, her fingers brushing the side of his face. "You always were the stubborn one."
"And you always liked that," he said quietly.
Their eyes locked, years of betrayal, grief, and something dangerously close to tenderness flickering between them.
"If this works," she whispered, "you'll forget me again."
"Then make it worth remembering."
For a heartbeat, time seemed to hold.
Then Selene stepped back, breath unsteady. "I'll come for you both when the shift begins. Be ready."
She turned and disappeared through the door, her shadow slicing through the sterile light.
Elena stared at Adrian, voice trembling. "Do you trust her?"
He hesitated, not long, but long enough.
"I trust what she's fighting for."
Elena nodded slowly, though her eyes betrayed the ache beneath her calm.
"And what about me?"
Adrian looked at her, really looked at her.
The bruises under her eyes, the fear she hid behind resolve, the quiet fire that refused to die.
"You," he said softly, "are the only thing keeping me sane."
The distance between their chairs was only a few feet, but it felt like the longest space in the world.
Elena closed her eyes and whispered, "Then promise me, whatever happens, you'll find me again."
Adrian strained against the cuffs one last time, metal groaning. His hand moved inches toward hers, fingertips brushing air.
"Always."
In the silence that followed, the lights flickered once more.
Far away, deep in the heart of the Syndicate's citadel, the Eidolon core began to pulse.
Selene's voice crackled faintly through the comm:
"Phase one is live. Don't let go."
And somewhere beneath the hum of machines, a memory, their memory, began to fracture.