POV: Meher
The smoke tastes like rust and secrets.
Half the ceiling is gone, and so is he. Nivaan. Again.Every time I lose him, it feels less like grief and more like déjà vu—like the universe is recycling my pain for efficiency.
I drag myself out of the debris, coughing. My right shoulder's screaming, but I can still move. That's all that matters.
Outside, the night's gone feral. Drones hum overhead, slicing through fog like vultures with searchlights. The city looks alive—hungry, watching.
And somewhere in that metallic glow, Nivaan's walking straight toward his grave. Again.
I press a finger to my comm implant. Static. Burned out. No contact.Figures.
My jacket's half burned. My gun's cracked. My faith in logic? Nonexistent.
But my orders haven't changed:
Eliminate interference.Recover the key.Contain Nivaan at all costs.
Except… I stopped following orders the moment I realized he wasn't just another experiment.
He was mine.
Not in the romantic way. Not anymore.He was the mistake I couldn't stop loving—the ghost I built a conscience for.
I pull out my notebook, flipping past ink-stained pages until I reach the most recent entry:
"If he remembers, they'll come for him."
Well, they came. And they took Kiyan.
Now it all makes sense.The way the Retrieval Agent looked at me in the apartment.The way he said, "Someone already claimed him."
They didn't just take Kiyan. They activated him.
He was the key—literally. The human cipher MindMesh built to unlock whatever's buried in Nivaan's code.
And if they've got both in proximity… the system might already be running.
I press my hand to my temple, grounding myself. Focus.
Nivaan's heading to MindMesh HQ. Predictable.That means I have maybe two hours before he walks into a digital noose.
I start walking—fast. The city hums beneath my boots. Every flickering sign feels like an eye. Every alley hums with whispers of old surveillance ghosts.
When you've been a hunter long enough, you can feel when you've become the prey.
Halfway across Sector 8, I spot a reflection in a puddle—too tall, too still, too intentional.
"Come out," I say, hand hovering over my weapon.
A figure steps out of the fog. Black coat. Silver mask. Voice modulator humming low.
"You don't have authorization to continue this pursuit," the figure says.
"Funny," I reply, "neither do you."
They tilt their head. "He's property. You're compromised."
"Yeah," I smirk, "so is my patience."
They raise a hand—slow, deliberate. Not a weapon. A transmitter. The same frequency Kiyan emitted when he vanished.
Oh hell no.
Before I can react, the air bends. My vision fractures—like the world's buffering.
Reality flickers once, twice—then resets.
I'm standing in a white corridor. Silent. Sterile.MindMesh. Retrieval Wing.
Except—I didn't walk here.
The figure's gone. But the walls are lined with pods. Transparent. Humming softly.
Inside one of them—Kiyan.
Unconscious. Floating in pale light. His veins pulse with code instead of blood.
I step closer, pressing a hand to the glass. "Kid…"
A voice booms from behind me.Deep. Familiar. Terrifying.
"You shouldn't have come back, Meher."
I freeze. Turn slowly.
The Retrieval Agent stands there, mask gone this time.
And my stomach drops.
Because the face looking back at me—is Nivaan's.
Not the one I know.Older. Colder. Digital perfection.
"Impossible," I whisper.
He smiles, calm and broken all at once. "You wanted to save him, didn't you?"
My pulse spikes. "What the hell are you?"
He steps forward. "The first version that worked."
The room hums. Every monitor flickers to life. Lines of code crawl across the glass like veins.
PROJECT: L‑47STATUS: MIRROR PROTOCOL — ONLINE
And suddenly, it hits me.
The man I love—the one I buried, the one who came back—isn't the original.
He's the replica.
And this thing in front of me—this perfect, cold, logical shadow—is the real Nivaan.
The one MindMesh kept.The one they didn't let die.
He tilts his head, studying me. "You brought the vessel back online. Now let's finish what we started."
Behind him, Kiyan's pod starts glowing—bright, blinding, pulsing like a heartbeat made of electricity.
I back away, whispering the only truth that still makes sense:
"This isn't resurrection. This is replacement."
And the older Nivaan—the Original—smiles like a god who never forgave his creation.