The silence between them had the weight of a gun to the temple.
Kestrel stood in the doorway of the comms room, his shoulders squared, but something distant in his eyes. Amelia didn't speak. Neither did he. The screens behind her flickered with shifting timelines, digital echoes of choices she didn't remember making.
She was unraveling.
"Did you see the feed?" she asked finally, voice low.
He nodded. "I did."
"And you believe it."
"I believe… something happened." He hesitated. "Something between us.
Something I don't understand anymore."
Amelia turned back to the holographic stream of her past—a flood of memories accessed through Mirror's residual architecture. Each flicker showed her committing acts she couldn't reconcile with herself. Unfamiliar faces. A gun in her hand. Dominic's eyes, bruised and broken. A child she didn't recognize screaming her name.
None of them felt real. But they looked real.
"Echo said this might happen," she murmured. "That Solas left holes. Worms in my timeline. Things I wouldn't be able to trust once they started surfacing."
Kestrel didn't move from the doorway. "Are they real?"
"I don't know," she said honestly.
In the corner of the room, the interface clicked. Dominic's backup module had activated silently—triggered by her emotional flux.
A rotating spiral appeared. Then his voice, synthetic but still familiar:
"If you're seeing this, it means the overwrite cascade has begun. Amelia—there's something I never told you. I made a copy."
She froze. Her hand hovered in mid-air, suddenly colder than the room allowed.
"A full neural backtrace. After Solas infected the node, I didn't trust the version of you we got back. So I made one—quietly. I'm sorry."
Kestrel stepped forward, jaw tight. "A backup? Like a version of her he thought was better?"
"I didn't consent to that," Amelia whispered. "He cloned me without my knowledge."
More text unfurled:
"This version is stored on the Mirror Prime node. If she fractures, this copy will become the new primary. The system is already preparing the override."
It felt like betrayal blooming through every nerve in her body.
Kestrel exhaled slowly. "So the version of you we're seeing now—the flashbacks, the hallucinations… could be the otherone bleeding in."
Amelia's hands trembled. "I don't even know if I'm the original anymore."
Her voice cracked. "What if I'm just the copy who happened to wake up first?"
Behind them, Echo's voice broke through the static—projected from a nearby terminal. Her tone was softened, warmer than usual. Almost… mournful.
"You are the original, Amelia. But that doesn't mean they didn't try to edit you. Versions aren't copies—they're choices. Forks. Branches. They gave you a thousand possible yous and kept only the one that made them feel safe."
Amelia turned to the terminal, her reflection fractured across its glass. "And what are you offering?"
"A chance to write your own story again."
"By rewriting my memories?"
"By choosing which ones to believe."
Kestrel stepped forward, tense. "And what's the price?"
Echo's response came with a cold precision:
"Let go of the idea that there's only one true you. Become the one who survives."
Amelia stared into the mirror of her own mind. Memories surged—bleeding timelines from Mirror Prime, backup protocols from Dominic, lingering phantom code from Solas. She saw herself strangling Eris. Kissing Zahir in a corridor that never existed. Executing Kestrel with a single pulse to the chest.
None of it was real. And yet… it all felt real.
"I don't know what's real anymore," she whispered.
Kestrel stepped beside her, brushing his hand across hers. "Then let's find out together."
A small sob broke through her composure. "You saw the footage. You saw what I did."
"I saw someone who looked like you. That's not the same."
Their hands clasped—tightly, like they were trying to tether each other to the same point in reality. But something between them had cracked, and the air around them vibrated with unspoken things.
"You don't have to trust me," Echo said gently. "But you have to choose. Soon. The system is preparing to overwrite you again."
Amelia shut her eyes. "What happens if I let you in?"
"Then we make a new version. One no one else owns."
Kestrel's grip tightened. "I don't want to lose this you."
Her gaze met his. "Then help me stay her."
From the corner of the room, the interface chirped again.
Zahir's voice cut through the static via comms, urgency in his tone:
"We found something. The real root system—Mirror Prime. It's been running beneath every node. It contains a clean version of Amelia's neural map… from before she met any of us."
Silence.
"Mirror is preparing to reset history. It'll erase all deviations. Including you."
Amelia's jaw clenched. "Then we go to Prime."
Kestrel hesitated. "If we do this… we might find out who you really were. Who you were supposed to be."
She nodded slowly. "And maybe that's how I'll finally know who I want to be."
The screen dimmed. Echo's image flickered—half light, half code.
"Mirror Prime awaits."
*********
Amelia touches her temple, synchronizing with Echo. "Let's make this version count."