The lab wasn't dead silent anymore.
It hummed softly now — not just from the machines, but from the shift in energy Arwa brought with her. Not frantic...not chaotic...Focused.
She stood in front of the main console, fingers resting on the surface like she was listening for something through her skin.
"Same access code?" Zayaan asked, already prepping the security layers.
Arwa didn't answer. Her eyes flicked across the display like she wasn't looking at the interface, but through it. Searching.
She typed in a series of characters. Not the old code. Something new. Intuitive.
The screen blinked once. Then opened.
Zayaan's head snapped up. "You remembered that?"
She shook her head. "No. I just... knew it."
He didn't say anything. But the look in his eyes shifted again — from concern to awe. And maybe fear. Because if she was starting to know things without memory, it meant whatever was buried inside her was waking up.
And it wasn't passive.
The system unfolded in layers, a hidden structure behind what they'd seen before. Zayaan leaned in as encrypted files began lining the screen — not ones they had accessed before, and not anything the average lab tech would've been cleared to see.
Arwa's hand paused above one.
PROJECT NEXUS: SUBJECT-5B
She clicked.
The file opened into a string of logs, then paused on a single line. A voice file. Just like before. But this one wasn't distorted. It was clear.
And it wasn't the woman's voice this time.
It was a man. Calm. Measured. Cold.
"Subject 5B has shown signs of pre-activation. Emotional instability is expected. Should memory resurgence occur before the transfer window, terminate and reallocate."
Arwa's breath caught. But she didn't look away.
Zayaan stared at the screen like it had burned him.
"Reallocate? What does that mean?"
She didn't answer. Because she already knew. Somewhere deep, her body knew.
It meant replace. Strip. Reset. Try again with the next copy.
She was never meant to survive resurgence. The people who created her — they had built her with a shelf life. A failsafe.
But someone — that woman, the voice in the first message — someone had sabotaged that timeline.
And now, here she was. Past the expiration date. Still thinking. Still feeling.
Still alive.
The cursor blinked. Another folder waited.
Zayaan hovered. "We don't have to—"
"I want to see it."
She clicked.
A series of visuals loaded — incomplete, fuzzy, but enough. Surveillance feeds. Brief snippets. Her. Younger. In a room much like this one, but colder. And someone else beside her.
A boy.
Zayaan leaned in.
He didn't recognize the face — not fully. But there was something in the way the boy looked at the camera. Like he knew it was watching. Like he wasn't afraid.
Arwa touched the screen without thinking.
"That's him."
Zayaan turned. "Who?"
Her voice cracked, not from weakness — from certainty.
"The one they wiped from me."
Silence again. But now, it was the kind that comes right before thunder.
Arwa closed the files.
"We need to find him."
Zayaan nodded, but his voice came slowly.
"What if they already have?"
She met his eyes.
"Then we don't run anymore."