Absolute 2 Eva sat motionless.
The screen had gone dark minutes ago—or hours, she couldn't tell. The image of her other self, the clone, the sister who wasn't her sister, crying over Lily—over their sister—was burned into her mind. She couldn't move. Couldn't think. Couldn't breathe.
Lily was dying.
The words circled in her head, a loop she couldn't break. She's infected. A virus. The Architects made it. She's dying.
She stood.
The movement was sudden, violent, sending her chair crashing backward against the wall. She was at the door before she knew she'd moved, her hand reaching for the handle—
Her assistant stepped in front of her.
A09's hand closed over the door, blocking it. Her masked face gave nothing away, but her posture was absolute. Immovable.
"Out of my way."
A09 didn't move.
"I'm ordering you." Eva's voice rose, anger bleeding through the cold. "Step aside."
"My job is to help you do your work." A09's voice was calm, measured. "And to keep you stable. Right now, you're not stable. You need to calm down."
Pressure built in the room.
It was suffocating—a weight that pressed against the walls, the furniture, the air itself. The lights flickered. The floor seemed to groan under the force of it.
A09 didn't move.
Eva's posture changed. The anger didn't fade—it froze, crystallizing into something colder, something monstrous. Her voice was a whisper when she spoke again.
"I said out of my way."
A09 stood her ground.
"Please." Her voice was softer now, almost gentle. "Don't forget who I am."
Eva's eyes narrowed. "Are you threatening me?"
"No." A09 shook her head slowly. "I'm reminding you. You're an Absolute Architect. You have a role to play. A mask to wear." She walked to the table, picked up Eva's mask—the black one, the one that marked her rank—and held it out. "You need to keep up the act. For now."
Eva stared at the mask.
"Your sister is going to die." A09's voice was quiet, steady. "There is no cure. There's nothing you can do to stop that." She stepped closer. "So all you can do is help her. Make sure the ones who made the virus don't live. Make sure the Architects who created it don't survive." She paused. "Aren't they the reason your sister is dying?"
Eva's hands closed around the mask.
She looked at it for a long moment—at the black surface, the empty eye slits, the thing she'd worn for so long it had become her face. Then, slowly, she put it on.
When she turned back to A09, her posture was different. Her voice was different. The Absolute was back.
"Bring me files on the virus. And whoever created it."
A09 bowed her head. "Of course."
She turned to leave.
"A09."
A09 stopped at the door.
"You're an Alpha, aren't you?"
A09 was still for a long moment. Then, slowly, she turned back.
"Yes. I am."
Eva studied her through the mask's eye slits. Something shifted in her expression—not warmth, exactly, but recognition. Understanding.
"That's why you're still alive." Her voice was thoughtful. "My clone—the other Eva—she said you have a role in the future."
A09 met her gaze steadily. "She did."
Eva sat back down, reaching for the files already stacked on her desk. "Let's see what my clone saw, then."
A09 opened the door and slipped out.
Behind her, Absolute 2 Eva began to read, her mask firmly in place, her heart locked away where no one could see it.
Lily was dying.
But the people who made that virus were still breathing.
Not for long.