84. Sienna
Sienna
M y name echoes through the speakers.
Soft.
Broken.
Impossible.
“Sienna…”
The woman inside the pod presses her trembling hand harder against the glass.
Gray eyes locked onto mine through the monitor.
Eyes I recognize.
Not because they look like Lily’s.
Because I’ve seen them before.
In reflections.
In dreams.
In nightmares I convinced myself weren’t real.
“No…” I whisper.
The room tilts slightly around me.
Jonah catches my arm immediately.
Strong.
Steady.
Keeping me upright while my entire world starts collapsing again.
Kade smiles from the wall.
Blood running down his face.
Satisfied.
God, he’s enjoying this.
“She was the prototype,” he says softly.
Rage slices through me instantly.
“She’s a PERSON.”
“She was dying.”
Vale closes his eyes briefly.
Like he already knows where this is going.
Noah’s frightened voice whispers faintly through the comms downstairs.
“Who’s that lady?”
Nobody answers.
Because nobody in this room fully understands what we’re looking at.
But I think I do.
And somehow—
That’s worse.
I step closer to the monitor slowly.
The woman inside the pod watches me like she’s trying to memorize my face.
Tears float inside the fluid around her.
“Oh my God…”
Aaron moves carefully toward the chamber.
“Easy,” Ronan warns.
The pod’s monitors spike immediately.
Oracle reacting.
Lily gasps softly through the speakers.
“She’s awake…”
The little girl sounds terrified.
Not of us.
Of her.
Kade notices instantly.
“Lily.” His voice softens manipulatively. “Stay away from Subject S-01.”
S-01.
Not a name.
A label.
Jonah’s jaw tightens hard enough I hear his teeth grind.
“You numbered them.”
Kade ignores him.
His eyes stay fixed on the screens.
Obsessed.
Possessive.
Like this chamber is his masterpiece.
I want him dead.
Not later.
Now.
The woman in the pod suddenly winces in pain.
The monitors around her spike violently.
WARNING: NEURAL CASCADE INSTABILITY
Vale goes white.
“No…”
Sienna snaps toward him.
“What does that mean?”
He looks horrified.
“The neural bridge is failing.”
Kade immediately pushes off the wall again.
“If the bridge collapses—”
“She dies?” I ask sharply.
He looks at me.
And for the first time—
There’s genuine emotion there.
Not love.
Not empathy.
Panic.
“She takes Oracle with her.”
Silence detonates through the room.
The woman isn’t connected to Oracle.
She IS Oracle.
My stomach drops completely.
“She’s the core consciousness,” Vale whispers.
Lily starts crying softly through the speakers.
“She’s hurting…”
The lights flicker violently overhead.
The entire facility trembles again.
Not mechanical this time.
Almost biological.
Like the building itself is in pain.
Oh God.
The pod monitor spikes harder.
The woman inside arches suddenly with a silent scream.
Every monitor in the compound glitches at once.
Aaron stumbles backward downstairs as sparks explode from the walls around him.
Ronan shouts something sharp.
Then—
Every speaker in the building erupts simultaneously.
Thousands of overlapping whispers flooding through the compound.
Children crying.
People screaming.
Voices begging for help.
Years of recordings.
Stored memories.
Oracle’s memory vault opening all at once.
Chaos explodes through the system.
Lily screams.
The white lights instantly slam red again.
WARNING: CASCADE FAILURE IMMINENT
And suddenly—
The woman inside the pod looks directly into the camera.
Straight at me.
Terrified tears streaming down her face.
Then she says the words that stop my heart.
“He copied your mind.”