The entire top floor—steel, concrete, shattered glass—collapsed beneath her boots as the shockwave punched downward like a giant’s fist. She plummeted through dust-filled darkness.
Her instincts snapped alive.
Carina twisted mid-air, orienting her fall.
Her optics calculated:
Velocity: critical. Impact: fatal. Survival odds: 4%.
“Not good enough,” she snarled.
She fired her auto-pistol downward—
three shots, controlled—
striking a loose steel beam.
The recoil shifted her momentum just enough.
She slammed into a broken maintenance cable, grabbed it, slid—
sparks burned her palms even through her smart-link gloves—
before the cable snapped.
She dropped again—several meters—
and crashed onto a collapsed walkway.
Her spine screamed.
Her teeth rattled.
But she was alive.
Barely.
Behind her, debris continued tumbling—
but so did something else.
Footsteps. Heavy. Metallic.
A retrieval unit landed on the same walkway, the impact denting steel.
Carina rolled behind a shattered pillar.
“Gotta keep moving,” she hissed.
The mech’s red optics swept the space.
TARGET LOCATED. PRIORITY: EXTRACT SUBJECT CH-07. USE MINIMAL LETHAL FORCE.
Carina frowned.
“CH-07?” she muttered. “What the hell is CH—”
And then it hit her.
Her last name: Chavel.
Her age: 22.
Her designation in old records she thought were deleted—
Carina Chavel, Subject 07. Experiment: MOTH INTERFACE. Status: FAILED.
The mech charged.
Carina vaulted over the railing, dropping to the next floor.
Pain shot up her knees.
She kept running.
As she sprinted through the half-collapsed corridor, her mind stuttered with flashes again—
- A lab illuminated by cold blue lights
? Straps binding her arms
? A machine like a metallic cocoon—the relic
? Scientists whispering about neural compatibility
? A faint voice inside her head: “Let me out…”
? Then—
a scream that was not hers
but came from her body
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Carina stumbled, clutching her head.
“Stop… stop…”
Her smart link flickered.
Her optics blurred.
“Not now—”
But the memories kept tearing through her skull, raw and bright.
“They split you,” her twin had said.
“They made two from one.”
Carina slammed a fist into the wall.
“No. I walked away from that life. I survived.”
But did she?
Without the missing half—
the half now calling to her?
She forced her breath steady.
Focus.
Survive first.
Existential crisis later.
She reached an elevator shaft blasted open by the explosion.
Smoke billowed.
Cable fragments dangled toward lower floors.
Carina could climb down.
Painfully.
Slowly.
But then—
Her comm implant crackled.
A voice whispered through static:
“Ca…rina…”
Her blood chilled.
The twin.
“No,” Carina breathed. “You shouldn’t— You fell with me—”
“Not fall… still here… connected…”
Her voice sounded distant.
Distorted.
Fading in and out like a dying signal.
Carina felt her chest twist in a way she hated.
“…Where are you?”
“…close…”
The relic.
It must still be functioning.
Still alive.
Still carrying the twin.
Carina’s throat tightened.
“Hang on. I’ll reach you.”
“…don’t let them… take you…”
“…they want to put us back…”
The connection severed abruptly.
Carina slammed her palm into the shaft wall.
She didn’t have time to think about what reuniting meant.
Whether it would fix her.
Or destroy her.
Or overwrite her entirely.
All she knew:
She wasn’t letting corps suits turn her into an experiment again.
Carina slid down a cable, sparks streaking, boots burning against friction.
She dropped into a darkened maintenance level.
Pipes hissed.
Water dripped.
A generator buzzed intermittently.
Right away, she knew something was wrong.
Too quiet.
Too still.
Her optics pinged—
THERMAL SIGNATURES DETECTED. MULTIPLE. CLOSE.
A flashbang landed at her feet.
“Shit—!”
Whiteout.
Carina’s vision died for three seconds.
Long enough.
Soldiers in stealth armor burst from cover.
Not mechs.
Not synthetics.
Human.
Elite.
She rolled behind a crate as bullets shredded the air.
Her ears rang.
A voice barked through a helmet speaker:
“Subject CH-07, stand down! Non-lethal compliance recommended!”
Carina laughed—wild and sharp.
“You want non-lethal?” she shouted back. “Wrong f***ing girl!”
She popped up, shotgun roaring—
one soldier dropped.
She dove left, rolled, fired again—
second soldier staggered.
The third charged with an electrified baton.
Carina blocked with her forearm—
subdermal armor absorbed the shock—
she headbutted him, grabbed his wrist, twisted hard until bone snapped.
Two more soldiers flanked.
Carina pulled her grenade.
“Catch.”
They dove too late.
BOOM.
The shockwave rattled the pipes. Steam vented in a screaming burst.
Carina staggered behind cover, coughing.
Her ammo was low.
Her limbs ached.
Her ribs burned.
But she was alive.
For now.
The floor trembled.
Carina followed the vibrations—
past broken terminals,
through a hanging curtain of sparking cables,
toward a circular maintenance hub glowing faintly violet.
Her pulse quickened.
The relic’s energy.
She stepped inside—
—and froze.
Her twin was suspended mid-air by a tangle of cables, wires threaded through her arms, her spine, her skull.
She wasn’t bleeding.
She was glowing.
Pulsing.
Half-gone, half-digital, half-solid, half-light.
Her voice echoed from every speaker, every wire, every broken screen:
“…Carina…”
Carina’s breath caught.
“You’re—alive?”
The twin weakly raised her head.
“Alive… because you are…”
Carina stepped closer, swallowing hard.
“What did they do to you?”
Her voice crackled like she was speaking from underwater.
“…trying to… reboot me… assimilate… they want… a complete version of us…”
Carina’s jaw clenched.
“I’m not their property.”
“We never were.”
The relic pulsed again through the wires, illuminating them in violet glow.
And then—
The tower’s main system activated.
A cold AI voice echoed:
“REUNIFICATION SEQUENCE INITIATED. PREPARE SUBJECTS.”
Carina froze.
Her twin shook her head violently, sparks flying.
“No—run—”
Carina grabbed a loose steel bar.
“No more running.”
She swung hard.
Metal screeched as she smashed at the cables binding her twin.
“Hold still!”
“Carina—stop—if you free me—”
More cables shot down from the ceiling, aiming for Carina.
She sliced one with her shotgun, rolled aside, dodged two more.
Sparks flew like fireworks.
“Talk later—live first!” Carina yelled.
She struck the final cable—
The twin fell forward into her arms.
Light flared.
Carina staggered as—
Their minds touched.
A rush of images, memories, pain, warmth—
two versions of one person smashing together like crashing waves.
Carina gasped.
The twin gasped.
And for a moment—
they were one voice:
“I remember you.”
Then the moment shattered.
Their bodies separated.
The tower screamed with alarms.
The relic woke fully.
Every light in the megatower turned violet.
Her twin clutched Carina’s arm.
“They’re coming. All of them.”
Carina heard it—
boots, mechs, drones—
every floor, every stairwell, closing in.
She grit her teeth.
“What happens if the relic finishes the unification?”
Her twin looked at her with an expression that cut deep.
“We stop being two people.”
“And start being what?”
The twin held her gaze.
“Whole.”
Carina’s chest tightened.
With anger.
With fear.
With something else.
She raised her shotgun again.
“We’re getting out of here first.”
Her twin nodded weakly.
“…together.”
Carina helped her to her feet.
The tower roared.
The relic pulsed.
The soldiers screamed warnings.
And Carina Chavel—
half-person, half-weapon, half-memory—
prepared to carve a path through hell.