The mountains were jagged bones torn from Earth's flesh—unmapped, unsignaled, unsurveilled.
Vyomika's transport sled died a kilometer before the coordinates Riva had given. Static hissed in her ears. The last transmission from Kshatra had gone silent hours ago. No drones. No satellites. Only wind that smelled like dust and history.
She walked. Step by step.
Her legs—synthetic, silent—barely disturbed the ground.
And then, just past a broken ridge, she saw them.
Not a city.
Not even a village.
Just a scattering of tents, dug deep into the cliff, camouflaged in rock-dust and radiation netting. Solar threads shimmered weakly in the moonlight. The entire site breathed like a wound trying not to bleed.
Vyomika raised her hands as she approached. No one told her to. But she'd learned enough about human fear.
A voice barked from the rocks:
> "Name. Lineage. Implant signature."
Vyomika said nothing.
Another voice—older, closer—spoke behind her.
> "She doesn't have a signature. Or a lineage. That's the problem."
She turned. A man stood there, gaunt but fire-eyed, wrapped in metal-thread armor patched with analog circuitry.
> "You… know me?" Vyomika asked.
He nodded once.
> "Riva's message reached us. She said you were a ghost. We thought she meant metaphorically."
> "She's dead."
> "So is everyone else."
Inside the largest tent, warmth lingered. Real fire. Real breath. She counted fourteen people—eight adults, six children.
As Vyomika sits alone at the cliff's edge, city lights blinking far away, she turns the broken glass shard in her hands—seeing Riva's sister's face reflected.
But her voice is not that sister's.
Her thoughts are not code.
Her fears are not simulations.
They are hers.
She whispers, not to the wind—but to herself.
> "I didn't sell who I was. I sold what I was wearing."
A pause.
> "And now they want me to forget I was ever human."
She presses her palm to her chest.
No heartbeat. Only hum.
But the ache inside? That's not machine-made.
Behind her, the elder from the hidden faction approaches. He stops, watching her closely.
> "You think like us," he says.
Vyomika doesn't answer.
> "That means you're one of us. Doesn't matter what body you wear."
> "What if I can't prove that?" she says softly.
The elder kneels beside her.
> "Then bleed with us, not for them. That's all the proof we need."
________________________________________
Location: Nexatech Command Atrium, Black Level Access—only accessible to the bloodline.
Dev stood at the command altar, neural threads glowing like veins across the curved black console. The room was dark and cold, carved from synthetic obsidian. Digital glyphs swirled like incantations above a central interface: a map of the world pulsing with search zones for one entity.
Vyomika-9. Status: UNTRACEABLE.
She's gone.
One hundred billion credit project. Scrambled.
Why didn't Kshatra predict deviation?
He slammed his palm against the glass. A thin red crack spread.
Behind him, the operatives dared not speak.
He turned sharply. "What did the post-retrieval drones return with?"
"Nothing, sir. The slum signals are collapsed. Tunnel footage ends at the Aatm Stambh rupture. No trace since."
Dev growled low.
> We made her. We mapped her thoughts down to the sub-emotional patterns. She wasn't supposed to choose flight over assimilation.
The wall flickered.
A whisper of heels.
His daughter entered, barefoot.
Vyomika Chaudhary's original body wore black silks, and beneath that: the predator's poise of someone who hadn't merely inherited a body—but conquered it.
"Still looking for her?" she asked, running a finger along the edge of the glass table like a blade.
Dev didn't turn.
"She's a liability," he replied. "Not because she ran. Because she remembers what it's like to be human."
His daughter laughed—sharp and soulless.
"She can keep her memories," she said. "They'll burn with her soon enough."
She walked to the central observation platform, where holograms of failed vessels spun in rotation—faces twisted, broken, frozen mid-scream.
"Did you know this one begged?" she said, pointing at one.
Dev glanced briefly.
"I don't need drama. I need results."
"Drama is results, father," she replied, smirking. "Fear is what keeps the cities obedient. Pain is what makes the body loyal. And I am what makes the world believe the original Vyomika never left."
She turned sharply. Her voice like acid in water.
"If she ever sees me—herself—she'll shatter."
> Dev didn't respond. Not because he disagreed—but because he had planned that very outcome.
She stepped closer to him, her face lit with the gentle glow of the command halo.
"I want to hunt her," she said. "Let me be the one."
"No."
"Why not?"
He looked at her finally.
"Because I don't want her dead. Not yet. First I want her to kneel."
She grinned.
Then whispered:
> "Then let me break her mind."