Trembling, Rae places her hand on the glass again. The baby opens her eyes, and everything comes flooding back to her. Her memories fold into one.
Cassian.
Her mind awakens.
“I’m sorry, but he misled you,” Rae says. “That soldier was Cassian. He designed me, but he was not a holy figure, nor was he a reliable innovator. He was a pathological killer. A mad scientist, if there ever was one. I’m afraid he fooled you.”
“He predicted that you’d find me,” he says. “Said you’d fall right into my lap. Well, here you are.”
“Here I am,” she mutters. “I killed him.”
“He showed me the way. He trusted me,” he says.
Cassian was looking for a way to keep me alive, young, and always breeding.
Everything he constructed was to keep her his docile little slave. And somehow, even after his death, he has trapped her. He will break and destroy her as she did so eagerly to him.
She shakes her head, praying the fragile devil can see his error. “He was a lonely, spiteful alpha with decreasing masculine abilities. His ego destroyed him,” she says. “He let the entire world fall to ruin because of one omega clone. Me. He thought I was perfect. His masterpiece. But he was wrong. I am broken, and that’s why my alphas love me. Cassian failed, and now he’s using you as his backup plan to destroy everything.”
The devil bows and places the baby’s tank against her chest. Instinctually, she closes her arms around the glass and feels the warmth below her breasts.
Everything goes silent. It’s just her and the child. Floating. Breathless ecstasy.
She remembers the joy of pregnancy. She remembers love. Real love. The love that sees you at your lowest and wants more of you. The love you keep fighting for no matter how hard it breaks you.
Killian, Lucas, Vash. Where are you?
“Look at her. She is alive,” he says. “All this time, she has been alive, waiting for you. She opened her eyes when you plugged in. You can use the energy stream to provide her first memories, transmitting yours into her. Overriding basic neural networks with your own. The tubes that kept you alive were supposed to weave you two together, but there was a process error. You woke up.”
“I was hooked up… to her? So that’s why I lost my memories,” she whispers.
“A symptom of pulling out too fast. The language sector of the brain is overworked, causing temporary amnesia. It wasn’t supposed to complete like that,” he says.
“What else did Cassian tell you?”
“You are a clone, perfect in so many ways. But he knew your limitations. On the inside, you were always unraveling. Little by little. Every day that passes, you lose more. When your essence evaporates, a part of you will grow unstable, and--”
She interrupts. “Unstable?”
“Your molecular level It will sift inward, attacking itself. You will fall into a state of rapid deterioration before your atoms go haywire...”
Rae lowers her voice. “I’ll bring extinction.”
“Yes,” he says. “Compared to the rest of the clones, your genetic code is complex. He built your body with a natural failsafe right within the source code.”
“A failsafe,” she whispers. “But I feel fine…”
They are both silent.
He adds, “Your consciousness came with a duty. A responsibility to bring people together.”
A cold current runs down her throat. “If what you’re saying is true, everyone will die. I’ll never see my loved ones ever again. I’ll never hold my children. Never get to smell their hair before putting them to bed. I’ll lose everything.”
“Don’t you understand? With no extinction, the world will repeat the same cycle. In your death, you will live again through a new body. Those that survive can build a new society,” he moans. “The cycle can start over. You can begin again.”
“The child is just a copy of a copy. She will also degenerate,” Rae says.
“I have faith that she won’t,” he whispers.