Location: Mirage HQ – West Wing Exit Tunnel
Time: 12:20 AM
Vashti moved through the smoke and alarms like a ghost—swift, silent, unshaken. Her heart, though, was louder than the explosions behind her.
Arya's voice crackled in her ear:
> "Vashti! Are you out? Shabd's five minutes away—"
"No," she snapped. "Tell him not to come here."
> "You're bleeding—"
"Tell him not to come."
---
Location: Mirage Safe Perimeter – 2 km from HQ
Shabd slammed the jeep door shut and ran toward her as soon as he saw her silhouette staggering out of the burning tunnel.
"Vashti!" he shouted.
But she didn't stop. She didn't fall into his arms like before.
She stood still. Face pale. Eyes red.
And held up the files in one hand.
"Read it," she said hoarsely. "Read what they made me into."
Shabd looked down at the charred folders.
His name. Her name. A list of triggers, training schedules, mission simulations—and the worst one:
> "Subject V. Dhiman – Emotion tether: Subject S. Heer."
He looked up, stunned.
"Vashti…"
"You weren't my calm, Shabd. You were my chain. They used you to control me."
---
Silence.
The only sound was the wind and the distant hiss of fire.
Shabd walked toward her slowly.
"Do you really believe that?"
"I believed I loved you since I was twelve. That everything I felt was mine."
Tears filled her eyes. "But now I don't know if it was me… or them."
Shabd's voice cracked. "It was you. You're more than their files. More than their programming. You were never just someone they built. You were becoming even when they tried to break you."
Vashti looked away. "And you? Did you ever really love me… or were you just trying to keep their perfect experiment from collapsing?"
Shabd stepped even closer, his voice barely a whisper now.
"I didn't fall for you because of their plans. I fell for you when you defied them. When you yelled at me for picking the wrong suture technique. When you threw a scalpel at Arya's head. When you never gave up on me, even when I pushed you away."
She looked up, a storm in her eyes.
"And what if I lose control now? What if this rage, this love—what if it was all part of their design?"
He reached out, gently resting his forehead against hers.
"Then let's burn the design."
---
Meanwhile – Mirage HQ Remnants
A woman watched the exchange from a surviving monitor.
Long black coat. Eyes cold as metal.
"She's rejecting her tether," she murmured.
A man beside her asked, "Do we initiate fallback?"
"No," she smiled. "Now we move to Phase Omega."
---