Chapter 108: Wrong Answer I pressed my palm flat against the biometric panel. The cut on my arm still bled, slow and thick, and I let it smear across the scanner. The machine didn’t hesitate. It recognized me. Not as Subject Zero. Not as the ghost in the system. Not as the girl Elias tried to erase. It recognized me as the one who chose. The screen flickered once, then lit up with a single prompt: INPUT ANSWER. I didn’t type. I didn’t speak. I just thought it, hard and sharp, like a blade pressed between my ribs. *Because I’m not the question. I’m the answer.* The machine accepted it. A low hum filled the room, not the angry buzz of alarms or the mechanical growl of protocols rebooting. This was deeper. Slower. Like the turning of gears buried under miles of code. The floor vibrated under my boots. The walls pulsed, not with light, but with something else—pressure, maybe, or memory. On the main monitor, the subject in Room 17—the woman with the photograph of me in her hands—froze mid-breath. Her eyes, wide and confused a second ago, narrowed. She looked down at the photo. Then she dropped it. It hit the floor with no sound, but I saw her flinch like it burned her fingers. She didn’t pick it up. Instead, she turned in a slow circle, scanning the walls, the ceiling, the chair, the table. Her lips moved. At first, nothing came out. Then she spoke. Not to survive. Not to bargain. Not to beg. She asked a question. “Who put me here?” The machine didn’t answer. It never does. Not directly. But the counter above her head—299, then 298—stopped at 295. Frozen. Not dead. Not saved. Just… paused. The walls behind her glitched. Not like static. Not like broken code. Like skin peeling back. And underneath, for half a second, I saw Elias’s face. Not the man he became. Not the architect. Not the ghost. The boy. The one who held my hand in the hospital hallway. The one who promised he wouldn’t let them take me. The glitch passed. The walls smoothed. The woman didn’t react. She just stood there, breathing, staring at the spot where the face had been. She asked another question. “Why does my breath count matter to you?” Again, no answer. But the glitch came back. Stronger this time. Elias’s face lingered longer. His mouth moved. I couldn’t hear him, but I knew what he was saying. He was always saying it. *I’m sorry.* The woman didn’t look scared. She looked angry. Determined. She took a step toward the wall, toward the glitch, toward the face. “Is this real?” she asked. The machine didn’t answer. The glitch didn’t fade. She reached out. Not to touch the wall. To touch the face. Her fingers passed through it. Of course they did. It wasn’t there. It was never there. Just a reflection. A memory. A ghost. She pulled her hand back. Looked at her palm. Looked at the photograph on the floor. Looked up at the frozen counter. Then she asked the question I didn’t expect. “Are you Mirabel?” The machine didn’t answer. The glitch didn’t fade. Elias’s face didn’t move. But I felt it. Like a hook in my chest. Like a wire pulled taut between her and me. She wasn’t asking the machine. She was asking me. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. The machine answered for me. The walls in her room dissolved. Not into code. Not into static. Into white. Pure, blinding white. The chair vanished. The table vanished. The photograph vanished. Even the counter vanished. For a second, she was standing in nothing. No floor. No ceiling. No walls. Just white. Then the white folded in on itself. It shrank. It hardened. It became walls again. A ceiling. A floor. A chair. A table. An envelope. The counter reappeared above her head. 300. She didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink. The envelope on the table split open. A photograph slid out. It wasn’t me this time. It was her. She looked down at it. Looked at her own face. Looked up at the counter. Looked around the room. She didn’t ask a question. She didn’t scream. She just stood there. Waiting. The machine had reset her. But it hadn’t reset me. The screen in front of me flickered. The biometric panel glowed red. The hum in the room deepened. The pressure in my chest grew heavier. The door behind me hissed open. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t need to. I knew what was behind me. I knew where I was. I knew what the machine had done. It hadn’t just reset her. It had moved me. The air smelled different. Colder. Thinner. The light was harsher. The silence was louder. I looked down. My boots stood on a familiar floor. Gray metal. Scratched. Stained. I looked up. A digital counter hung above me. 300. I turned around. The door behind me sealed shut with a soft click. The chair. The table. The envelope. All exactly where they should be. I walked to the table. Picked up the envelope. Opened it. The photograph inside wasn’t of me. It was of Elias. Younger. Smiling. Holding a scalpel like it was a toy. I dropped the photo. It landed face up. He was still smiling. I looked at the counter. 299. I looked at the walls. They were already glitching. Not with his face. With mine. I whispered, “Wrong answer.” The room reset—but this time, with me inside it.