Chapter 26: The Scalpel Chooses The scalpel pulsed in my grip like it had a heartbeat of its own. I didn’t question it. I didn’t flinch. I just held it tighter, like it was the only thing keeping me from dissolving into the white. The void around me didn’t feel empty anymore. It felt like it was closing in. Not fast. Not loud. Just steady. Like walls made of fog deciding they’d had enough of me standing in the middle. I heard the child’s voice again. Not from ahead. Not from behind. From inside my skull, curled up behind my eyes like it had always lived there. “Operate. Or erase.” I didn’t answer. I didn’t ask what it meant. I already knew. The choice wasn’t about cutting flesh. It was about cutting truth. Or letting it rot. I raised the scalpel. Not toward my chest. Not toward where Lena might be, if she was even still real. I raised it toward the folder still pressed against me. The one I’d carried through water, through corridors, through rooms that remembered me better than I remembered myself. The one labeled SUBJECT ZERO. I sliced it open. The paper didn’t tear. It split like skin. Clean. Quiet. No resistance. Inside, there were no documents. No signatures. No hospital stamps or termination orders. Just a small, flat device. Black. Smooth. No buttons. No wires. Just a faint blue glow along its edge, pulsing in time with the scalpel in my other hand. I picked it up. It hummed. Not loud. Not mechanical. Organic. Like a second heartbeat synced to the one in my ribs. My own biometric signature blinked across its surface in soft, rolling code — pulse rate, neural patterns, breath intervals. All mine. All live. All feeding back into the thing like it was reading me while I held it. I didn’t hesitate. I pressed it to my temple. The counter dropped to 115. My vision flooded with memories not my own.