Chapter 40: The Drive Knows Before You Do I held the drive in my palm. Cold. Smooth. Final. The label said FINAL ERASURE. Not a warning. Not a threat. Just a fact. Like a tombstone already carved before the body’s in the ground. Mira watched me. Not like she was waiting for me to make a choice. Like she was waiting for me to catch up to the choice I’d already made a long time ago. I didn’t ask what would happen if I plugged it in. I didn’t ask if it would hurt. I didn’t ask if I’d survive. None of that mattered. The drive wasn’t a question. It was an answer. And I was the one who’d buried it. I lifted my arm. Rolled up the sleeve. There it was—the port. Small. Metallic. Hidden under skin that looked normal until you knew to look closer. I’d seen it before. In flashes. In nightmares I thought were dreams. A slit in the flesh. A socket for truth. I pressed the drive against it. It clicked. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just a soft, mechanical sound. Like a key turning in a lock that hadn’t been used in years. Then my body locked up. Not pain. Not at first. Just stillness. Like every muscle had been told to stop moving and listen. My fingers wouldn’t unclench. My knees wouldn’t bend. My lungs wouldn’t pull air. I stood there, rigid, eyes wide, staring at nothing and everything at once. Mira didn’t move closer. She didn’t reach out. She just watched. Her face didn’t change. No pity. No fear. Just recognition. Like she was seeing something she’d known would happen since the beginning. The first memory hit me like a punch to the gut. Not in order. Not gentle. Backwards. Like rewinding a film that was never meant to be seen. I saw her on the table. Strapped down. Eyes open. Not screaming. Not crying. Just watching me. Calm. Resigned. Like she’d already accepted what I was about to do. I saw my hand holding the scalpel. Not shaking. Not hesitating. Steady. Precise. Like I’d done this a hundred times before. I saw the incision. Clean. Surgical. No blood. Just a thin red line opening up like a zipper. I saw her flinch. Just once. A tiny twitch. Like her body was trying to pull away even though her mind had already given up. I saw myself lean in. Close. Too close. My breath fogging the glass of the observation window behind her. I saw the machine beside the table. Monitors. Wires. A screen flashing numbers that meant nothing to me then but everything now. I saw the button. Red. Big. Labeled OVERRIDE. I saw my finger hovering over it. I saw myself press it. I saw her eyes close. I saw the flatline. I saw the silence. Then it rewound. Faster. Harder. I saw her begging. Not with words. With her eyes. With the way her fingers curled against the restraints. With the way her breath hitched when I walked into the room. I saw myself ignoring her. Turning away. Pretending not to see. I saw the forms on the clipboard. My signature at the bottom. Not scribbled. Not rushed. Neat. Deliberate. Like I’d taken my time. I saw the other doctors. Standing in the corner. Watching. Not stopping me. Not questioning me. Just watching. I saw the clock on the wall. 3:47 AM. The time they always scheduled the quiet ones. The ones no one would miss. I saw the door close behind me as I left the room. Not looking back. Never looking back. I saw the report on my desk the next morning. “Procedure Successful.” “Subject Stable.” “Memory Suppression Complete.” I saw myself signing off on it. I saw myself burning the real file. I saw myself deleting her name from the database. I saw myself telling myself it was necessary. I saw myself believing it. The memories didn’t stop. They kept coming. Faster. Louder. More. Each one sharper than the last. Each one carving deeper into me. Not just what I did. But why. The excuses. The justifications. The lies I told myself to sleep at night. I saw her before the table. Before the straps. Before the scalpel. Smiling. Laughing. Handing me a cup of coffee. Calling me by a name I didn’t remember until now. I saw us as kids. Running through a field. Her ahead of me. Always ahead of me. Turning back to yell something I couldn’t hear. I saw her crying. Not in the operating room. In a hallway. Late at night. Me walking past her. Pretending not to see. I saw her holding a photo. Of us. Younger. Happier. Before I became the kind of man who could do what I did. I saw her writing a letter. To me. I never read it. I threw it away before I opened it. I saw her packing a bag. Leaving. I didn’t stop her. I saw her coming back. I saw her trusting me again. I saw myself betraying that trust. Over and over. Again and again. Different rooms. Different tables. Different machines. Same face. Same eyes. Same silence at the end. I didn’t just erase her once. I erased her every time I looked away. Every time I signed a form. Every time I told myself it was for the greater good. Every time I chose the machine over the person. The procedure over the plea. The silence over the scream. The drive didn’t show me the worst part. It showed me the part before the worst part. The part where I still had a choice. The part where I could have stopped. The part where I didn’t. My knees gave out. I didn’t fall. Not yet. My body was still locked. Still rigid. Still holding me upright even though everything inside me was collapsing. Mira stepped forward. Just one step. Close enough that I could see the faint scar on her neck. The one I’d made. The one I’d forgotten. The one I’d erased. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. The drive was still plugged in. Still feeding me memories. Still rewinding. Still showing me things I didn’t want to see but couldn’t look away from. I saw her real name for the first time. Not Mira. Not the name I’d given her after I’d deleted the real one. Not the name I’d used to make her smaller. Quieter. Easier to forget. Her real name. The name she’d been born with. The name I’d taken from her. The name I’d buried so deep even I couldn’t find it. It rose up in my throat. Not a shout. Not a whisper. Just a breath. A single, broken syllable that carried everything I’d done and everything I’d lost. “Mirabel.” The counter on my chest dropped to 38.