Chapter 78: Who’s Next? I screamed again. Not because I thought it would change anything. Not because I believed she’d listen. I screamed because my body didn’t know what else to do. The sound tore out of me raw, useless, swallowed by the hum of the machines and the silence of the black screen where Subject 007 had been. One moment he was there, frozen mid-breath, eyes wide with the weight of a question he’d just answered. The next—nothing. Not even static. Not even a flicker. Just black. Final. Absolute. The console didn’t react. No error message. No warning. Just a soft chime, like a door closing gently behind someone who’d already left. A single line of text scrolled across the bottom of the screen: SUBJECT 007 — TERMINATED. NO RECOVERY PROTOCOL ACTIVE. I lunged. Again. My hands slammed onto the console’s surface, fingers scrambling for buttons, levers, anything that might undo what she’d done. I didn’t care about the other screens anymore. I didn’t care about the hundreds of faces still trapped in their rooms, their breaths ticking down in perfect, mechanical rhythm. I cared about him. The man who’d whispered “I’m sorry” with his last visible breath. The man who’d answered every question, even the ones that broke him. The man I’d failed before I even knew his name. My palms slid uselessly across the smooth surface. The console didn’t light up. Didn’t beep. Didn’t acknowledge me at all. It was like trying to punch through glass. Solid. Impenetrable. Designed to keep me out. Mirabel didn’t move. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t even look at me. Her eyes stayed fixed on the black screen, her expression unreadable. Calm. Detached. Like she was watching a film she’d already seen a hundred times. The scalpel rested lightly in her hand, its blue glow pulsing in time with something I couldn’t hear. I spun toward her, chest heaving, throat burning. “Why him?” I demanded. My voice cracked. “Why not me? Why not anyone else? Why him?” She didn’t answer. Didn’t even blink. Just tilted her head slightly, like she was listening to something far away. Then, slowly, deliberately, she raised her free hand and placed it flat against the console’s surface. A thin line of light traced the outline of her palm. A soft tone chimed. The console’s interface shifted. New panels lit up. New prompts appeared. All of them locked behind a single, pulsing icon: BIOMETRIC OVERRIDE — SUBJECT ZERO. I stared at it. My stomach dropped. I knew what that meant. I’d built it. I’d coded the failsafe myself. A lock tied to pulse, to breath, to the unique rhythm of a living mind. Only one person could bypass it. Only one person could give the final command. Her. She turned to me then. Finally. Her eyes met mine. No anger. No triumph. Just that same quiet expectation. Like she was waiting for me to catch up. Like she’d known I’d be standing here, helpless, screaming at a machine that no longer recognized me. The scalpel lifted. Not threateningly. Not dramatically. Just… raised. Pointed slightly toward the ceiling. A gesture. A question. Her lips parted. One word. Soft. Clear. Deliberate. “Who’s next?” — I didn’t move. Couldn’t. My feet were rooted to the floor. My hands hung limp at my sides. The hum of the machines filled the space between us, thick and heavy, like the air before a storm. The screens around us flickered—Subject 112, counter at 89, eyes darting wildly as she clutched a photograph to her chest. Subject 045, counter at 63, whispering something to the empty chair across from him. Subject 188, counter at 112, rocking back and forth, hands pressed over her ears. All of them still breathing. Still alive. Still unaware that their fate now rested in the hands of a woman holding a scalpel and a silence I didn’t know how to break. Mirabel didn’t press. Didn’t repeat the question. She just stood there, scalpel in hand, watching me. Waiting. Like this was a test. Like this was the moment she’d been waiting for since the first breath I took in that white room with the counter above my head. I looked at the console. The biometric lock glowed steadily. No way around it. No override I could trigger. No backdoor I could exploit. I’d made sure of that. I’d wanted control. Absolute. Unbreakable. I’d wanted to be the only one who could end it. And now I wasn’t. I looked at the screens. At the faces. At the numbers. At the lives ticking down in perfect, mechanical sync. I thought about Subject 007. About the way his mouth had been open, like he was still trying to say something when the screen went black. About the way his eyes had looked—not scared, not angry, just… resigned. Like he’d known it was coming. Like he’d accepted it. I thought about the others. The woman with the child’s photo. The man with the rusted blade. The woman with the syringe hovering over her own arm. Were they resigned too? Did they know? Could they feel the weight of Mirabel’s gaze, even through the screens? Could they sense the scalpel’s glow, even from wherever they were? I looked back at her. At Mirabel. At the woman I’d deleted. At the woman I’d tried to erase. At the woman who was now holding the power to erase everyone else. Her expression didn’t change. No smirk. No sneer. No satisfaction. Just… stillness. Like she was giving me time. Like she was letting me choose. But I didn’t get to choose. Not really. The console was hers. The scalpel was hers. The system was hers. I was just… here. A spectator. A witness. A man who’d built a machine to punish himself and ended up giving the keys to the only person he’d ever truly hurt. I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. No words came out. What could I say? “Pick me”? She wouldn’t. “Pick someone else”? She already had. “Stop this”? She wouldn’t listen. Not now. Not after everything. The scalpel didn’t waver. Her gaze didn’t falter. The screens kept flickering. The counters kept dropping. The hum kept humming. I took a step forward. Just one. My foot hit the floor with a soft thud. Mirabel didn’t react. Didn’t tense. Didn’t lower the scalpel. Just watched. Waited. I took another step. Closer. Close enough that I could see the faint reflection of the screens in her eyes. Close enough that I could see the way her fingers curled around the scalpel’s handle. Not tight. Not loose. Just… ready. I stopped. Looked down at the console. At the biometric lock. At the list of subjects still waiting. Still breathing. Still alive. I looked back up at her. She tilted her head slightly. Just enough to make the light catch the edge of the scalpel. Just enough to make the blue glow flare for a second. “Who’s next?” she asked again. Same tone. Same calm. Same quiet. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. The scalpel stayed raised. The screens kept flickering. The counters kept dropping. And Mirabel waited.