Alarms wailed above, but
the vault was silent. Still. Cold.
Linn stood before a
blast-sealed chamber, her hands clasped neatly behind her back. Behind her, a reinforced screen displayed Sommer Dai's biometric readings: elevated heart rate, adrenaline levels high—but stable.
A smile, small and sharp, curved at the edge of her lips.
"She made it to him," came the voice of a technician from behind the control column. "They'll be clear in sixty seconds."
Linn nodded.
"Let them think they've escaped. Sommer believes she won. Let her parade that belief."
With a quiet hiss of equalizing pressure, Linn extended her gloved hand toward a final DNA-locked
cryo-vault.
The screen confirmed her clearance.
The vault doors parted with a grinding groan—cold mist rolling outward like breath from a dragon's nostrils.
And inside...
Suspended in a field of light and slowly cycling nutrient fluid, surrounded by black coral-like data vines and neuro-spinal interface ports, lay
a woman.
Still.
Radiant.
Perfect.
Her
hair floated like ink in water, her skin flawless, unscarred by war or sin or sorrow. Eyes closed. At peace.
The true Sommer Dai.
The
original????
Linn stepped close, pressing a hand to the glass with something that almost resembled reverence.
"They've forgotten about you, haven't they?" she whispered. "How easily they believed the shell could contain the soul. But I've always known... the true queen never steps onto the battlefield."
Behind her, the vault's illumination turned a warm amber as
Dahlia's monitoring systems hummed to life. A pulse formed on a secondary vitals readout.
Slow... steady... rising.
Dahlia—
Sommer's
next iteration—
was
awakening.
"The girl wants love," Linn muttered as she stepped back, the vault beginning its auto-lock again. "Let her have it. Let her think it matters. And when she finally realizes that even her passion has been engineered... it will all collapse."
She turned, the doors sealing behind her.
And in the shadows, the outline of
Dahlia's eyes began to glow.
