Page 3

The voice cuts out mid-breath, replaced by a hush of background static. It’s a voice I’ve never heard, but it nails me to the cot. The cadence is surgical—each word precisely chosen, nothing wasted or accidental. There’s urgency under the cool, a strain barely masked. I play it again, slower. “Protocol was activated.” “Memory loss is temporary.” “The RadShield formula—your version—was closest to stable.”

That last phrase sticks. I say it out loud. “My version.” It sounds both ridiculous and inevitable. My fingers uncurl from the recorder, and I thumb through the two notebooks. The first is blank except for a date on the inside cover: “09.15.” The second is packed, dense with formulae, but about halfway through, pages have been torn out in a hurry. Fragments remain—lines about polymer backbones and adaptive shielding, charts of mortality curves that spike and then drop, a series of equations leading nowhere but circled three times. All annotated, all in my own hand, but none with a key.

I play the tape a third time, this time just for the sound of the voice. There’s comfort in the repetition, in how it doesn’t change, no matter how many times I listen. Each word has mass. “I’m sorry. I had no other option.” That’s not the kind of apology you give for losing a bet. That’s the kind you leave for a condemned cellmate.

“Combination is the date we first met.” I roll the words around, then scan the cover of the notebook. 09.15. If it’s a month and day, the sequence is obvious. I bolt to the safe, pulse jackhammering. The keypad, suddenly, is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I tap in 0915. There’s a hum, a two-second pause, and then the green light flickers. This time, the door springs open.

Inside: a thumb drive, a stack of polaroids bound with a rubber band, and a heavy glass vial capped with wax. The photos are of me, mostly, sometimes with another woman—short hair, confident tilt to her chin, eyes that refuse to smile even when her mouth tries. Always in a lab, always near a whiteboard or a microscope, sometimes both in the same shot. In one, we’re laughing, arms slung around each other. The annotation on the back: “First successful trial. 09.15.”

There are other pictures, too. Some are less friendly. One of the outside, the world smeared and warped by heat shimmer, trees twisted and black, the sky a color no one ever designed a crayon for. The rubber band snaps as I try to pull them apart. I let the polaroids scatter onto the table and stare at the vial.

I hold it up to the light. The contents are clear, a faint blue luminescence pulsing through the glass. It reminds me of the cultures from the other lab—alive, hungry. The wax seal is unbroken. The thumb drive is marked “RadShield—Final.” I click the cap on the drive, but there’s nowhere in the bunker to plug it in. No computer, no network, nothing. Just me and my memories, or what’s left of them.

I sit, recorder in my lap, and play the tape again. “They’ll come for the research eventually. Theyll come for you” Who are “they”? The question isn’t idle paranoia, it’s an empirical certainty, the kind I used to pride myself on. The world outside is lethal, but whatever’s inside this formula must be worth the risk of dying for. Or worth the risk of losing your own mind, one slice at a time.

I test the idea in my head: I was brilliant. I was dangerous. I built something, or broke something, so critical that my own mind had to be wiped as a failsafe. It fits, but the fit isn’t comfortable.

I put the vial, the drive, and the polaroids back in the safe. I shut the door. Not because I don’t trust myself, but because the act of closing it feels like drawing a line between past and future. The next move is clear, even if the rules of the game aren’t.

I wipe the table, push the empty energy drink can into the bin, and line up the notebooks in front of me. There’s no more time for panic or confusion. The voice on the tape is my new heartbeat.

I cue it up one last time, but I don’t hit play yet. I want to hear it only when I need to, as a reminder, not as a lullaby. I stare at the safe, already planning what comes next—dosing myself with whatever’s in the vial, or maybe synthesizing more, or maybe waiting for whoever “they” are to break in and try to take it from me. It’s all possibilities, now. No more loops, no more circles.

I set the tape recorder on the cot and lie back, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the world to end or restart. This time, I’ll remember everything.

My world divides into two phases: before the safe, and after. Before, I’m a knuckle-dragging bundle of reflex and loss, scavenging clues and following the echo of my own name through a bunker that pulses with puzzles. After, I’m a woman who has heard a voice on tape—thought it was hers, only to realize it belonged to another—and who has opened the safe, returned its evidence, and is left with an aftershock that feels less like victory and more like doom.

Now I lie on the cot, staring at the acoustic tiles, counting cracks and cataloging the slow decay of the bunker’s climate control. My breath is steady. The safe’s door is shut, hiding its cache of Polaroids, data drives, and the glass vial whose liquid pulses blue whenever I look away. The tape recorder, spent and mute, lies beside me like a mute confession. I’m listening to the structure of silence, memorizing it, when the world above me detonates.

A sound rips through the calm. Not a scrape or a sigh but the abrupt, decisive shriek of a steel security door forced open. Vibrations crawl through the cot, the frame, the very molecules of the room. Every neuron sparks. I’m vertical before I know it, the cot jolting beneath me. I hit the floor and roll—something I must have learned decades ago—and by the time I come up behind the workbench, my hand clamps around the first tool in reach: a broad, chisel-like flathead screwdriver.

The corridor is black except for the Geiger counter’s LED blink, ticking with predatory excitement. I press my spine to the cool steel of the bench, clutching the screwdriver, sweat erupting between my shoulder blades. Then I hear it: a staggered step and a crash—someone kicking through debris without care for silence. Whoever’s coming isn’t sneaking. I tighten my grip. This isn’t a weapon, but it’ll tear open anything that doesn’t expect a fight.

Strobe lights flash in the corridor as a figure emerges—too broad for the frame, swathed in a combat parka scored with dust and patches. Backlit, the shape holds a rifle—military issue, ugly and utilitarian. I breathe through clenched teeth as his head snaps in my direction. A single grunt, a syllable of threat or inquiry.

He steps into the lab, scans the corners, then levels the rifle at the cot and sees it empty. He whirls to the workbench where I crouch, screwdriver raised like a joke. His face is weathered—white beard at the chin—but his eyes are fierce, alive. For a heartbeat we lock gazes, both of us parsing the other, and then he barks a single word.

“Diana.”

It’s not a question. It’s a gunshot in the air. My hand doesn’t flinch, but something inside me snaps. The name crackles between us like a live wire, and when I don’t answer, he says it again: “Diana.” He lowers the rifle a hair, muscles coiled as if expecting me to go for his throat.

I’m weighing my options—charge, feint, plead for mercy—when his face softens just a shade. He’s searching me for confirmation, a password, a spark of recognition.

“Shit,” he mutters. “You really don’t remember me, do you?”

The screwdriver trembles in my fist. I hear that other woman’s voice in my mind—sharp, determined, guiding me to trust my instincts. Right now, my instincts say: stall.

“Who are you?” I say, and my voice is a whisper through gravel. I see the effect it has on him. His lip twitches. He lowers the rifle, slowly, like he’s backing away from a sleeping animal.

He drops into a crouch, bringing his head to my level. “Name’s Jackson Avery. We worked together.” There’s a hitch in his voice, not quite grief but something sour. “Jesus, they really did a number on you.”

He sets the rifle against the bench, but he keeps his hands where I can see them—big, square, and nicked with old scars. “You, uh—” He clears his throat, searching for a point of reference that isn’t a scalpel to my own amnesia. “You used to run circles around everyone in this place. Lab queen. Smoked me at chess, twice. Once when you were sleep-deprived and high on adrenaline.”

I say nothing, but my breathing slows. The screwdriver feels absurd in my hand now, but I don’t let go. Jackson peers closer, his eyes scanning my face like a study subject under glass. “Not ringing any bells, huh?” I shake my head. “Only fragments. A woman’s voice on tape, saying I should trust my instincts.”

He barks a short, bitter laugh. “She’s not wrong. You don’t survive in the Zone unless you trust them.” He gestures at the room, the walls, the rotted-out ceiling panel. “Place is a maze. You used to find every shortcut. That’s why they kept you on, even after… well, after.”

He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to.