Chapter Text
I
The southern resistance headquarters smelled of dampness, burnt machine oil, and hopelessness. The place hardly resembled a base for high-tech partisans—it was more like a rat hole hastily set up in an abandoned Segain sewer collector. A musty chill seeped from the corners, and the only illumination came from a couple of stolen fluorescent lamps and an old, bulky monitor with a cracked screen. Its flickering display, occasionally rippling with gray static, was the best equipment the rebels had. All their gear consisted of junk literally snatched from the aliens’ claws, jerry-rigged on the fly, and running on a wing and a prayer.
Hyuna stood by the table, leaning heavily on her fists. Deep shadows of exhaustion lay across her pale face, but her eyes burned with that stubborn, angry fire that kept the southerners from giving up entirely.
“The Segains have built a new laboratory in Sector C-4,” she said hollowly, nodding at the screen, which displayed a crude, hastily sketched floor plan of a building. “Our people intercepted their internal report. They’re testing a device code-named ‘Psyche’ there. A Quantum Consciousness Splitter.”
Till sat on an overturned wooden crate in the farthest corner, where the lamplight barely reached. His fingers, covered in small scars and ingrained dirt, absently plucked the broken string of an old acoustic guitar—the only musical instrument he had managed to find in this place. He was barely listening. Ever since Round Six, a continuous, monotonous hum had settled in his head, drowning out any human voices.
“A splitter?” Isaac chimed in. He was squatting nearby, lazily polishing the barrel of a heavy, worn blaster with a dry rag. Isaac always seemed like an island of unnerving calm amidst the general chaos. “Sounds bad.”
“It is,” Hyuna smiled bitterly, shaking her head. “This thing literally guts the human mind. It harvests fragments of consciousness, digitizes them, copies skills, memories, reflexes, and shoves it all into a chip. Why should they spend years training new pets for the stage or for servitude, when they can take one obedient slave, clone their consciousness into thousands of exact copies, and implant them into bio-clones? If they succeed, humans won’t even be pets anymore; they’ll become objects that can be mass-produced in a lab and sold for pennies.”
“Monstrously immoral,” Dewey piped up, leaning his shoulder against the wall. A goofy, arrogant smirk usually wandered across his face, but right now, he was utterly focused. Dewey’s eyes rapidly scanned the schematic on his interactive bracelet’s holographic display, evaluating entry routes and potential extraction points. “So, they can now stamp out a million singing clones like Luka, who don’t even need training, which means taking care of them would be pointless? Their creativity makes me want to throw up.”
“Which is exactly why we need to destroy this lab and extract the humans they’re using for tests,” Hyuna cut in sharply. “You move out tomorrow at dawn. Isaac, Dewey, Till—you’re the main assault group.”
“And you?” Till raised his head. His voice, unused to long conversations, sounded hoarse, like the rustle of dry leaves.
“I’m staying at the base,” Hyuna replied quickly, looking away just a fraction too fast. “I need to coordinate the raid and maintain contact with the northern base. Things are restless for Pak Hon right now, too; the Segains have them pinned down on the outskirts.”
The rebels were split into two bases—the southern one, managed by Hyuna, and the northern one, led by a certain Pak Hon. He was an unsociable guy slightly older than Hyuna, and according to her, he had joined the rebel underground even earlier than she had, though they got along pretty well. Hon was excellent at his duties and cared deeply for his people. He was as secretive as humanly possible—he never took off his mask and communicated primarily through gestures, so not even his closest associates knew what his face looked like or how his voice sounded. No one knew what caused such extreme secrecy, but no one asked, understanding there had to be a reason. The main thing everyone knew was this: you could rely on Hon when it came to survival. Perhaps Pak Hon was simply being overly cautious to avoid an early grave so he could take care of his people for as long as possible, and for that, they couldn’t help but support him. Unlike Hyuna, who had chosen the path of notoriety, the northern leader adhered to the exact opposite method—and until now, it had worked perfectly, helping him and his team survive and escape the most dire situations.
Lately, however, rumors had reached Hyuna that Hon had been suffering from an incurable disease all this time. Much like her own, only on the verge of spiraling out of control. She was the only one who communicated closely with the guy, and she knew for a fact that Pak Hon had recently gone on a mission to intercept the jet of some high-ranking Segain, which, according to intel, carried the medicine he needed. She also understood why such a secretive person, accustomed to operating from the shadows, had personally taken part in a mission for the first time in ages. In one of his encrypted messages, he wrote that he wouldn’t last long if he didn’t get the cure soon. Hyuna put two and two together and concluded: things were indeed bad. Hon would die if he didn’t get the medicine. That meant he went on the mission to personally retrieve it and take it on the spot, which also meant he only had a few days left. But a month ago, Pak Hon safely returned from the raid, where he had single-handedly boarded a Segain jet transporting some VIP pet—judging by the fact that he wasn’t rescued, the pet was either already dead or died during the operation. After that, Hon recovered; people even said his illness was gone as if it had never existed. At least, the rebels in his inner circle started noticing that Hon had changed drastically. He was still antisocial and uncommunicative, but over the years, his teammates had learned to spot the minute details in his behavior and the symptoms of his disease. And now, they said those symptoms had completely vanished.
And Hyuna truly could have rejoiced for her friend with a pure heart, if not for one small detail…
Pak Hon, who used to write to her every week, or at least warn her if he was going off the grid…
There hadn’t been a single word from him in the last month. Exactly since the moment he returned from that critical mission.
Technically, that didn’t prove much. But Hyuna had always been perceptive and skilled at reading people. She wouldn’t have become a good leader without it.
Till said nothing to their boss’s sudden announcement. He didn’t care. He just wanted this day to end, giving way to yet another nightmare where he would fall to his knees over and over again under the artificial rain.
II
The road to Sector C-4 was brutal. The rebels bounced around in the back of an old truck, wrapping themselves in gray cloaks. Each held a heavy, angular blaster that had once belonged to alien patrols. The old weapons were clunky, overheated dangerously when fired, and smelled of burning wiring, but the humans had nothing else.
Dewey, despite the seriousness of the mission, tried to lighten the mood by quietly teasing Isaac about his perpetually gloomy face, but Isaac merely brushed him off in silence, checking his weapon’s battery cells. Till sat silently, pressing his forehead against the cold side of the truck. Every bump in the road echoed with a dull ache in his chest.
When the truck rolled to a halt by the laboratory’s concrete fence, the jokes stopped. Dewey instantly tensed; his face became hard, focused. He was the first to jump out of the back, moving silently like a massive shadow along the wall.
There weren’t many guards around the building—the Segains were far too confident in their own untouchability. A few blinding blue flashes from Isaac’s and Dewey’s blasters cut down the patrol robots before they could raise the alarm. Thanks to the stolen building schematics, the group slipped inside the lab almost without resistance, gliding down the long, sterile white corridors.
“This way!” Isaac whispered, pointing to massive sliding doors at the end of the hall. “Main hall. The test subjects are there.”
They burst inside. The hall was staggering in its size and sheer ugliness: steel cages towered in the center of the room, packed with emaciated, half-mad humans huddled tightly together. In the center of the hall, on a raised platform, rested the “Psyche”—an angular metal box entangled in glowing wires.
“Hurry, pick the locks!” Dewey ordered, rushing to the nearest cage and trying to short-circuit the control panel with his blaster.
But before they could free even half the prisoners, a deafening screech of metal and the shattering of glass echoed from the panoramic window. A heavy black jet, tearing away the wall paneling, literally flew into the hall, kicking up a cloud of dust and sparks.
“What the hell?!” Isaac raised his blaster, shielding the prisoners with his body, and only then made out the hand-painted symbol of the northern resistance on the vehicle. “Northerners? No one told us they’d be here!”
Fighters poured out of the jet like peas from a pod. They moved with terrifying synchronization, but they didn’t even glance at the cages holding the humans—their target was the central podium. Leading them was a tall man wearing a solid black mask and a loose vest that completely obscured his body shape.
“That’s Pak Hon,” Dewey exhaled, making Till, who was standing nearby, cast a sidelong glance at him and tense up. “What the devil is he doing here?”
Till froze, watching the approaching leader of the northerners.
Something in the way this man held his posture, in the way he barely noticeably shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he walked, seemed strangely, chillingly familiar to Till. It was as if an old, long-forgotten melody suddenly began to play at the very edge of his hearing. Till’s heart skipped a beat. His body reacted on its own, obeying some ancient, unconscious instinct: Till bolted from his spot and dashed after Pak Hon, ignoring Isaac’s shout.
The northern leader froze for a split second, as if sensing the pursuit. He turned around. From the slits of the black mask, a quick, dark gaze slid over Till. To Till, it felt like this man was looking at him as if… as if he knew everything about him. But a second later, Pak Hon turned away and sprinted straight toward the “Psyche.”
III
Pak Hon had just reached out for the coveted box when a furious voice, breaking into a scream, echoed from the main entrance—the very one Till’s group had come through:
“Stop, you bastard!”
It was Hyuna. She was breathing heavily, her clothes stained with soot, a heavy blaster trembling in her hands. She hadn’t stayed at the base. She had been tracking him.
“You’re not Hon!” she screamed, throwing herself forward with frightening speed. “The real Pak Hon would never abandon people for the sake of this damned toy! Who the hell are you, you piece of shit?!”
The northern leader didn’t have time to react. Hyuna tackled him with her entire body weight, knocking him off his feet. They rolled across the metal floor of the podium. Taken by surprise, Pak Hon tried to push her away, but he acted surprisingly gently, as if afraid to break her ribs. That split-second of hesitation cost him everything.
Hyuna violently thrust her hand forward and ripped the black mask off his face.
Till, who had run up almost point-blank, stopped dead in his tracks. The air in his lungs instantly turned to ice.
Lying before him was Ivan.
His black hair was disheveled, his pale skin looked almost translucent beneath the merciless glare of the lab lights, and a thin scar darkened his cheek. The Ivan. Not a ghost. Not a hallucination born of survivor’s guilt.
Till felt the ground drop out from under him, as if a chasm had opened beneath the concrete floor of the lab. Such a tempest of emotions rose in his chest—a wild, savage mixture of relief, rage, confusion, and terror—that he couldn’t force out a single sound. Staggering like a drunk, he took a step forward, reaching out a trembling hand toward him.
Ivan pushed himself up on his elbows, breathing heavily. He shifted his gaze from Hyuna to Till and froze.
There was no joy of reunion in his eyes. Pure, concentrated horror splashed within them. Ivan was terrified. Not of being exposed to the rebels, not of being branded an impostor—for the most part, he didn’t care how he had survived or what they would call him now.
He was scared to death by Till’s gaze.
Ivan had never originally intended to confess his feelings. That insane, desperate kiss on the stage of Round Six was supposed to be the final chord of his life—an act of selfish love from a man who knew he was dying and would never have to face the consequences. But now he was alive. Which meant Till knew everything. Knew about his infatuation, his obsession.
Ivan felt unbearably vulnerable, almost naked under that stare. He was painfully afraid of seeing disgust in Till’s eyes. Afraid of pity. Afraid of seeing the horror that his “posthumous” secret was now exposed, and Till was forced to look at him and feel nothing but awkwardness and revulsion.
And right now, looking at Till’s pale, twisted face, Ivan didn’t see relief on it. Till was looking at him with wild disbelief, his eyes wide with shock and some dull, profound terror.
He’s not glad to see me, the thought shot through Ivan’s mind like a bullet, searing away the remnants of his self-control. He’s horrified that I survived. He despises me for what I did on stage.
Ivan physically couldn’t endure that look. It hurt more than a Segain bullet. Better to disappear. Better to die for real, to dissolve into the void, than to see the person you love looking at you with that expression.
In a panic, driven by this unbearable, suffocating despair, Ivan violently jerked to the side. He ignored Hyuna, who tried to grab him again, and dug his fingers into the QCS “Psyche.”
“Ivan, stop!” Till screamed, finally finding his voice. The cry of pain and incomprehension echoed through the hall. Till lunged toward him, reaching out, ready to dig his fingers into his clothes, just to keep him from leaving again.
But Ivan’s fingers were already frantically punching the device’s buttons, inputting a pre-prepared sequence.
“I’m sorry,” his lips whispered soundlessly.
The next second, the “Psyche” opened, and a blinding, furious flash of quantum energy flooded the lab. A massive shockwave threw Hyuna, Dewey, and Isaac backward, crumpling bulkheads and shattering the remaining glass. In the very epicenter of that mad, roaring light, only two remained—Ivan, clutching the device, and Till, whose fingers never quite reached his shoulder.
And then, the world around them simply ceased to exist.