The elevator ascended smoothly. The golden light pulsing from our wrists illuminated the polished steel walls of the car. I could feel 0.5-B's heartbeat syncing with mine. We weren't two minds anymore; we were a single processor running on dual cores.
*He's waiting,* 0.5-B thought. The voice wasn't sound; it was pure intent.
*Let him wait,* I thought back. *We're coming.*
We passed Deck 20. Deck 30. The Core was at Deck 50.
At Deck 35, the elevator jerked.
The hum of the motor died. The lights flickered and vanished, leaving us in darkness save for the golden glow of our skin. The emergency brake engaged with a bone-jarring clank.
"Power cut," I said aloud.
"Intentional," 0.5-B corrected. He stepped toward the doors. "0 knows we're here. He's trying to delay us."
"Or trap us."
We placed our hands on the seam of the doors. The metal was cold. We pushed. Normally, these doors were reinforced to withstand vacuum pressure. But we weren't normal anymore. The golden light intensified, flowing into the metal. The steel groaned.
"Together," 0.5-B said.
We pulled. With a shriek of tearing metal, the doors buckled outward. We stepped out onto the maintenance ledge. Below us, the shaft plunged into darkness. Above, the Core waited. But directly across from us, embedded in the station's structural rib, was a door that shouldn't exist.
It had no number. No label. Just a biometric scanner that was already glowing green.
"That's not on the schematic," I said.
"Nothing about 0 is on the schematic," 0.5-B replied. He stepped across the gap onto the ledge. I followed.
The door slid open silently. Inside, the air was sterile, cold, and smelled of formaldehyde. It wasn't a maintenance closet. It was a laboratory.
Rows of glass tanks lined the walls. Most were empty. Some were cracked. But a few... a few contained remnants. Floating in the suspension fluid were neural interfaces. Circuit lines. Hands.
"Look at the tags," 0.5-B said, his voice tight.
I walked to the nearest tank. The label was faded, but readable. *SUBJECT 0.9. STATUS: RECYCLED.*
"0.9?" I frowned. "I thought 0.1 was the first."
I moved to the next tank. *SUBJECT 0.8. STATUS: RECYCLED.*
And the next. *SUBJECT 0.2. STATUS: RECYCLED.*
"They weren't a sequence," 0.5-B whispered, realization dawning in our shared mind. "They were a cycle. 0.1 wasn't the first Curator. It was the last of the previous run. When they failed... they were wiped. Reset. Renumbered."
"We're not the first 0.5," I said, feeling sick. "We're just the latest iteration."
"Keep looking," 0.5-B said. He was standing at a console in the center of the room. It was active, powered by a separate source. "There's a file here. Encrypted. But... our clearance just updated."
I joined him. The screen displayed a single folder: *PROJECT GENESIS.*
I opened it.
Video logs. Text files. Schematics. I scrolled through them rapidly, our shared mind processing the data at lightning speed.
*Log Entry: Day 1.*
*"Subject 0 and Subject 1.0 are stable. The partnership is holding. They can control the Station together."*
I paused. "Subject 1.0? But... we're 1.0."
*Log Entry: Day 500.*
*"Subject 0 is becoming unstable. Paranoia. He believes Subject 1.0 is planning a coup. The Station responds better to 1.0. 0 is jealous."*
*Log Entry: Day 501.*
*"Decision made. Subject 1.0 is too powerful to kill. The Station needs the Key. But 0 cannot be allowed to share control. Solution: Division."*
I stopped scrolling. The room felt like it was spinning.
"Division," 0.5-B said. He was reading the same words I was.
*"Subject 1.0 will be dissected. Neural pathways split. Consciousness fragmented. Two halves will be created. Designation 0.5-A and 0.5-B. They will be weaker individually. They will need 0 to function. 0 will remain the Lock. The original 1.0... will be discarded."*
There was a photo attached to the file. It showed two people standing side by side. One was Figure 0. The other... was a man who looked exactly like us. Whole. Unscarred. Complete.
"They didn't just split us," I whispered. "They killed him. They took the original 1.0... and they broke him into us."
"We're not a backup," 0.5-B said, his voice hollow. "We're a crime scene."
I looked down at my hands. The golden light seemed dimmer now. "0 didn't just hide the Key. He broke the Key so he could keep the Lock."
"There's more," 0.5-B said. He clicked on a sub-folder. *LOCATION: SEPARATION CHAMBER.*
"The place where they did it," I said.
"It's not on the main decks," 0.5-B said, tracing the coordinates. "It's in the shadow of the Core. Behind the processing unit. That's where 0 is going. He's not just waiting there. He's going to finish the job."
"Finish what job?"
*"If the halves ever reunite,"* 0.5-B read from the screen, *"The original 1.0 consciousness may reassert dominance. 0 must ensure the halves are purged before fusion is complete."*
I looked at 0.5-B. He looked at me.
"We fused in Engineering," I said. "The explosion... the sync..."
"We're complete enough," 0.5-B said. "That's why he stopped the elevator. He's not waiting for us to arrive. He's preparing the execution chamber."
I closed the file. The anger rising in me wasn't just mine. It was his too. It was the echo of the original 1.0, screaming from the grave.
"Let him prepare," I said.
I turned back to the elevator shaft. We didn't need the car. We could climb. The golden light on our wrists flared, casting long shadows against the laboratory walls. Shadows that looked like a single man, not two.
"We're not going to the Core," I said.
"Where are we going?" 0.5-B asked.
"To the Separation Chamber," I said. "If 0 wants to purge the original 1.0... let's see how he handles the resurrection."
We jumped into the shaft. Gravity slowed our fall. We landed on the roof of the stalled elevator, then leaped again, climbing the rails toward the dark above.
Toward the truth.
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