Chapter 277: Trapped

That night, Jade remained awake long after the lights in their room had dimmed. She was thinking not only about this silly mission, which had happened years ago, but also about how she could escape the illusion.

She couldn’t simply wait for Gideon to save her. For all she knew, he might not even be alive anymore.

The Hive Mind had already swallowed her settlement, and she had no idea what had happened to him afterward.

"Damn it, Gideon," she cursed under her breath. "You should have just asked for help. I could have sent more men, or I could have helped you..."

Jade stopped, realizing that was another lie. She couldn’t have helped him as much as she wanted to believe, and she knew it.

Besides, he might be somewhere he couldn’t simply ask for help, even if he needed it.

No matter how many people she had under her command or how much experience she had gained from surviving this world, there was no guarantee she could have done anything against something like the Hive Mind.

Her thoughts then drifted to the residents of Climber Rift, her people. She could only pray to whatever gods might be listening, even though she had never believed in any of them, that most of the residents had managed to escape.

The evacuation she had resisted, refusing to accept that her settlement might actually fall, had finally gone ahead. Perhaps it had given them enough time to get out.

And if it hadn’t...

Jade swallowed the thought before it could take shape. "Please be alive and well," she whispered, unable to bear the possibility of losing him too.

She tried to picture Gideon’s face, remembering his irritatingly calm expression and the way he always acted as though everything was under control, no matter how ridiculous the situation became.

If she could remember how cocky he was, perhaps she could convince herself that he was still alive somewhere outside this illusion.

It was a foolish way to reassure herself, but somehow, it made breathing a little easier.

Jade eventually waited until the security system entered its nighttime cycle, though she was so lost in her thoughts that she barely noticed Amber approaching her bed.

"Sister, wake up."

Jade opened her eyes to find Amber already dressed and waiting beside her. She hadn’t even heard her sister get out of bed.

"Yeah, yeah. We need to go."

She scrambled out of bed and followed Amber into the corridor, where they moved quietly through the seemingly endless white hallways, keeping close to the walls whenever the patrol robots passed.

The machines were small and almost completely silent, following predetermined routes while their sensors scanned the corridors.

Jade remembered how terrifying they had seemed when she was younger. Looking back, however, she suspected they had been designed less to protect the children than to make sure none of them could leave without permission.

"Where do you think they took him?" Amber whispered as they ducked behind a corner to let a robot pass. "I heard from his roommate that Tommy was moved to another room."

Jade tried to recall the rest of their adventure. She had almost forgotten the details of that night because the memory of what they had witnessed afterward had overshadowed everything else.

However, she still remembered how lost she and Amber had been, wandering through the corridors until they were ready to give up.

It was only then that they discovered the restricted section, an area the children had been explicitly forbidden from entering.

"I bet he’s in the restricted zone," Jade said. "That’s the only place we’re not allowed to go. Maybe it’s where they keep the way to the outside world."

Amber’s eyes lit up. "Oh, you’re right! We might actually get to see a little of it!"

Her voice rose with excitement, and the patrol robot suddenly stopped. Its head rotated toward their hiding place, and Jade felt her shoulders stiffen.

Before Amber could say anything else, she clamped a hand over her sister’s mouth and pulled her into a more secluded corner.

They stood completely still as the robot approached. Jade could feel Amber trembling beneath her hand, and she silently prayed that the machine would continue along its usual route.

Just as it drew closer, another noise sounded from the corridor to their right. The robot paused, turned toward the disturbance, and rolled away to investigate.

Only when its sensor light disappeared around the corner did Jade finally release Amber.

"That was close," she whispered. "We don’t have much time, so let’s keep moving."

Jade held out her hand, and Amber took it with a broad smile before pulling her along the corridor.

"You’ve changed a little," Amber remarked as they hurried forward.

"What do you mean?" Jade asked, momentarily caught off guard. "I think I’m still the same."

"No, you’re braver now." Amber chuckled. "The old you would have cried and begged to go back to our room by now. You were such a scaredy-cat."

Jade frowned. She didn’t remember being quite that timid, although she did remember Amber always being the braver one between them.

Her sister had been the one to drag her into trouble, convince her to try new things, and insist that everything would be fine even when neither of them had any idea what they were doing.

Jade tightened her grip on Amber’s hand. "Yeah, I need to be brave for both of us," she murmured.

The words felt strangely unfamiliar as she said them. She had no memory of this conversation ever taking place, yet Amber’s response came naturally, as though she was not merely an illusion.

Jade glanced at her sister, unease slowly building in her chest. What if she had changed something in the memory? What if, instead of following the events as they had happened, she deliberately chose to do something different?

Would the illusion continue to force her back onto the same path, or would changing the memory allow her to discover a way out?

For the first time since waking beneath that impossible blue sky, Jade considered the possibility that she didn’t have to follow the memory to its end.

Perhaps she could interfere with it, disrupt the sequence, and find out what happened when she refused to play her assigned role.

She didn’t know whether it would work, but she was no longer willing to keep inside whatever this was.

They were halfway toward the restriction zone when Amber suddenly stopped.

"Sister, look."

Jade followed her gaze and saw several large words printed across the wall above one of the sealed entrances.

GENESIS PROJECT

Amber stared at it curiously. "What does that mean?"

Jade remembered seeing the name before. It raised another bitter memory she didn’t want to recall. The name that will bind them for the rest of their lives and the reason why they were here at all...

"Nothing good," she whispered. "Just a bunch of fools trying to play God."

"Huh? What do you mean? Also, you can curse like that!"

"I’m not, they were indeed fools."

Amber frowned at the words before following Jade again.

They continued down the corridor until they heard footsteps somewhere ahead of them. A frightened voice followed, echoing through the hall.

"Please... I don’t want to..."

Amber immediately recognized it.

"Tommy."

She grabbed Jade’s hand and pulled her forward.

They reached the restricted zone that turned out to be another laboratory just as the door slid open.

Though, she remembers they pass more robots, but this time it was just opened in front of them easily.

Jade could see the bright lights inside, along with several scientists gathered around a metal table.

Tommy was lying on it, his small body restrained while several mechanical arms moved above him.

One of the scientists was reading data from a floating screen while another prepared a surgical instrument.

Jade’s stomach twisted. She remembered this. She remembered Tommy screaming.

She remembered the scientists cutting into his body and trying to remove the Core inside him.

She remembered Amber standing beside her, terrified and holding her hand so tightly that it hurt.

But she could not remember what happened afterward.

Jade blinked. Suddenly, she was standing outside again.

The laboratory had disappeared, along with the corridor and the scientists. The Sphere was once again filled with warm sunlight, green grass, and the sound of children playing beneath the impossible blue sky.

Amber stood beside her. She looked up at the sky with a peaceful smile.

"What a good day," she said softly. "I hope this day never ends."

Jade stared at her. She remembers she once said something like this.

Her breathing gradually became heavier as the realization settled into her mind. She had seen this moment before, but she had not understood it because she had been too focused on remembering Amber.

Now she understood. The memory was repeating itself. It was the same day when Tommy was chosen.

It means that every time she reached the point where she was supposed to remember what happened to Tommy, something pulled her back to the beginning.

Jade slowly looked at her sister, her heart tightening with both grief and guilt.

She wasn’t simply remembering the past. She was trapped inside it.