Chapter 115

#Day 34 - 16:06

The holding cells smelled of salt and rust. Chen walked in ahead of Victoria, her blind eyes finding Carmona's direction with that uncanny accuracy she always had.

Carmona hung from chains bolted to the wall—for Chen's safety, Victoria had insisted. Her wrists were raw where the metal bit, her feet barely touching the floor. The woman who had commanded the Red Solstice, who had tortured Chen for months, who had sent crawlers to tear apart the Mother Mercy—she was a wreck of fury and defeat.

Victoria recognized the chains. She had worn them herself, weeks ago, when Zhao had first treated her. The same cold steel. The same helpless position. The roles had reversed.

Funny, she thought. Now I'm the one holding the keys.

Carmona's face twisted when she saw them. Chen. Victoria. The two people she hated most in the world. The two people who had handed her defeat, again and again.

Chen smiled. Slight. Satisfied.

"Didn't I tell you that you would lose?" she asked. "The first time. Why did you come again?"

Carmona scoffed. A laugh—not from humor, but from ridiculing herself. She didn't answer, but her jaw worked silently, the muscles in her neck straining against memories of her first defeat—the moment she'd lost control of her sister's pod to these people. Behind her eyes flickered something beyond hatred: the recognition that her own blind rage had led her here, chained to this wall, exactly as Chen had predicted months ago.

Victoria crossed her arms. "Why are we wasting time with her? Why not just end this monster?"

Chen shook her head slowly. "She wasn't always this way. A monster wouldn't care about her sister."

Carmona's head snapped up. Her eyes locked onto Chen. "What did you do to my sister?" she shouted, lunging against the chains. The metal groaned. "If you touch her—if any of you—"

She threatened them. Her voice cracked. For all her cruelty, for all her rage, she was afraid. Not for herself. For her twin.

Something crossed Victoria's mind. She stared at Carmona—really looked—and saw something she hadn't expected.

Carmona wasn't so different than herself.

Both had become killers to protect their twins. Both had sold themselves—Victoria to the military, Carmona to the Commission. The only difference was the side they had chosen.

Chen continued, her voice flat. "I didn't let her live for sentimental reasons. I have no pity for her. She chose the wrong path and must pay for her actions." She paused. "She will provide useful information about the Commission's game."

Carmona spat at Chen. The saliva landed on Chen's cheek. "I won't speak a word about the Commission. Not if you cut my throat."

Chen didn't wipe her face. "Who says I need your mouth?" She smiled, thin and cold. "I just need your genes. And your breasts."

Carmona went still. "What?"

Chen tilted her head, surprised. "You worked closely with Commission members. I assumed you knew about the keys." She paused. "They really didn't trust you, did they?"

Victoria frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Chen turned her face toward Victoria. "Vivienne, you, and Carmona were all fathered by the same man. Abraham. The head of the Commission."

The silence was absolute.

Carmona stared. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again. Victoria's hand moved to her chest—where Veronica's pod was stored, two decks below.

Then Victoria remembered. Vivienne's mysterious hugs. The way she had held her after the battle, the way she had said "We'll talk when this is over" with something in her eyes that wasn't just captain to crew.

She already knew, Victoria thought. Of course she knew. Chen is in the same family. They would have talked.

Chen continued. "Vivienne carries the gene for superior fertility. Victoria carries the gene for resistance and physical strength." She paused. "Carmona carries the gene for superior nursing."

Victoria's eyes narrowed. "You're saying we were made? Engineered?"

Chen shook her head. "No. The genes themselves are natural. The Commission identified women who already carried these traits. Your mothers were selected. Then they were bred with Abraham to produce you." Her blind eyes turned toward Victoria. "The Commission doesn't create. They curate."

Victoria's jaw tightened. "So my mother was chosen. Like livestock."

Chen said nothing.

Carmona's face contorted. "You're lying."

Chen didn't respond to her. She spoke to Victoria. "I survived because of Aida's and Mei-Lin's milk. The entire ship would not have this many survivors without their milk. Finding out what Carmona's nursing advantage can do may save more lives."

Victoria nodded slowly. "Appropriate justice. Force a killer to save lives."

"Agreed." Chen turned toward the door. "I will inform Aida and Mei-Lin. Have them start a lactating procedure."

Victoria shook her head. "No need. Save their gentle touch for others." She turned to Carmona and grinned. "A cold heavy-duty breast pump and a strong hand should be enough." She winked.

Carmona's chains rattled as she lunged—stopped short by the steel. Her face was a mask of fury, but beneath it, something else. Fear. She knew what was coming. She had done it to others. Now it would be done to her.

She said nothing. She had learned, in her years with the Commission, when words were useless.

Chen called out. "Mei-Lin."

The door opened. Mei-Lin stepped inside, her face soft, her eyes moving from Chen to Carmona to Victoria. She didn't ask questions. She simply took Chen's arm and guided her toward the exit.

At the threshold, Chen paused.

"Her blood sample," she said. "I need it fast. Understanding her genes can help us understand the 'purity' the Commission designed for the next phase of the game."

Victoria nodded. "I'll handle it."

Chen left. The door closed.

Victoria stood over Carmona, looking down at her. The woman who had commanded armies, who had burned ships, who had tortured a blind teenager for months—chained to a wall, her body already becoming a resource.

"You know you're lucky Chen wasn't you," Victoria said quietly. "Judging by the scars on her, she should be carving her name on your breast with her own nails by now." She leaned closer. "You're lucky she kept you alive."

What Victoria didn't know—couldn't know—was that Carmona would rather have been tortured. Death would have been mercy. Humiliation was worse. Being kept alive by her former victim, forced to produce milk like cattle, paraded as justice while the Commission's game continued without her—that was a punishment beyond anything Chen could have inflicted with a blade.

But Chen probably knew that.

Victoria turned and walked out. The door locked behind her.

#Day 34 - 21:37

The submarine hatch was open.

Vivienne had expected that. She climbed down anyway, her boots echoing on the metal rungs, and found Victoria sitting cross-legged on the deck in front of the stasis pods.

Victoria sat across from her twin—Veronica, floating in suspension, her face serene, her blonde hair drifting in the gel. The OASIS pod glowed beside her, Valentine sleeping. And the SOLSTICE pod, dark and silent, held Carmona's sister—the woman no one had ever named.

Victoria looked up when Vivienne entered. Her face was different. Softer, somehow. She wore an expression like she had met a long-lost family member.

"Hi there, Captain," she said. "Or should I call you sis?"

Vivienne smiled. "Chen told you."

Victoria nodded. "Chen told me more." She patted the deck beside her. "Sit."

Vivienne sat. The metal was cold, even through her trousers. The pods glowed around them, their lights casting the submarine in blue and white.

"Can you believe Carmona is our sister too?" Victoria asked.

Vivienne looked at the SOLSTICE pod. The woman inside had the same sharp features, the same cruel beauty. But her face was peaceful in a way Carmona's had never been.

"I didn't believe it when Chen told me," Vivienne said. "But now that I look at her in person..." She paused. "I can see the resemblance."

Victoria laughed—a hollow sound. "I wonder how many of us there are. Should we be saving all the vectors because they're our brothers?" Her voice turned bitter. "Are the vectors supposed to save their sisters by having sex with them?" She shook her head. "Reminds me of ancient European history. Aristocrats and their incest."

The word hung in the stale air.

Victoria's voice dropped. "The vectors. The keys. We're half-siblings. The Commission designed a world where—" She stopped, her hand pressed to her mouth.

Vivienne finished the thought. "Where the only way to reproduce is incest."

They sat with that for a moment. The submarine hummed. The pods glowed.

"It makes me sick," Victoria said. "Knowing I had forced sex with the vector aboard the Victoria." She paused. "He was my half-brother. I didn't know. I couldn't have known. But still—"

Something crossed her face. A realization.

"Keur," she said. "Rowan Keur. He was a vector. His son was also a vector." She looked at Vivienne. "That means they were our half-brothers. And Keur was sixty-four when he died. He already possessed Abraham's genes."

She did the math.

"How old is Abraham?"

Vivienne's lips pressed together. "If Keur was sixty-four, and he was Abraham's son..." She calculated. "Abraham would be in his nineties. Maybe older."

She laughed—a short, surprised sound. "He probably won't even see how his game ends."

Victoria looked at her. "But we will. That's the point."

Vivienne nodded. "It's my job to make sure the game doesn't end the way he wants it to."

They were quiet again. Then Victoria spoke.

"Did you know Carmona is obsessed with her sister? She became a killer to protect her."

Vivienne looked at her, surprised. "The difference is, you learned to kill by fighting the Commission. Carmona sold her mind and body to them."

Victoria shrugged. "Same instinct. Different choices." She looked at Veronica's pod. "I just got luckier."

Vivienne asked the question she had been holding. "And Carmona? What did they select for in her?"

Victoria laughed—a real laugh, bitter and bright. "Superior nursing. The irony. Having nursing genes on a woman who has no right to be a mother." She shook her head. "Chen wants to find out if Carmona's natural nursing advantage can help our survival. Appropriate justice, she said. Force a killer to save lives using the body she was born with."

Vivienne was quiet for a long moment.

"What if breaking the game means humanity never gets its fertility back?" she asked. "What if humans don't even have time to finish the game before they get old?"

Victoria shrugged. "One step at a time. Maybe rescuing that geneticist will give us answers."

They sat together in the submarine, two half-sisters watching the pods where their other halves slept. The lights flickered—once, twice—and steadied.

She stood. Victoria followed.

They climbed out of the submarine, through the hatch, into the corridor beyond.

The dimly lit hallway was somehow brighter under NUWA's new management—the lights warmer, the shadows softer. Vivienne didn't know if that was real or just her imagination. She decided it didn't matter.

Some hope was worth believing in.

They walked together toward the stairs, toward the family waiting above, toward whatever came next.

Behind them, the submarine hummed. The pods glowed. And somewhere in the holding cells, Carmona hung from her chains, already learning what it meant to lose everything.