Kieran's pulse was a steady thud-thud-thud in his ears.
His body was restrained, but his mind? Unchained.
Seventy-two before him. Seventy-two versions of himself who had sat in this very chair, heard these very words, felt this very rage boiling inside them.
And every single one had failed.
But he wouldn't.
Because he had something they didn't.
He remembered.
Calloway was still watching him, that same knowing smirk on his lips, the expression of a man who thought he was in control. "You're silent," he mused. "That's good. It means you're thinking."
Kieran's fingers flexed against the cold steel of the restraints. "I'm thinking," he admitted. His voice was calm. Too calm. "I'm thinking about how many times you've had this conversation. And how every single one of them ended the same way."
Calloway gave a small, pleased nod. "And yet, here we are again."
"Not for long."
Calloway sighed. "You always say that."
Kieran smiled, slow and deliberate. "But this time, I mean it."
His mind had been rewritten, reset, copied, and erased more times than he could count. But this time, something was different. This time, the simulation had cracked.
The knowledge was still buried inside him, tangled in the chaos of his fractured memories. But the pieces were there. He just had to use them.
Kieran inhaled sharply and closed his eyes.
Calloway's voice cut through the air. "What are you doing?"
Kieran ignored him.
He reached inward—deep.
He wasn't just a copy. He wasn't just a prisoner in this loop. He was the accumulation of all seventy-three versions.
And that meant he had access to everything.
Every failure. Every lesson. Every moment of resistance that had come before him.
He just had to find it.
Then—there.
A flicker.
A memory that wasn't just his, but belonged to every Kieran before him.
He saw Version 42.
The one who had come closest to escaping.
He had done something they hadn't expected.
Kieran's eyes snapped open. His muscles tensed. His breathing slowed.
Calloway noticed the shift immediately. His smirk faltered, just slightly. "What are you—"
Kieran moved.
Not physically—mentally.
He wasn't the first, but he was the last. And this time, he wasn't just fighting to escape. He was fighting to end this.
The simulation was cracking.
And he was going to break it wide open.
He focused—not on the restraints, not on the cold steel of the chair, but on the code itself.
Because he could see it now.
The world around him wasn't real.
It was just data.
And data?
Could be rewritten.
His pulse spiked. His mind burned.
And then—he pushed.
The restraints holding him flickered. Just for a fraction of a second, just enough for Calloway to realize—
But it was already too late.
Because this Kieran had learned something the others hadn't.
The system wasn't unbreakable.
And if they had rewritten him seventy-two times…
Then it was his turn.
The lights flickered.
The air shuddered.
And the simulation collapsed.