Anya didn't speak to Becky the next morning.

  No "good morning." No "pass the water." Just silence like concrete between them.

  They packed their gear separately. Sharpened their makeshift weapons separately.

  Even stood watch in separate corners of the ruined outpost they'd camped in.

  Becky tried, once, to say something.

  Anya walked away.

  She wasn't ready.

  Damian just watched it all unfold like someone who's seen this episode before and knows it only ends in someone bleeding.

  SYSTEM QUEST:

  SCAVENGE-AND-FORGE Location: Zone 13 - Scrapper's Canyon Objective: Gather 5x Alloy Fragments, 3x Fuel Cells, and 1x Core Shard. Bonus: Locate and explore "Lab X1."

  The three split without needing to say it.

  Becky veered off to the north, toward the fuel cell cluster.

  Anya and Damian headed south—into the canyon.

  The silence between them wasn't icy like it was with Becky.

  It was more like static. Buzzing, sharp, ready to snap.

  Neither trusted the other—but neither could afford to walk away, either.

  Scrapper's Canyon was a junkyard swallowed by time. Twisted metal. Broken hovercrafts.

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  The bones of ancient droids. And heat. So much heat it felt like the sun was breathing down their necks on purpose.

  Damian pulled his scarf up over his face. "There's something off here."

  "You mean besides the fact we're basically playing Russian roulette with reality?" Anya muttered, hacking a path through vines growing over broken tech.

  "Yeah. That too."

  She side-eyed him. "You've always known more than you said. Since day one. You never ask questions. Never get surprised. Why?"

  Damian didn't answer right away.

  Which, of course, was suspicious as hell.

  They climbed down an old elevator shaft—half collapsed—until they reached a hidden bunker door, half-buried in sand.

  Damian wiped off the sign:

  LAB X1 - PROPERTY OF TOWER INTELLIGENCE DIVISION AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

  "Well," Anya muttered, "good thing we're not authorized."

  Inside, it was freezing.

  The lab looked abandoned, but the lights flickered weakly, still on backup power.

  They moved through it carefully, weapons drawn.

  And then they found it.

  Room 3C.

  A glass chamber, shattered.

  A cloning pod.

  Damian froze.

  Anya walked up to the console. The screen was cracked, but barely working.

  SUBJECT: D-901M Status: Active Clone Simulation Host Memory: Integrated Expiration: Unknown Override Code: LEVEL 7 ACCESS REQUIRED

  She turned slowly.

  "D-901M..." she read. "You're the clone."

  Damian didn't deny it.

  "I didn't know until last phase. I found another lab. I... I saw myself."

  "You're not real," Anya said, the words like ash in her mouth. "You're just data."

  "I don't know what I am," he admitted, voice low. "But I bleed. I think. I chose to help you. Doesn't that count?"

  Anya stared at him like she could see code beneath his skin. "Or are you just programmed to protect me until the right moment comes and—boom—I'm dead and you go full Terminator?"

  He laughed softly. "Honestly, I've wondered the same thing."

  That didn't help.

  They gathered what they came for, but the silence on the way out was worse than before.

  This time, it wasn't just about trust.

  It was about fear.

  Anya wasn't just questioning who her enemies were.

  She was starting to question what reality even meant.

  Because if Damian was a clone, maybe she wasn't even the original "Anya."

  Maybe this whole game was just... one big lie.

  That night, she didn't sleep.

  She sat by the edge of the canyon, clutching the core shard like it could tell her the truth.

  She stared at the stars above the digital sky and whispered the only thing she still believed in:

  "I want to go home."

  But even that... was starting to sound like fiction.