When Death Isn't the End

HANDLER

CHAPTER 21

The door shut behind him with a soft click.

Final. Measured. Like punctuation at the end of a sentence I hadn’t finished reading.

I stayed crouched under the desk, every part of me trembling. My breath came in shallow bursts, my fingers still clutched around the hard drive like it was a lifeline.

He moved slowly, like he knew he didn’t have to hurry.

Like he knew the room.

Footsteps across tile.

A pause.

Then the sound of him pulling out the chair at the desk—my desk—before sitting down.

“I always wondered how much of her you’d retain,” he said quietly. “The defiance. The silence. The... hunger.”

My stomach twisted.

He wasn’t talking like a stranger. He was talking like someone who’d been watching for a long time.

I risked a peek.

From beneath the desk I could see the edge of his coat, the line of his boots—polished, military issue. Not a drop of water on them. He hadn’t come in from the rain.

He’d been waiting here.

“You were never meant to get this far,” he continued. “But I suppose your mother was always a variable. Gloria never did know how to follow protocol.”

I flinched.

He knew her name.

Knew mine.

And still, I couldn’t place him. Only the grainy footage. The quiet menace. The metallic object he held that night—now hidden in the folds of his coat.

He exhaled slowly.

“I’m not here to hurt you, Jasmine. That’s never been the goal. You were chosen.”

A bitter laugh almost slipped out. I bit it back.

Chosen.

Like I was a scholarship recipient. Not a butchered memory wrapped in skin.

He stood suddenly. I didn’t breathe.

The chair scraped back. His boots shifted.

Then—he walked past the desk.

I let out a breath too loud.

And he turned.

Before I could react, his hand reached under the desk and grabbed my wrist.

“Found you.”

I yelped, scrambling backward, but he yanked me out like I weighed nothing. The hard drive slipped from my fingers, skittering across the floor. He didn’t even glance at it.

He was focused entirely on me.

I stumbled to my feet, panting, trying to keep distance between us. But the room was small. My back hit the wall.

He watched me with a strange mix of curiosity and regret.

“You look just like her,” he said. “But you move differently.”

I clenched my jaw. “Who are you?”

A smile. Subtle. Cold.

“I used to be your handler.”

I blinked. “My what?”

“You were assigned to me during the second phase of field simulation. Orientation memory scrub. Social loop implantation. The usual conditioning.” He tilted his head. “I was there when you came online.”

I felt like I might throw up. “I’m not a machine.”

“No,” he agreed softly. “You’re something worse. You’re real.”

He stepped forward.

I backed away.

“You don’t remember me,” he said. “I expected that. They didn’t want you to.”

I pointed at the desk. “Why was the terminal already active?”

He didn’t answer.

“You wanted me to find this.”

Still no answer.

Something dark slid behind his eyes.

“You let me come here,” I said. “Why?”

“To see what kind of Jasmine you are.”

“What does that even mean?”

But in my chest, something already knew.

Because if there were versions of me…

Then someone had been keeping score.

I lunged for the desk, grabbed the hard drive.

He didn’t stop me.

“You’re going to run now?” he asked. “Go back to the woman who lied to you your whole life? Who let them cut pieces out of you until you couldn’t tell where the pain ended and you began?”

“Shut up,” I snapped.

He smiled faintly. “You’re still in stage three. The rage. It’s necessary.”

“I said shut up!”

I threw the lamp at him.

It shattered against his shoulder. Sparks flew. He didn’t flinch.

“I remember Manny,” I said. “I remember the way his voice cracked when he laughed. I remember the songs we shared. You can’t erase that.”

He paused.

“Ah,” he said softly. “So you’ve begun integrating.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he murmured, almost to himself. “She’s further than the others. The bleed is holding.”

I didn’t wait.

I bolted from the room, hard drive clutched to my chest.

Down the hallway. Past the sealed doors. Toward the ladder.

But the lights were dimming. One by one. Like the building was going to sleep.

Or being shut down.

The hatch was still open, the ladder still there.

I climbed. Fast. Sloppy. Scraped my shin. Didn’t care.

I burst into the rain like I’d been underwater too long.

Behind me, the hatch began to close.

Click.

I didn’t look back.

I didn’t go home.

I rode for nearly an hour through flooded backstreets, past dark buildings and shuttered shops, until I reached the only place that still felt real: the old storage unit where Manny and I used to rehearse.

It was padlocked now, but I still had the spare key tucked into my phone case. My hands were shaking too badly to get it in the lock.

When I finally got the door open, I slipped inside and locked it behind me.

Then I sank to the floor.

I didn’t cry.

I couldn’t.

There was a weight inside me now, too large and sharp for tears.

I plugged the drive into my laptop again. It had saved most of the files.

This time, I didn’t watch.

I read.

Lab reports. Test logs. Observational journals. Internal memos.

All signed with initials: RC.

Gloria.

I learned about the versions. Not just of me—but of others. Other students. Other “subjects.”

Some integrated. Some didn’t.

Some were recycled.

Some were terminated.

And one phrase repeated over and over:

MK4 Sync: Jasmine – Partial Merge – Host Retention Abnormality

My thoughts blurred.

MK4.

Not 1.

Not 2.

Not 3.

I was the fourth try.

Or maybe the fourth success.

Or maybe just the fourth one that survived.

I woke up at dawn on the floor, still in my hoodie, back aching.

My phone had six missed calls from Gloria.

One text:

We need to talk. Come home. It’s not safe.

I stared at the screen, numb.

Then another message came through.

Not from her.

Unknown number.

You’re not the only one, Jasmine.

They’re coming for all of us.

And then, just a location pin.

Somewhere on the mainland. An address with no name.

I stared at it for a long time.

Then I stood up.

Because maybe I wasn’t alone.

Maybe I never had been.

And if there were others like me?

I needed to find them before someone else did.

Before we were all deleted.