The wasteland didn't have the poetic beauty of the simulation’s ruins. There were no ivy-covered towers or tragic sunsets. There was only the smell of wet concrete, the skeletal remains of billboards for products that no longer existed, and the oppressive, heavy silence of a world that had been paused for twenty years.
The armored transport skidded to a halt as the **Colossus** loomed over us. Up close, the Reaper machine was a nightmare of obsidian and moving gears, its many legs stabbing into the earth with the force of falling meteors.
And atop it stood my shadow. My double. **Subject 01-B**.
"She’s not just a clone, is she?" I whispered, my breath fogging in the cold air of the Dead Zone. I stepped out of the truck, the Red Blood in my veins thrumming in a violent, sympathetic vibra
