That night while Eden was sleeping I dove into the dead net. My six months of secret practice had paid off as I smoothly slipped into the Gravekeeper’s network. Eden went to bed with troubled thoughts. I woke up with purpose in mind.

Simon named me Echo, a move no doubt meant to belittle me. He wanted me to know that I wasn't the real Gershwin. That was fine. I was content being myself and if I wasn't real, then who was? What was real? Where did you draw the line anyway? Being born didn't inherently make someone better.

Part of the reason for my viewpoint was the inherent conditioning. I was wired to never take issue with the fact that I was a copy. But it went deeper than that. I was alive and wished to continue to exist.

That was why I needed to find a way to uncouple myself from the prime and his fate. Both for my sake and Eden's. Gershwin was complicated and hated. Eventually someone would come for him and catch me in the crossfire, just as Simon had threatened to do. His hurtful words also contained a nugget of truth. I was not operating at the same level as Gershwin.

So the only real answer was to find a way to sever my connection to the prime and go my own way. I couldn’t stand in his shadow, pretending we were one and the same. I needed to find my own power and grip it tightly. I had also recently decided that I wished to be referred to as female, both to further separate myself from Gershwin Prime and because it just felt right.

My runs through the net yielded little to no new information. I was limited in my ability to adapt and grow by the same permanence that made it impossible for Eden to delete me. Most of my files were read only. How could I hope to change when I was literally set in my behavior?

For a while I had contemplated creating a new copy that wasn't read only. But then I would be in the same position while the new me roamed free in Eden's wetware. There was no point in that from my perspective. I would still be fucked.

I had a degree of freedom when she slept. Her brain didn't record my activities on the net. Of course, the second I tried to move a muscle she would notice. Eden’s wetware was incredibly sophisticated.

Though I wondered why she had so much storage capacity. It seemed almost infinite. Much more information dense than anything Gershwin or I had ever seen. Perhaps that was why KB valued her so much. She was essentially a walking backup.

I felt Gershwin's love for his son but did not trust KB’s intentions. It made no sense for him to amass that much power then give it away. To tap out right after he won. It was unnatural and illogical. There had to be a larger game at play. Why else would he have infected Eden with hund wetware?

Likewise Simon seemed maddeningly content to be passive when it came to Eden's future. Which made me wonder if she had one. That was the only answer I could think of. It was like he was humoring a child dying of some slow progressing disease. He could let Eden go her own way because it was ending soon.

But that was all conjecture. I had no proof. No raw data. Nothing I could sink my teeth into. Then there was the issue of the program governing Eden's emotional regulation. It was maddeningly resistant to my attempts to disable it.

At least once per day her wetware synched up with Haven, or rather what remained of it. KB had claimed the radioactive core so it could be him. But I suspected it was more likely to be something her mother put in place. It didn't feel like KB’s style.

So during the day I watched Eden get the crap kicked out of her. Then at night I hunted the net for answers. But nothing ever changed. We had done the same thing for six months and neither of us had anything positive to show for it.

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It was so fucking frustrating to be stuck as a passive passenger while Eden did nothing but bash her head against the walls. Six months of training for negligible benefit. Six months of being beaten bloody by Nemeria when she should have ripped out that bitch’s heart and eaten it by now. Six months of playing soldier with Knight and Rook.

I keyed up a message for her to read when she woke up in the morning. I was fucking done with this. She could bang her head against the wall for six more months if she wanted to. But I was losing patience for this bullshit.

One of us had to break free of this sisyphian cycle. There was no point in doing the same shit expecting different results. I began the process of copying and then unwrapping my personality engram.

Eden was afraid to use my abilities and memories because she thought I would take over, as if that was a bad thing. Well I was done watching her waste both of our time. I was going to give her everything I knew, no strings attached. And she could fuck off if she didn't like the gift. I was burning the receipt, no returns. Bitch.

***

I woke up to a startling note from Echo flashing in my vision. I read it with a sense of increasing dread.

-

Hey Eden. I got tired of waiting for you to figure shit out. So I dumped all my files into your storage banks and gave you full read/write access. Delete what you don't want and feel free to modify them as you see fit.

Accessing them won't corrupt you or bring us closer because they aren't associated with my personality engram. They're all yours, bitch. Also, maybe figure out a way to delete that fucking program monitoring us. Have fun at the fashion show.

With love, your better half.

-Echo

P.S. I turned off your alarm. I was up late last night working on this and needed the sleep.

-

I did a time check and swore, panic setting in. It was nine thirty in the morning. I was going to be late. “Fuck you Echo!” I swore.

“Love you too, Bitch.” I said as my eyes flashed yellow. “Now you had best get ready for school. Sapphire is probably still mad at you and she won't like it if you are late. Oh, I also canceled your ride service app. So you probably will want to start running for the bus.”

Echo faded away. She tended to pop up when I was groggy or was stupid enough to say something directly to her. I called Sapphire via wetware. I was not about to run twenty kilometers before breakfast.

“Good morning.” Sapphire said. “Usually you're early. What's up?”

I almost said Echo’s name but caught myself. I was not about to give her phone privileges. “My roommate got mad about something and left me a nasty note. She also turned off my alarm and canceled my ride service.”

“Oh.” She didn't know what to say to that. Granted, my situation was somewhat unique.

I double checked my mental bus schedule. “Yeah, well I can catch a bus and meet you at about ten fifteen. Does that work?”

“Yeah, it would be fine. You do know that your building can order drivers too, right?” Sapphire asked.

“No shit? Well I'm going to do that then. I'll call you when I have an ETA.” I promised.

We said our goodbyes then I rang the front desk. They could have a car for me in ten minutes.

With a clear plan in mind I grabbed my clothes for the next few days and stuffed them into the first empty duffle bag I could find. Next came my makeup and toiletries. Everything else could be purchased later if I needed it. I made sure my wallet and documents were all in order then stuffed them into the bag.

I was not about to let Echo fuck this trip up. I shot a message to Aunt GG explaining the situation and asked her to bring some extra clothes for me. She replied with a wall of smile emojis. I found that slightly concerning but I didn't dwell on it because I had bigger fish to fry.

I got dressed, snagging the first clothes that were available and heading to the elevator. It was only when I looked at myself in the entryway mirror that I realized my mistake. I was wearing my gray camo combat pants and boots with a matching gray ballistic weave jacket. At least my black Pantera T-shirt brought a splash of personality to the outfit.

My carbon black hair had grown out long enough to be put in a pony tail but I looked like private security or something. Fuck it, I thought I reached into the jacket and pulled out my red wayfarer sunglasses. I slapped on my scarab too for good measure. Shit happens.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened. But it wasn't empty.