The Quiet Between Storms

The train rumbled beneath them as Jessica sat cross-legged on the metal floor of the freight car, staring out at the endless dark horizon. The others were inside the cabin, trying to get some rest, but she couldn’t sleep. Not after what they had just uncovered.

Leanna found her outside, arms crossed against the cold. "You should try to sleep."

Jessica smirked. "Since when do I listen to good advice?"

Leanna sat beside her, pulling her jacket tighter. "We have the files. We should be celebrating. But you’re brooding."

Jessica exhaled, her gaze fixed on the landscape rushing past. "I don’t know if I’m real."

Leanna frowned. "Jess—"

"No, listen to me," Jessica interrupted, her voice unsteady. "I know I was an experiment. I know there are clones of me out there. I don’t even know if I’m the original or just another copy. And worst of all…" She hesitated, fingers tightening into a fist. "I don’t know if my life before all this was real. What if every childhood memory I have—everything I remember about being Jason—is fake? What if those nightmares are my only real memories?"

Leanna’s expression softened, but Jessica kept going, her voice barely above a whisper. "I keep turning to you, Lee. Every time I break, every time I feel like I’m losing myself, you’re the one I run to. I don’t even know if that’s fair to you. I feel like I’m always leaning on you, and one day… maybe you’ll get tired of holding me up."

Leanna reached out and grasped Jessica’s hand, firm and steady. "Jess, if I wanted easy, I wouldn't be here. You’re mine to hold together, for as long as it takes. You don’t have to carry this alone. And even if some of your past was manufactured—this, right now, is real. Who you are, who you’ve become—it’s not something Vanguard gave you. You made yourself."

Jessica swallowed hard, her throat tight with emotion. "But what if I don’t like what I find? What if I look back and see that Jason was never real to begin with?"

Leanna gave her a small, reassuring smile. "Then we face it together."

For the first time that night, Jessica felt something loosen in her chest. She exhaled shakily, nodding. "Thank you. For everything."

Leanna squeezed her hand before letting go. "Anytime."

---

Inside the freight car, Olivia sat hunched over her laptop, decrypting the stolen files while Daniel watched over her shoulder. The green glow of the screen cast long, tired shadows across their faces.

"Here it is," Olivia murmured. "Project Veil wasn’t shut down. It just evolved. Vanguard didn’t bury it. They upgraded it."

She scrolled through line after line of cold, clinical data. Names. Test subjects. Memory grafting protocols.

"They didn’t just erase people," Daniel said, his voice low, bitter. "They built better lies to replace them. Trust me... nobody burns through people faster than Vanguard."

Olivia’s hands hovered over the keyboard, the weight of that realization settling between them like fog.

"Artificial memories. Whole identities stitched together from nothing," she whispered.

Daniel’s expression hardened. "And most of them never even know. They wake up, go to work, kiss their kids goodnight — and never realize their life is a fabrication."

Jessica and Leanna stepped back into the car just as a new set of coordinates appeared on the screen.

"This facility—it’s not just a research site," Olivia said. "It’s an active experiment zone. And it’s still operational."

Silence fell over the group.

"Where is it?" Jessica asked.

Olivia hesitated. "Eastern Europe. Deep in the Carpathian Mountains. Off-grid. No public record of it."

Jessica clenched her jaw. "Then we need to go."

Daniel shook his head. "You don’t get it. Vanguard knows we have these files. They’ve already put out a red notice on us. We’re not just fugitives anymore—we’re targets."

Leanna sighed. "He’s right. There’ll be mercenaries, bounty hunters, and operatives hunting us."

"So what’s the alternative?" Jessica challenged. "Run and hide? Forget we ever found this?"

Olivia folded her arms. "We could go public. Expose Vanguard before they can stop us."

Daniel scoffed. "And get silenced before we even hit ‘send’? No. If we want to stop this, we have to cut the head off the snake. We go to that facility and burn it down."

The debate grew tense. Olivia and Leanna exchanged heated words about what exposing Vanguard would mean. Jessica sat in silence, the weight of her past and present colliding.

Before they could decide, Leanna’s laptop beeped. A new message flashed on the screen. Encrypted. It contained only two words.

"Meet me."

A location followed.

Jessica’s stomach tightened. "Looks like someone else wants to join the party."

Olivia’s eyes narrowed. "Trap?"

Leanna closed the laptop. "Only one way to find out."

Jessica exhaled, looking out at the night beyond the train they were one step closer to the truth. Or whatever’s waiting in the dark.