Sena Ayanami Page

It was only a second. But a second was an eternity for someone with Sena’s tactical cognition. She swept the clone’s legs, pinned her shoulders to the wet concrete, and brought her palm down on the data port at the base of the clone’s skull.

Not even when she found the first note slipped under her pillow. sena ayanami

She burned it over the sink with a lighter she kept hidden in her boot. The missing girls had one thing in common: they had all scored in the 99th percentile on the Academy’s monthly psychometric exams. Sena checked the records—quietly, in the archives after midnight, when even the security AIs cycled into low-power mode—and found another thread. Each girl had submitted a research proposal to the Academy’s board. Each proposal had been denied. And each girl had vanished within forty-eight hours of the rejection. It was only a second

The second note came taped to the underside of her desk. Not even when she found the first note

The servers screamed. Lights flickered. Unit 07 went still.

The girl in the tank opened her eyes. Sena had exactly 1.4 seconds to react before the tank shattered. Unit 07 exploded outward in a spray of amber fluid and glass, landing in a crouch that mirrored Sena’s own combat stance. They circled each other, two reflections in a broken mirror.

She had Sena’s face.