This has to be a nightmare.

Everything Jisung is telling me — none of it sounds real. A lovers' quarrel and a government coverup, another meeting and another separation. I'm on my third life, my second do-over. I'm all that's left of Lee Minho.

"You okay?" Jisung shifts closer to me.

"I'm fine. Just feeling a little... not myself. I guess I've already been through this all once before. Back then — did I ever get deja vu?"

He shakes his head. "No. You were a blank slate. Memory erasure is a sensitive procedure, implementing it multiple times can have substandard results as there's already been damage to the hippocampus."

"Where memories are stored," Jai translates. He's still lingering at the edge of the room though the rest of us have settled down, Jisung and me on the bed, Haruko in a chair.

"Right," Jisung says. "Oracle knows it, they were probably unsure whether to dispose of you or risk the repercussions. I'm not surprised they decided dumping expensive resources is a worst-case scenario."

"Wait, you need to back up — a lot," says Haruko. "I don't understand why you would go back to Oracle after you'd both made it out."

Jisung glances at me. "It isn't important."

Jai snorts. Haruko narrows her eyes and moves on.

"What went wrong? How were you captured?"

"I'm not certain," Jisung says. "I think the lock system was altered so when I swiped my keycard, it set off a silent alarm. Bandi?"

"You... might be right."

"Was the whole system replaced or did they give everybody new keycards?"

He ughs loudly. "Stop treating me like your insider — I'm basically a hostage."

"So dramatic," Haruko rolls her eyes. "You know, you didn't have to come down here with us — you could've just looped the CCTVs and gone home. Why is that? Perhaps you just wanted to check in on your little ex boy—?"

"One more word and I will put you in stasis indefinitely."

Jisung clears his throat. "It's good he's here. He's part of your story, and I'm sure he has things he wants to say to you."

She turns back to look at him. "Well. Do you?"

"However Han sugarcoats it, you got yourself into this. And it was a mutual breakup."

"Bandi," says Jisung.

"I'm done, just tell the story."

"Fine. Look, Haruko, back then, you were in the same boat as us. You were an Oracle scientist feeling dirty and betrayed that outsiders were perverting our creation. Most of us kept our mouths shut and did whatever they told us, but you were more... vocal. Not just vocal, you took action.

"You approached a group of anti-war activists called 'Peace Universal' and offered information. You made yourself a mole. You told them everything about the Bionic Warfare Initiative, explained the mechanics and gave a list of every scientist on the project.

"Minho was a member of Peace Universal. He saw my name on the list, confronted me, and I... well, you all know what I did. Oracle cracked down on everyone, including you. I don't know why they didn't just kill you like the others. Maybe they decided to make an experiment out of you — 'does knowledge, even erased knowledge, muscle memory, make you a better soldier,' that sort of thing."

Haruko rubs her hands over her buzzed head. I look at her and try to picture us together, plotting Oracle's downfall. Then I try to picture her on the night of November 10, looking down at Jisung and me, knowing she was under orders to erase me. After I regained consciousness, the first time I saw her, I felt fear, but also curiosity. Now I understand why.

"Okay," she murmurs. "Thank you for telling me. Jisung, did I... did I have family?"

Jisung smiles a bit. "You have a grandmother. She drove you to school every day, she made us food whenever the three of us went to your house."

"Is she still alive?"

"I haven't been able to reach her since I've been here, but I'm sure she's okay."

"Where does she think I am?"

"Oracle told her you were caught in an explosion. There was even a funeral."

Haruko looks back at Jai. "You knew about this?"

He flexes his jaw, turns his eyes down the hallway.

She looks away, anger flaring in her eyes. Then suddenly she's smiling, facing Jisung.

"I'm glad I have an ally in you. I think our goals are aligning."

"Uh, what goals?"

"Getting out of here. That is what you two are planning to do, right?"

I look at Jisung — he's looking at me too. I haven't even begun to think about it. I wonder how many times I've been in this damn building, plotting a way out and how many times it's fallen through.

"Yeah," Jisung says. "That's what I was thinking."

"Couldn't we just walk out right now?" I ask. "The CCTVs are off, it's the middle of the night."

"I don't plan to just skip town and leave Oracle with their 'perfect weapons,'" Haruko says. "I want to talk to Lý and the others. Jisung, is there anything you could tell me about their pasts that could persuade them?"

He nods. "I have the information. I... remember everything."

"But couldn't Jisung leave now?" I say. "He's been stuck in this room over a month, he shouldn't have to be here any longer."

"It's more complicated than that." Jisung rolls up his pant leg — there's a bulky silver band around his ankle. "It's a voltaic monitor. If I step out of the room, it discharges an electric shock. I can't tell if it's been set to a deadly voltage."

Immediately I'm anxious to get it off him. "Can I just break it?"

"Don't fuck around with it," Jai snaps. "It's a sensitive machine. The only way to get it off is to manually enter the passcode."

"Who knows the code?"

His jaw clenches tight again.

"What the fuck — don't you want to get this thing off him?

"Look, of course I do, but I'm not in on your little scheme here, I'm not one of you."

"You're not gonna rat us out though," Haruko says, voice a warning, "are you?"

"Honestly... I'm trying to decide."

"You can't still be siding with Oracle," Jisung says.

"I'm not siding with Oracle, I'm seeing the miracle through to the end. I worked hard on this, I worked for years — we all did, but now you're just gonna go and destroy everything we've created? So what if the miracle is used in war — isn't peace what we all should want?"

"The government's 'peace between the east and the west' spiel is bullshit and you know it. Killing all of their soldiers and colonizing their people isn't peace — it's an easy-out that won't require making actual concessions, just mindless fighting."

"Alright — so? This is the real world, sad shit happens."

"I can't believe you're just okay with being complicit!" Jisung yells. "Did you forget why we started this? We wanted to help—"

"Guys, calm down," Haruko says suddenly. "It's okay. The three of us will figure out the ankle monitor and get out by ourselves. Besides, it's not like Oracle's gonna be afloat much longer."

"What the hell does that mean?" Jai says.

"Didn't you hear? All the new Adrantine in production is dying and no one can figure out why. Once Lý and the others are blown to hell, there won't be any way to replace them. Same goes for the Andrantine androids — which are already at a greater risk of critical damage, FYI."

Jai just shakes his head, lips still locked.

Jisung gets up, approaching him. "Bandi... Jai, Oracle is going down either way. Help us, run away with us. You can start again."

"Oracle is only failing because you fucked with the formula. If you just came clean, you'd already be out of here."

"Yeah right, like I'd still be alive if I gave them the information they wanted."

"Oracle aren't the villains you want them to be."

Jisung's voice raises to a shout. "They killed Minho! They sacrificed Haruko! They have no right to keep me here against my will, and as soon as they give up on me, they're going to dispose of me too!"

"That isn't Oracle! Whoever's making the decisions isn't even in the building — Oracle is scientists and their creations, innocents, none of us deserve to be 'taken down'!"

"Semantics! Why don't you get it? I'm not angry at you, not our friends and not the miracle — I'm angry at the government, those guards that watch our every move and the horrible shit that everyone here purposefully overlooks!"

Jai opens his mouth to respond but Jisung cuts him off.

"No, not yet. Sometimes the world is so fucked up that you have to fight, sometimes you don't have any other choice! You never fight for what you believe in, nothing is ever your problem — this is why I fucking broke up with you! Come out of your fantasy world, make a difference, do something good for once in your life!"

Jai is frozen. Jisung squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his temples.

"I know I hurt you," he murmurs, "and I'm sorry. Truly. I was young and self-centred. But I thought you'd at least step up when you knew something was wrong."

He walks away, sitting on his bed with his head in his hands. Jai is still frozen. Maybe I should have excused myself and taken Haruko with me; I feel like I just saw something private.

"Alright," Haruko says. "Rewinding a bit, we should go over our plan and work out the kinks. I want to figure out how to take the androids with us when—"

"Dr. Song is the only one who knows the passcode to the ankle monitor," Jai interrupts. "I'll handle the CCTVs whenever it's needed. If the revolt is really happening, I'll spread the word to the scientists I trust."

We all look up at him. "Seriously?" I say.

"Yeah." He meets Jisung's eyes. "I'm sorry."

Jisung just nods, smiling. "Alright. Let's do this."