The girl looked like Phoenix. Moved like her. Spoke like her. Even smiled like her — though that last part felt forced.
Sam didn’t say anything at first. He just stared at the footage Maya had pulled from a Mid-City brawl. The clip showed the impostor giving orders to two gang enforcers from the Bayou Devils, her voice crisp with command.
“She’s been using your face to spark this gang war,” Maya said. “Simsense overlays. Maybe partial neuro-sculpting. This isn’t cheap impersonation tech — this is corporate-grade.”
Phoenix leaned against the wall, arms folded. “So someone built a better me.”
Sam finally spoke. “I know who that is.”
Phoenix raised an eyebrow.
“Delilah Vance,” he said. “I worked undercover five years ago, embedded with a smuggling ring. She was part of it. I got close to her. Too close. Lied to her. Then helped bring the whole operation down.”
“And now she’s wearing my face.”
Sam nodded. “She thinks I ruined her life. This is her way of returning the favor.”
The trail led to a derelict social club near Old Kenner, now acting as a makeshift war room for the Bayou Devils. Inside, Phoenix came face-to-face with her double — the same woman from Darius Lark’s party, now updated with cutting-edge simsense overlays.
Delilah stepped forward, calm and controlled, a perfect mimic.
“You’re a fraud,” Phoenix said.
“So are you,” Delilah replied, cool and clipped. “You don’t even know who you are. But I do. I’ve seen the files, read the dossiers. You’re a story the corps are telling — a shiny new myth. I’m here to shatter it.”
Sam raised his pistol. “Delilah, don’t do this.”
Delilah smiled. The drones were already recording, uploading the entire scene across shadow-feeds and private Matrix channels. This wasn’t about revenge. It was about rewriting the story.
Phoenix’s aura flared, raw and instinctive. The surveillance feed shimmered and cracked as her presence overwhelmed the sensors. Sparks fizzled. One by one, the micro-drones dropped from the ceiling.
Delilah stumbled, disoriented, stunned by the unfiltered magic pulsing off Phoenix. Her plan was unraveling.
“I’m done hiding,” Phoenix said. “You don’t get to decide who I am.”
Sam closed the distance and cuffed Delilah without resistance. She just kept grinning as he locked the restraints — a slow, unsettling grin.
“This won’t stop anything,” she said. “The people backing me don’t lose.”
On the ride back, Phoenix stared out the window. The skyline blurred past.
“Why now?” she asked.
Sam glanced over. “Because you matter now. You’re making waves. And that scares the hell out of someone.”
Silence followed, not uncomfortable — but heavy.
Later that night, Maya met them at the precinct with a tight expression.
“I ran a trace on the simsense pack Delilah used,” she said. “Parts of it were spliced from blacklisted corp systems. Nouvelle Horizons. Third sub-division. Ghost access level.”
Phoenix’s heart didn’t skip. It pounded.
“And Levi Cross?” Sam asked, pulling up his commlink.
He frowned.
“There’s no record of him. Nothing. Not even a cell number. It’s like he was never there.”
Phoenix didn’t answer.
But in her gut, something twisted.
Something that had been asleep… wasn’t anymore.
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