Santali perfected the role of the rattled academic—his hands trembled faintly over his coffee, his questions to the crew repetitive and frayed: “Has Professor Matsuki been found?” “Is the ship secure?”

X was his opposite. Her demeanor grew increasingly combustible. At breakfast, she argued with a crew member over the restrictions, threatening to file a complaint with Moscow University. By lunch, she had “accidentally” spilled hot soup on another, creating a minor disturbance.

All according to plan—she was creating chaos, acting precisely as ‘Anna Petrova’ would, while testing the crew’s reactions.

In the afternoon, Santali was “granted” access to Lab 2 to organize sampling equipment. Though shadowed, he managed to stash two items in a hidden compartment of a equipment locker: a high-potency sedative (procured from the ship’s infirmary) and a modified signal emitter—capable of mimicking a human thermal signature for three hours.

Returning to his room, he found X waiting. She sat on the bed, with the refrigerated cryo-vial in her hand, her expression grim.

“Preliminary analysis,” she whispered, the jammer already purring. “The tissue sample shows… significant gene-editing markers. Over thirty-seven percent of cells exhibit unnatural telomere elongation. And… foreign gene fragments. Origin unknown.”

“Arcana-related markers?”

“Unconfirmed. But I cross-referenced the database. One sequence… shares sixty-seven percent similarity with my own genetic sample.” She looked up. “Whoever this is, he’s been modified into… something akin to me.”

“A reflection in the mirror,” Santali murmured.

“More than that.” X summoned another image on her phone—a tight shot of the lab console. “This parameter: ‘Mirror Sync Rate: 41%’. And the annotation: ‘Donor Memory Extraction: 22%’.”

“They’re extracting Matsuki’s memories, transplanting them into the clone.” Santali felt a chill spread down his spine. “But a forty-one percent sync rate suggests an incomplete transfer, or… host rejection.”

“Hence the coma,” X powered down the device. “And the original Matsuki… if he breathes, his mind is being ‘read’ somewhere.”

A long, low ship’s horn sounded outside. The vessel’s speed noticeably decreased—they were entering the dense ice floes.

The time was approaching.

At 19:00, during the tense dinner service, X staged another incident, this time “discovering” anomalous data from an instrument in Lab 2, blaming crew mishandling and demanding immediate repairs. The argument drew Eriksson and three other crew members.

In the calculated chaos, Santali slipped back to B-deck. As anticipated, only one guard remained outside their cabins—the other had been dispatched to deal with X. The remaining sentry had his back turned, speaking low into his collar mic.

Santali approached, the sedative pen concealed in his palm. “Apologies,” he said, his voice laced with feigned urgency. “Dr. Anna requires her specialist notebook from her room. Immediately. Could you open the door?”

The guard frowned, but seemingly received confirmation via his earpiece. He turned to swipe his keycard.

The moment the door unlocked, Santali moved. The pen’s tip pressed against the guard’s neck; his thumb depressed the plunger. A high-pressure jet of sedative entered the jugular vein. The guard’s eyes widened in shock, his body slumping within three seconds.

Santali caught the dead weight, dragged him into 207, stripped him of jacket, keycard, and radio, and secured him in the shower with polymer ties. The entire operation took under thirty seconds.

He pulled on the guard’s jacket, lowered the cap’s brim, and exited. Using the stolen keycard, he entered 208. From beneath X’s bunk, he retrieved the pre-stashed gear: two Arctic-rated survival suits, vacuum-sealed rations, a trauma kit, and the Glock 19 with four extended mags.

Footsteps, brisk and approaching, echoed in the corridor. Santali melded into the wardrobe’s shadow.

The door opened. X entered, followed closely by Eriksson, who was personally escorting her back.

“Dr. Petrova, I expect you to remain calm,” Eriksson’s voice was icy. “Further disruptions will result in confinement.”

“This is illegal detention!” X’s retort was all fiery indignation, but Santali heard the ice beneath.

“It is necessary. For everyone’s safety.” Eriksson stated, before turning on his heel. The door shut; the lock thudded home.

Three seconds later, the jammer’s hum resumed.

“Clear?” X asked, pulling Santali from the wardrobe.

“One guard. Got his keycard.” Santali handed her a gear pack. “Yours?”

X produced another keycard from an inner pocket—lifted from a crew member during her earlier ‘distraction’. “Elevator access to the lower deck cargo hold. The life rafts are on the starboard side. But we need to deal with the surveillance room first.”

“Change of plan,” Santali said. “We use this.”

He held up the signal emitter, programming it. “Place it in Matsuki’s room. The three-hour thermal signature will buy us time.”

“Smart,” X took the device. “I’ll plant it. You prep the raft. Rendezvous on the lower deck in fifteen.”

“Be careful.”

“You too.”

They moved separately. Santali donned the survival suit, shouldered his pack, and used the keycard to access the crew passages. The corridors were empty—most personnel were occupied with X’s chaos on A and C decks.

He moved quickly, the ship’s blueprint etched clear behind his eyes. Right turn, down the service □□, through the auxiliary hangar… The starboard lifeboat station was just beyond the next bulkhead door.

He pushed it open—and froze.

---

The life raft remained, but a figure stood beside it—Professor Fleming Karlsson.

The old man turned. His blond hair, under the dim light, resembled tarnished gold. His gaze met Santali’s, the grey eyes holding no surprise, only a bone-deep weariness.

"I knew you would come," he said, his English tinged with a Swedish accent that Santali’s ear immediately flagged as imperfect—certain vowel sounds betrayed the cadence of a native Russian speaker who had learned the language later in life.

"Professor Karlsson…" Santali’s right hand drifted slowly towards the dagger at his waist.

"Relax. I am not here to stop you." Karlsson raised his hands in a gesture of harmlessness. "In fact, I wish to join you."

Santali’s eyes narrowed. “Reason.”

"Because this ship is a floating coffin, and I have no desire to be the next Matsuki Kenichi." Karlsson's voice was low, frayed. "My real name is not Fleming Karlsson. I am Yuri Petrov, former researcher at the Institute of Biophysics, Soviet Academy of Sciences. One of the first participants in the 'ME' project, back in 1991."

Outside, a massive shelf of ice ground against the hull—a metallic, shrieking groan. The ship shuddered violently; lights stuttered and dimmed.

Santali’s fingers tightened around the dagger’s grip. “Proof.”

Karlsson—Yuri—slowly pulled open his shirt collar. Faded into the pallid skin of his neck was a brand: CCCP-MIRAZH-07—the Soviet emblem, with "MIRROR-07" in Cyrillic below.

“I was twenty-nine when the project began. My work was neural interface design for consciousness mapping,” Yuri said, his fingers brushing the raised scar. “December 1991. The experiment destabilized. Subjects… lost coherence. Seventeen dead. I fabricated my death, assumed the identity of a Swedish academic who perished in a Greenland crevasse. I have been him for thirty years.”

He looked at Santali, his expression a mosaic of regret and resolve. “But I never truly escaped. Three years ago, they tracked me. Used my daughter’s life to compel my return. This voyage… it's not a research mission. It's a new phase of the ME project. Matsuki was the first trial. I am the second.”

"Testing what?"

"The stability of consciousness duplication. And… the cross-carrier transplantation of Arcana-genetic material." Yuri’s words were measured, chilling. "They are attempting to transfer Matsuki's memories and knowledge into a clone. Simultaneously, they try to activate the latent Arcana genes in the clone—genes sourced from an experimental embryo codenamed 'Nyxl'."

X’s designation. Santali’s knuckles bleached white around the hilt.

"Why tell me this?"

"Because my daughter died three months ago. A car accident—they called it an accident." Yuri’s voice fractured briefly. "I have nothing left to lose. But I will not let this project continue. I won't let more people become… brains in jars, or comatose shells in a laboratory."

He moved to the life raft and began loosening the securing lines. "Take me with you. I know the location of the weather station. I know how to navigate the ice fissures. And I know… the truth about the target facility. It is not a research institute. It is a graveyard. A slaughterhouse. A dumping ground for the Nightwatchers' failed prototypes."

Santali watched, his mind racing, weighing risk against utility, truth against trap.

“How do you prove this isn’t a controlled play?”

Yuri offered a wintry smile. “There is a tracking chip. Subdermal, below the left scapula. You can cut it out. Or… kill me now. I'd suggest the former. The chip contains an encrypted backup of the entire ME Project data—including the cerebral preservation records of the Whites."

The last line struck him like a sledgehammer. Santali drew a sharp breath.

“The chip can wait until we’re on the raft. Now, help me prepare.”

Yuri nodded. They worked with grim efficiency. The raft was a heavy-duty inflatable, equipped with a compact outboard, rated for four. Santali checked fuel levels, emergency rations, signal flares. All operational.

Just as they prepared to heave the raft into the black water, footsteps sounded behind them.

X arrived, fully geared. Her hand went to her sidearm the instant she saw Yuri.

“He’s with us,” Santali said, a restrained hand on her forearm, his explanation terse and rapid.

X kept her eyes—and the gun’s aim—locked on Yuri. “How do I trust you？”

Yuri revealed the brand again. “This. And… your Master entrusted me with a message.”

X’s frame went rigid. “What message?”

“‘The red lunar is not blood; it is ink,’” Yuri recited. “He said you would understand.”

Santali saw X’s pupils shrank to pinpricks. The gun-holding hand gave a brief convulsive squeeze, white-knuckled.

"Is he alive?" Her voice was hoarse.

"I don't know. The message was passed to me three years ago. He said if I ever met a young woman with red hair who wielded ice, I should tell her." Yuri shook his head. "I never knew his name. Or what it means. I am merely the messenger."

Slowly, X lowered her weapon. She looked at Santali and gave a single, curt nod.

Trust, provisionally granted.

The three of them manhandled the raft into the freezing sea.The water was knife-cold, but their survival suits held the warmth close. Santali pulled the starter cord; the outboard coughed to life. The small craft bit into the dark swell, pushing toward the pale, jagged outline of the ice shore.

Behind them, the lights of the Polaris dwindled, like a star sinking beneath the waves.

Ahead, the Arctic expanse stretched out under the moonlight, vast, silent, a dead sea of pure white.

Santali glanced back at the ship. In one of the lit portholes, he thought he saw a solitary figure standing at the glass, watching them depart.

Was it Eriksson? Captain Hansen? Or… something else entirely?

He turned forward, hands firm on the tiller.

The ice field waited. And the truth lay buried deep beneath its frozen skin.