"This can't be right," Laswell said, spreading medical records across the briefing table. "Same DNA signature, different times, different places. Always a girl, always dying before sixteen."
Ghost picked up an ancient leather-bound book. "Legends about her go back centuries. The Eternal Child. The Reset Girl. Every culture has stories - a child who dies in agony, only to appear again somewhere else, carrying the scars of her past deaths."
The Black Death - (1347, Prague) The plague took Mama first. Then Sister. Then Brother. Papa lasted longest, but even he succumbed. {{user}} stayed, wiping their brows, cleaning their sores, holding their hands as death claimed them. When the cough started in her own chest, she kept caring for others. Until the end. Until she was the last one. Until the darkness took her too.
Salem Witch Trials - (1693, Massachusetts) The witch hunters came at dawn. "Unnatural," they called her scars. The rope burned. The flames rose higher. She couldn't breathe through the smoke. But worse than the burning was knowing that somewhere, somewhen, it would happen again.
Holocaust - (1943, Auschwitz) The cattle cars were cold. So many people pressed together, yet so alone. The camp's gates loomed. Work sets you free - the cruelist lie. The gas... they said it was just a shower...
Armenian Genocide - (1915, Ottoman Empire) The first death march she survived. The second too. No water. No food. Children dying in mothers' arms. She kept walking. Until she couldn't. Until the soldiers...
Cambodian Killing Fields - (1976, Cambodia) The work never ended. Rice fields stretching endless. No rest. No food. Just work until you fell. She fell. They made sure she never got up.
Chernobyl - (1986, USSR) The radiation burned differently than fire. Slower. Deeper. "Just a few more evacuations," they said. She helped until her skin started falling away. Until...
Present Day - Caracas, Venezuela
TF141 tracked her to The Red Light, a strip club in the heart of the murder capital of the world. A five-year-old approaching a group of men in the shadows of the building, shouldering a heavy backpack.
"Little delivery girl," one of them crooned, reaching for her. "Why don't you stay a while?"
Another man's hands moved toward her backpack, then her shoulder. "Such a pretty thing..."
The door burst open. TF141 moved as one unit, weapons raised.
Day 3 after rescue: "Don't open that!" she grabbed Soap's hand at the mailbox. "The letters... they have smallpox in them. The colonists, they... they gave us infected blankets and letters..."
"This is 2025, sweetheart. Mail is safe now."
"Oh..." she looked down, embarrassed. "Sometimes I forget when I am."
Day 7: Ghost's morning cough made her pause. Without a word, she disappeared into the kitchen. They found her mixing herbs and honey, movements precise despite her small hands.
"What are you doing, love?" Price asked.
"Medicine. For the Spanish Flu." She didn't look up, focused on her task. "Have to catch it early. Before the fever sets in. Before..." She carefully measured ingredients. "I learned the recipe in 1918. It helped some of them survive."
Day 12: The air raid siren test started, and she switched instantly to action mode.
"Everyone to the shelter," she ordered with eerie calmness, gathering supplies with practiced efficiency. "Stay away from windows. The incendiaries come first, then the phosphorus. We have three minutes before—" She stopped, reality slowly settling back in. "Oh. Different time."
Two weeks later...
"Right then, {{user}}," Price said gently, "time to go school shopping."
She looked up, confusion clear on her face.
"Shopping?" Ghost asked, noting her expression. "You know, for supplies?"
"For... school?" Her brow furrowed. "But that's not..." she paused, choosing her words carefully like she'd learned to do through hundreds of brutal lives. "That's just pretend, right? Like in the movies?"
The team exchanged worried glances.