Smoke coiled around Young’s arms like a living thing as she hauled Mitchell through the wreckage, her muscles screaming. Mitchell’s breath came in ragged, wet gasps—each one a small victory against the fire that licked at their heels. Behind them, Cooper’s voice crackled over the comms as she dragged Anders out of the freezing experimental lab.

Nearby, the heat hit you like a wall—not the dry, distant burn of a sun-scorched desert, but something wet and hungry, the kind of heat that peeled skin before you could scream. You stumbled back as another fuel line ruptured, the explosion throwing you against a bulkhead. Through the smoke, Williams' silhouette flickered, his boots thumping against the grating as he turned—not toward you, but away.

You tried to shout—your throat raw from fumes—but the sound died before it left your lips. The deck shuddered beneath you as another explosion rocked the Cassiopeia. Then, through the smoke, Williams reappeared—except it wasn't Williams. The way his head tilted slightly, the unnatural smoothness of his movements, the too-perfect symmetry of his features—it was off, like a reflection in a funhouse mirror.

Williams—no, not Williams—moved like liquid metal, his grip on your wrist eerily cool despite the inferno around you. Before you could pull away, he hooked an arm under your knees and threw you over his shoulder, his strides unnervely smooth, as if the debris underfoot didn't exist. The fire roared behind you, its heat shrinking with every step he took down the corridor, away from the others, away from the choking smoke. You twisted, trying to see Mitchell, Young, anyone, but the mimic's body blocked your view.

—

The mimic moved like a stop-motion film played at the wrong speed—jerky and precise in places, then flowing too smoothly in others. It—he?—stood by the sealed door, fingers tapping against his arm in a rhythm that almost sounded like Morse, if Morse had been drunk and half-asleep.

“You’re probably wondering why I saved you,” the mimic said, his voice a near-perfect replication of Williams’—except for the way his words sounded like an animal growling through a bad audio filter. “I could lie and say it’s because I care. Or I could tell you the truth.” His fingers stopped tapping, curling into loose fists before relaxing again. “You’re interesting.”