We sat like that for a long time. Maybe twenty minutes. Maybe more. The facility's emergency lighting flickered overhead, bathing us in intermittent red. Somewhere in the distance, something was still burning—I could smell the acrid smoke.
Eventually, her shaking subsided. Her grip loosened slightly, though she didn't pull away.
"What should..." Her voice was muffled against my shoulder. "What should we do now?"
"We should bury her. Sarah. Dr. Kinney."
"Bury?" She looked confused at the term. Probably never had to bury anyone before. Neither had I. Though we'd killed our fair share.
"Yeah. It's what she deserves." The phrase seemed to give her something to hold onto. She pulled back enough to look at me, her eyes searching my face for something I wasn't sure I could provide.
"Okay."
As we got up she seemed to notice my wounds. "You're hurt."
"I'll manage."
We carried Dr. Kinney's body through the facility's corridors together.
I'd expected more resistance—guards, automated defenses, something. But most of the personnel were either dead or had evacuated. We passed bodies, some killed by Laura's claws, others by my hand.
Laura cradled Dr. Kinney's upper body while I took her legs. The woman was slight—maybe 130 pounds—but felt heavier than she should have. Weight of the dead, maybe. Or weight of what she represented.
We navigated by emergency lighting, following the route I'd mapped during my escape. The facility was built into a mountain, which meant limited exits. I'd memorized three during my years of captivity, plus two more I'd identified through causal thread analysis.
We took the northern emergency exit—a service tunnel that led to a maintenance building on the surface.
The door was already open. Blown off its hinges, actually. Scorch marks suggested explosives.
The cold hit us like a physical blow.
I'd never been outside without my handler close by. Not once in fifteen years. The concept of "freedom" had been theoretical—something I understood intellectually but had no experiential frame of reference for.
The reality was overwhelming.
Endless dark sky scattered with stars. Wind that bit through my uniform. Open space that extended in every direction, bounded by dark mountains. And snow, everywhere.
Laura paused beside me in the doorway, her breath misting in the frigid air. She was staring up at the sky with an expression I couldn't quite parse.
We stood there for another moment, two weapons experiencing freedom for the first time. Then Laura shifted Dr. Kinney's weight slightly.
"There." She gestured with her chin toward a clearing maybe fifty yards from the facility entrance. "Away from... this place."
We trudged through snow that came up to our calves. My injuries protested every step, but I kept moving. Laura's enhanced physiology made her more resistant to the cold, but I could see her shivering slightly.
The clearing was peaceful. Quiet. No blood, no violence. Just snow and darkness and the distant shapes of trees I'd only ever seen in photographs.
We laid Dr. Kinney's body down gently.
Then Laura extended her claws and knelt, driving them into the frozen ground.
I pulled strings from my fingers, weaving them together into cutting edges, and joined her.
The ground was harder than concrete. Frozen solid by what must have been weeks or months of sub-zero temperatures. Laura's claws could pierce it, but even her strength had to work for every inch. My strings could cut through if I focused them precisely enough, but it took concentration and time.
We didn't speak. The physical labor was meditative, almost. Something concrete to focus on besides grief and trauma and the weight of too many unanswered questions.
Dig. Cut. Remove frozen earth. Repeat.
My hands went numb after the first ten minutes. After thirty, I couldn't feel my fingers at all. Laura's healing factor protected her somewhat, but I could see frost forming in her hair.
We kept going.
The grave was shallow—maybe three feet deep—but it was the best we could do. We laid Dr. Kinney inside as carefully as we'd carried her, then filled it back in. The disturbed earth formed a dark rectangle against the pristine snow.
Laura knelt beside it for a long time, head bowed. I stood a few feet away, giving her space.
"She told me stories," Laura said finally. Her voice was soft, almost lost in the wind. "When they thought I was unconscious after procedures. Myths. Fairy tales. She said... she said everyone deserved stories. Even weapons."
She reached out and placed her palm flat against the disturbed snow.
"Thank you, Sarah. Thanks, Mom."
We sat by the grave as the sky began to lighten—not sunrise yet, but the promise of it. False dawn, painting the eastern horizon in shades of gray.
Neither of us had anywhere to go. No plans, no purpose beyond survival. For fifteen years, every decision had been made for us. Now we sat in the snow next to the grave of the only person who'd tried to help, with nothing but questions ahead.
"Zero—" She stopped. Blinked. "I don't... what do I call you?"
The question caught me off-guard. I'd never had a name. Just designations. Numbers. Project codes.
"Weapon 0."
She shook her head. "No. Not anymore. You need a name."
I stared at her. The concept felt foreign. Wrong. Names were for people, and I was...
What was I now?
Laura pulled away fully, sitting back on her heels. She wiped at her face with the back of her hand, smearing the blood rather than cleaning it. Her eyes were distant, thoughtful.
"I've been thinking. There was a myth Sarah told me once." Her voice was steadier now, focused. "About a girl. She gave a hero a thread to escape a labyrinth. A monster lived there."
She paused, and her gaze met mine directly.
"You used threads. And helped me escape. So... Ariadne."
I considered this. The myth was familiar—part of the cultural education meant to help me blend in civilian contexts. Theseus and the Minotaur. The princess who betrayed her father for love, who gave the hero the means to survive the maze.
"That's a girl's name."
Laura's brow furrowed. "...Oh."
A beat of silence stretched between them. "How about Adrian. It's close enough."
"Adrian."
She tested it, rolling the syllables around like she was tasting something new. I did the same internally. Adrian. Not Weapon 0. Not a designation.
A name.
"Adrian," I said again. Accepting it.
Laura's mouth curved up, not quite a smile, but close. The first hint of something other than devastation I'd seen since she woke.
"Okay. Adrian. What do we do now?"
The question I'd been avoiding. The one with no good answer.