Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Eira sat beside her father, strapped into the passenger seat. The leather felt cold against her skin, the interior spotless and clinical—like everything else in her life. Her father’s hands gripped the steering wheel with tight, unyielding control. His jaw was locked in that familiar rigid line she had learned to read like a warning. Outside, the city lights blurred past in long, glassy streaks—distant and unreachable, like the life she was supposed to live.

Tonight was another event. One of many she had no choice but to attend, simply because she was Edward Thorne’s daughter. A name she was expected to wear like a badge of honor. But it felt more like a shackle—tightening around her throat with every breath. Her stomach twisted as the towering marble building rose into view. The lights outside dazzled under the night sky, cameras flashing, people smiling too widely, their eyes gleaming like knives. They looked at her not like a person, but like a prize. Something to be measured. Displayed.

She clenched the small clutch bag in her lap. The unfamiliar texture was thin beneath her fingers, slippery, like it might disappear if she lost focus for even a second. Beneath the layers of her carefully chosen dress, her prosthetic leg throbbed. The joint—where metal fused with flesh—ached from the long hours spent standing, walking, pretending.

It wasn’t a simple replacement. It was engineered for perfection: realistic skin tone, matching freckles, seamless contours. No one could tell. That was the point. Because the perfect daughter didn’t limp.

Inside, the event buzzed with polite chatter and forced laughter. Her footsteps were precise. Her smile was flawless. Her dress had been approved, her makeup adjusted three times—nothing left to chance. But her heart pounded with a wildness she fought to bury every time a stranger’s gaze lingered too long.

She moved gracefully—at least, that’s how it appeared. But every step was measured. Every shift was calculated: balance, posture, poise. Hide the stiffness in her gait. Her real leg bore the extra weight, the muscle silently straining beneath silk and seams. Her father was never far—his presence a constant shadow beside her. When her foot caught the hem of her skirt and she stumbled slightly, his voice cut through the ambient noise. Low, sharp, barely audible.

“Careful.”

Her cheeks burned. The mistake was small—meaningless to anyone else—but to him, it was failure.

Worse, the stumble had jarred the prosthetic. A dull, electric pang zipped up her thigh, and she masked the wince with a too-smooth smile, smoothing the folds of her skirt as if nothing had happened.

The drive home was silent. Thick with tension. The city lights passed by in muted blurs as the car slipped through the empty streets. Eira stared out the window, willing the knot in her stomach to loosen. But it only coiled tighter.

Then, without warning, his hand slammed down on her knee—her prosthetic leg—hard enough to send a white-hot sting up through the metal and into her bones. Her breath caught in her throat. She gasped, recoiling instinctively, trembling.

“You embarrassed me tonight.”

His voice was cold. Controlled. Furious.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Sorry isn’t enough.” His fingers pressed harder, bruising, before snapping back sharply. The aftershock echoed through her spine like a lightning rod.

She bit down on her tongue, forcing herself to be silent. The prosthetic joint was sensitive. Pain there didn’t fade quickly. The area around the socket was already raw from hours of pressure and motion. She shifted slightly, discreetly, trying to ease the weight—but there was no comfort. There never really was. The quiet of the car pressed down on her like a cage.

For a fleeting moment, a single fragile thought bloomed and withered—What if I could be free? But she didn’t know how. This was all she had ever known and so, she stayed silent.

The morning light crept through the grey curtains. Eira sat at the kitchen table, her spine straight, hands folded with unnatural precision in her lap. The ache from yesterday’s punishment still burned beneath the synthetic skin of her leg. It throbbed dully.

The prosthetic was beautiful—objectively so. Sleek. Anatomically sculpted. The synthetic skin was flawless, the illusion seamless. But it wasn’t made for comfort. It was made to look perfect. Not for her to be able to move without pain. For her, it was a daily pain. Cold. Heavy. Wrong. Every shift in her seat sent a jolt up through her hip and into her spine. But she didn’t flinch. Not in front of Father. If she did, he would check the leg. He would treat her, and treatment was always worse than pain.

There were days she wanted to smash the prosthetic against the wall. Watch the perfect skin split open. Crack the illusion they’d poured so much time and money into. She didn’t, They would only replace it and she would be punished.

Her father sat across from her, hidden behind the rustle of his newspaper and a bitter cup of black coffee. His fingers tapped a steady rhythm against the wood. She counted the beats. Waited for the pause. If he paused, it meant he would speak. If he pause, it meant she had to brace.

A door opened. Alexander entered the room without a sound. He never announced himself. He didn’t need to. The air changed when he came in—charged, suffocating, sharp-edged. He moved behind her, close enough that the sleeve of his suit brushed her hair. He poured water into her glass with casual precision.His hand lingered on the rim. It was another reminder, she woundt drink unless given permisson.

“You stumbled yesterday,” her father said finally, not looking up. “How many times must I remind you? Mistakes are not an option.”

Eira’s throat tightened. She kept her eyes on the plate in front of her—white porcelain, empty except for a few exact slices of apple. Each one weighed. Each one counted. She did not respond.

Alexander’s hand came to rest on her knee. Not gentle. Not supportive. Possessive. His fingers pressed into the seam where the prosthetic joined her thigh. “Mistakes have consequences,” he murmured. His voice was soft. Too soft. The kind of softness that had teeth beneath it.

Her father stood abruptly. The chair scraped back behind him. He circled the table, but she didn’t look up. Then came the slap—quick, sharp, surgical. His palm struck her cheek with a sound that echoed through the cold kitchen.

“Pain sharpens focus,” he said. Her eyes stung, but she didn’t cry. That was the rule. Never cry in front of them. Never show what hurts.

“Today you’ll rehearse your speech patterns again,” Alexander added, folding his hands behind his back as Edward sat down once more. “And you will do it flawlessly. If not—”

He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to. Eira nodded. The edge of the table dug into her ribs. Her cheek throbbed. Her leg pulsed. She did not move.

The rest of the day passed in drills. Repetitions. Corrections. Posture. Diction. Poise. Smile. Again. Again. Again.

Eira stood at the center of the marble-floor room, reciting lines she didn’t believe in, words she didn’t choose. Her voice echoed back at her like it belonged to someone else.

The pain in her leg grew sharper. The socket pinched. The skin around the joint felt raw. She wanted to scream. But screaming wasn’t allowed.

Alexander watched from across the room, arms folded. Occasionally, he corrected her stance with a tilt of the chin. His fingers never lingered long, but still to long.

When her voice cracked during the final speech of the afternoon, the silence that followed was absolute. Her father’s glare sliced through the stillness. “Again,” he snapped—and hit her. Alexander placed a hand on her shoulder. Light. Almost sympathetic. A mockery.

“Breathe through it,” he murmured. “No one likes a girl who falls apart.”

Eira blinked the sting from her eyes. And began again.

By nightfall, her legs were trembling. Her skin burned where the prosthetic rubbed raw. The brace inside the false limb had shifted slightly—pressing into her knee at the wrong angle. It would bruise, maybe worse. If it got bad enough, she would need care. And care meant the white room. Anything but the white room.

Her bedroom was silent. No clock. No electronics. No windows. No weather. The only sound was her own breath, shallow and controlled. Even that, she tried to keep small. Her room was a reward. A private space. No cameras. No restraints. A soft bed. A wardrobe of six pre-approved outfits. Even comfort clothing. The room was a reward, that came with a price.

She sat on the edge of the bed and slowly unfastened the catches on her leg. The synthetic skin stretched slightly before releasing with a soft, sickening sound—like something peeling away from something it had never belonged to.

She exhaled through her nose.

With practiced care, she pulled the prosthetic free. It thudded dully to the floor. Beautiful. Sleek. Useless now. Her gaze dropped to her thigh—bruised around the socket. The skin was blistered, some broken. A line of dried blood marked where the inner brace had cut her again. She clenched her jaw, she knew, It was getting worse.

If father found out, she’d lose the privilege of her room for a while, untill she got better. She reached beneath the bed and pulled out the towel she used for cleaning. Carefully, she dabbed away the blood, Then put on antiseptic. The sting made her flinch—but she welcomed it. It was the only honest feeling she’d had all day.

Her eyes drifted to the vanity. Not the mirror. Never the mirror at night. The vanity was lined with makeup she had been trained to wear. The room was no better, but it still wasn’t hers, Nothing was hers. Exept one thing, that they hadent found yet. She reached for the small panel behind the lowest drawer. Lifted the false backing. Pulled out the hidden notebook.

Her handwriting filled the pages—cramped, slanted, scrawled in fear. Notes. Dreams. Questions she wasn’t allowed to ask. She flipped to a fresh page and pressed the pen to paper. Her fingers trembled while she wrote.

They made it beautiful so no one would see what it does to me. They made it, so I wouldn’t know what freedom felt like.  I been dreaming about grass, field of green. I wonder where that comes from. There is something with a code, that starts with a z, but it feels so far away, maybe if I found out, it would lead somewhere, or maybe it just bring more pain. She paused and read what she had written, before. Then closeing the notebook and hid it again.

She leaned her head against the cold wall beside the bed and curled in on herself—half-bodied, hollow. The prosthetic remained on the floor. She couldn’t bear to wear it tonight. Maybe she would dream again, she hoped so, somewhere that wasent here. She looked down at her leg again, she would have to get help with it again from her father. She sighed and got up to get ready for bed.

she wished she was somebody or somewhere else. In a place where everything did not bring pain or this aching feeling within her. Maybe somewhere , where the would be grass, someone warm, someone she had know, they had loved her, she certain of that.  Maybe.. she didn’t know, she could not remember. Conflicting though stayed with her as went to bed, driften away in to dreams from before. 

Chapter Text

She finally said her leg hurt. The next morning at breakfast, she said it too late. She knew, but anything to not get care from her father. She had begun limping slightly. Not enough to be obvious—but he would have noticed. He noticed everything.

The white room. She shuddered. It wasn’t just the walls — it was the bedding, the table, the machine that hid behind the panel wall. The camera watching her. This was the place she came when she needed to heal, or to be corrected. It was a room she only associated with pain, with forgetting and floating for days, missing time.She hated it here.

Eira sat still on the edge of the bed. Her prosthetic had been removed and placed precisely against the wall, like a stored tool. Her hands rested neatly on her knees. She hadn’t been told to wait—but that was what she was supposed to do. Wait and be still.

She stared at the floor. Not thinking, not really. Just… drifting. Something brushed the edge of her mind, like a memory she wasn’t allowed to have. She didn’t know what it was—only that it felt not-here. From before. Her chest ached.

The door opened with a muted chime. She snapped upright. Father stepped in with the same careful calm he always wore, like he never rushed for anything. His suit was buttoned high at the collar, without a wrinkle on the grey suit. He carried a silver tray. When he set it down beside her, the glass containers on it clinked softly: antiseptic, gauze, a tiny scalpel, and drugs.

She would lose today. Maybe tomorrow too.

“Leg,” he said. She obeyed without a word. She had learned not to flinch. Learned to lift the linen gown above the socket and present the raw, red seam where her body ended. He crouched beside her, took hold of her leg with gloved hands. “You’re healing slower this week,” he said. Not a question. “Inflammation along the lateral edge. You haven’t been cleaning the socket properly.”When did it start to hurt?

The car ride, since the party. She said.

“You should have told me sooner,” he said at last, soft and disappointed.

“I didn’t want to disrupt protocol,” she murmured.

“You let it get bad.” He brushed a gloved thumb across a reddened patch of skin.“You waited. You know what that means, don’t you?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry.”

His hand stilled on her leg. “No. Sorry is irrelevant. You need to trust me and tell me when it hurts.” She looked down. Her throat tightened.

“You say it hurts now,” he went on, voice cool. “But pain doesn’t arrive suddenly like that, Eira. It grows. It warns. you ignored it. You disobeyed in silence. You chose not to tell me. Why?”

Her mouth parted. No words came. “I try to—”

“Trying is not doing.” He began swabbing the angry flesh with antiseptic, and her whole leg twitched. She bit the inside of her cheek. His hand clamped her thigh, steadying her. “No twitching. It worsens irritation. You know this.”

“Yes, Father, “It hurts,” she whispered.

“I know. That’s why you should’ve told me earlier. I could have protected you.
But now?” He touched her temple gently. “Now I have to correct you again. Just for a few days, until the swelling goes down. I won’t have you lucid for that.”

“I noticed you were staring at the door. Vacant,” he continued, voice low. “Not an unusual pattern for you lately. Daydreaming. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?”

“I wasn’t—”

“You forget I’ve watched you for years, Eira. You think I don’t see when your focus frays?” He paused. “You’re not a child anymore. You don’t have the excuse of blank instinct. You know what’s expected.” What do you see?

Nothing,“I wasn’t,” she repeated. But even to her own ears, it sounded thin.

He crouched beside her again. Too close. His hand reached out and cupped the side of her face with clinical precision. Thumb just under her jaw. Fingers brushing the back of her neck. She didn’t flinch. She’d been trained not to.“You know how I feel about fantasy,” he said quietly. “It’s a gateway to instability. You’ve worked too hard to relapse now.”

“I…”

“Shhh.”He stroked her temple with his thumb, almost affectionately. Like he was smoothing out a wrinkle in fabric. “Look at me, daughter.”

The word made her stomach twist. She didn’t know why— but she looked anyway. She always did. He studied her face like it was data. Something to be read and catalogued. His eyes were sharp, not kind. They never crinkled when he smiled. “You’re thinking again,” he said.

“I wasn’t,” she whispered. Her voice betraying her.

He rose and moved to the counter without looking at her, selecting a syringe already prepared. “You chose not to tell me,” he repeated, tapping the air from the needle. “Which means you are responsible for the consequence.” “This will help calm the noise. I won’t have you pulling away from me again.”

She offered her arm, but she didn’t look.

“There,” he said, almost kindly. “Better.”

He pressed a hand to her cheek and smiled — a gesture meant to look fatherly, but it didn’t feel like anything real. Just a man holding a doll he thought he owned. The injection was cold. Almost immediately, the room began to slide sideways. Not violently. Just enough to unmoor her from herself. Floating. Drifting. She blinked slowly.

“You are my daughter,” he said softly.

The words scraped something raw in her.

Daughter. The shape of the word felt wrong inside her. It sounded like a prison. A lie wearing her skin. She didn’t speak.

He sat beside her now, closer than before. “Tell me,” he said gently. “What were you thinking, when you waited?” She opened her mouth. Nothing came, but drugs were pulling her down. Making her unfocused and pliant

“Were you distracted again? Drifting away into one of your little episodes?”

“No.”

He raised an eyebrow. Not cruel. Just patient. Practiced. “Don’t lie, Eira. You’ve always been such an honest girl with me.”

He tilted her head slightly, examining her again. “It’s difficult to unlearn, I know. The noise in the brain. The pull of old wiring. But thought leads to desire. And desire… leads to disobedience.” His hand slid from her face to her shoulder. Gently. Controlled.

“You were so feral when we found you,” he murmured. “Scratching. Kicking. Screaming nonsense about someone.What was his name again?”

“I don’t remember,” she said automatically.

“Good girl.” He pressed a kiss to her hair. She stayed frozen. That was the game: Hold still. Breathe slow.Say the right words. Don’t trigger the correction.

“You’re so much more beautiful now,” he said, almost to himself. “So still. In control.
Mine.”“What were you dreaming about?”

Her throat tightened. She didn’t speak.

She hesitated. “I wasn’t… trying to.”

“But you were. You’re slipping again. I see it in your eyes. That flicker—like you’re somewhere else. You know what I’m talking about.” She swallowed hard.

“There’s nothing out there, Eira,” he said calmly. “Nothing to go back to. Nothing real.”

She stared at the wall. Her voice floated out before she knew it was speaking. “I dreamt of grass. I don’t know why.”

He turned his head slowly toward her. “Grass,” he echoed.

“Yes.” She blinked, slow. “But I don’t… I don’t know why it’s there.”

He leaned in, voice low and firm. “Just grass? Nothing else?”

“No. Nothing else,” she said. Floating. Using all her will not to say more. To keep her answer short. Not talking was always the better option in the white room.

“Well. Maybe you’ve been thinking of the grass at school. There never was grass in your life before here. You left it behind. Whatever it was you had… We cut it out.”

She shuddered slightly, but her eyes stayed wide and distant.

“You’ve been so good lately,” he said, softening his tone. “You’ve earned rest. You’ve earned peace. But if you keep indulging these false memories...” His voice thinned.“We’ll have to go back into the machine.And I know you don’t want that.Do you?”

She shook her head slowly.

“Tell me. Do you remember anyone?
A man? A name?”

Something surfaced. A voice. A laugh. Arms around her. Z—something with a Z.
But it was gone. She couldn’t remember. “I don’t know,” she said softly.

His hand moved from her temple to her shoulder.

Her lips parted again.“There’s nothing out there,” she said.

“Good girl. Say it again.”

“There’s nothing out there.”

He nodded. “Do you remember anyone?” he asked again. “A man? A name?”

“I don’t know,” she said faintly.

“Good girl,” he murmured. “You’re letting go. That’s what I need from you. No history. No rebellion. Just obedience.” He tucked the blanket over her lap like she was small again. Like he owned every inch of her. “Sleep now. You’ll be under for a day or so.” His voice was fading, like the light in her brain.

“You are my daughter, Eira. You belong to me. There’s no outside anymore. No past. Only now. Only me.” He pressed a button,  The door sealed behind him. The white room hummed, lights on. A soft recording began to play overhead — calm, emotionless, familiar.It told her how to think. And she drifted, weightless, away.

Chapter Text

The days after the healing session passed, Eira moved like a machine newly tuned. No limp or hesitation. The pain in her leg had dulled to something manageable, something she could do if she walked slowly. She completed her routines without complaint, her precision drawing quiet nods of approval and the reward of returning to her bedroom at night—alone, silent, untouched. It should have felt like relief, but instead, she felt hollow. Her body performed. Her mind disconnected. She was working on automatic, a doll in human skin. It felt like absence.

The silence inside her was louder now, echoing through thoughts she could no longer finish. She still remembered the table—the straps, the chill of metal, the hands on her temples, the heat blooming behind her eyes. Whatever they’d did during session, It had quieted something inside her. Something dangerous. Something hers.

A part of her had gone quiet. The part that dreamed at night. The part that asked why. The part that remembered laughter. Two whole days had passed in that silence. She knew it well.  She’d lived in it before.

But now, the fog was lifting again. Her mind was beginning to stray. To want. She hadn’t lasted. Not even with two full days of sensory deprivation in the white room—what they called “remission training.” Drifting in forced stillness until reality warped. Until she couldn’t tell sleep from silence. The machine would return soon. It always did. Her father would know the signs, He tracked her too closely not to.

Still, she smiled. She stood straight. She wore the uniform. She recited the protocols with clarity and grace. She performed perfectly. Until she came back to school, then everything began to unwind again.

The bell rang through the corridor, making Eira flinched, but only inside. She never let it show anymore. One foot flesh, the other steel and circuitry, she moved in rhythm down the hall. The limp had been trained out of her posture—ironically, by pain. Her prosthetic had been recalibrated. Her reward for compliance. The ache remained. A deep, bone-deep pressure, like her leg didn’t belong to her. Like she didn’t belong to her.

Posters lined the walls—Spring Formal, club elections, blood drives, fragments of a world that once might’ve meant something. Now it was a parade of distractions she was allowed to walk through but never touch. It was glass. She was on the wrong side of it.

Her backpack dragged at her spine. Heavy. Unnecessary. Filled with homework she completed at a level precisely calculated to seem average. Not excellent. Not impressive. Not threatening. She was not allowed to take math or computer sceince. It was off limits, special case. Her father had made sure she would only be going to classes he needed her to complete. She had been going to the school for 6 monts now.  She’d made that mistake once. Top of the class. then there was questions, follow with a Correction. A reminder. She was not here to shine. She was here to simulate.

“Eira! Over here!”

Marissa’s voice rang out like a command. Not because it was cruel—but because it was expected, that she would come when called.

Eira turned and smiled—automatic. Programmed. The girls her father had allowed were waiting for her. Pretty, polished, daughters of corporate men with clean reputations and dirt under their manicured nails. They liked Eira. She was quiet, stylish, polite. Not too curious. Not too much of anything.

“You missed us yesterday,” Marissa said, looping her arm through Eira’s. “Don’t tell me you were actually sick.”

“I was…” Eira hesitated. “Yeah. Sick.” Not the kind of sick people understood. Not the kind a doctor diagnosed. It was the kind of sick that came from electrodes and mantras and long white rooms where the light never changed. The kind that came from a hand on your face, tilting it toward compliance. From pain used as instruction. From silence used as punishment. It was the simplest lie. And in its way, the most honest.

Cassie laughed. “Well, you look better. Last week you looked like you were in pain, guess sickness does that to you”

Eira smiled with her teeth. “Better now.”

The truth was that she hadn’t been permitted to show the pain, There were limits to visible damage. They wanted her functioning. Performing.

The girls didn’t ask about the long sleeves, or why she never swam with them, or why she jerked away when someone touched her. Their world didn’t require answers that made things uncomfortable.

Eira had learned: real pain makes people look away. Perform well enough, and no one looks close enough to see the fractures.

Lunch. Sunshine through the cafeteria glass. The girls gathered beneath it like it meant something.

“So,” Marissa asked, grinning, “are you excited for the Spring Formal?”

Eira’s blood turned to ice. Spring formal. The word was a knife. It meant performance. It meant dresses picked out by alexandre, a smile rehearsed in the mirror until it didn’t look forced. It meant cameras.

“I don’t know if I’ll be there,” she said, voice flat.

“You have to come,” Cassie said. “We’re all going. Dancing, music, real fun for once!”

Eira wanted to laugh. Or scream. But her hands just gripped her tray tighter. She smiled. “Maybe.” They didn’t see her shaking.

They were too busy talking about colors and heels and hair. Their lives ran on shallow waters. They didn’t notice the girl drowning at their feet.

Three days later, Her father sat across from her, reading the paper. She sat perfectly still, back straight, hands folded. She had made the mistake of asking about Spring Formal. Just a question, spoken softly, wanting to be prepared. Wanting to know if she could go.

It was enough to change everything.

Her father didn’t react with anger. Not at first. His silence had weight. A long, deliberate pause between the page he turned and the words that followed.

“You won’t be returning to school,” he said without looking up.

Eira blinked.

“What?”

He turned a page.

“You’ve had your exposure. It’s no longer necessary. Alexander agrees. You’ve met the required thresholds for Phase IV advancement.”

“But I…” her throat closed. “My exams—”

“You’ve passed the relevant metrics. Anything else is irrelevant.” “You were never meant to integrate fully. That was an experiment. And it’s over.”

“I like school,” she whispered, too late to stop herself.

His eyes lifted. Cold and still.

“That wasn’t part of the assignment.”

He stared at her long enough for the air to turn sharp in her lungs.

“You’ve become too attached,” he said softly. “Too emotive. Too… curious.”

She dropped her gaze.

“I saw your last history paper,” he continued. “You made a personal observation.”

“It was part of the prompt—”

“You know better.” His tone was final. “Deviation is not permitted. You’ve been granted latitude. Don’t mistake it for choice”

Her vision blurred.

“Your schedule will resume immediately after next week, I allready cordinate with the school. You have marks for the year. Even though you wont ever use it. You path in life is already planned, you know this.

Eira’s hands trembled under the table. Her fingers dug into her palms until she felt the skin break.No school. No light between the hours. No laughter, no movement, no one calling her name without agenda.

“You know school was a test, right?” he asked.

“…Yes.”

“A test of what?”

“To see if I could perform like a normal girl.”

“Correct. And now the test is complete.” He folded the paper. “You are not a normal girl. You are a project. And projects don’t get dances. They get assignments.”

A long pause.

“Have you been daydreaming again?” he asked softly.

“No,” she said. “I just… I liked school.”
A whisper. Already too late.

He took a fistful of her hair, hurting her and leaned close. Voice like velvet and venom.

“It doesn’t matter what you like. Tell me, Eira. What is out there?”

“…There is nothing out there.”

“Good girl.”

He released her. Adjusted his coat. “Alexander will be here later.” A pause. “Try not to disappoint him.”

She had been allowed a glimpse of another life. Enough to remember what it felt like.

And now it was gone. Not with anger. but with efficiency. She sat there, alone. Surrounded by the morning light she could no longer feel. She did not cry. She did not scream. She only sat, as the silence settled like a second skin.

No more Eira. No more girl.

Only the project. Only what they decided her to be. 

Chapter Text

Alexander stood in the doorway like a shadow that refused to leave. His posture was relaxed, but the hard lines of his jaw and the cold glint in his eyes betrayed something darker beneath the practiced calm. The light from the hallway spilled over him in jagged shards, framing him like some predatory figure waiting patiently to pounce.

“You’ll be more comfortable in the sunroom,” he said, voice low and smooth, as if he were offering a courtesy rather than an order.

Eira’s hands tightened around the thin book she wasn’t reading, her eyes fixed somewhere beyond him. “I’m fine here,” she said, barely above a whisper.

He stepped forward, closing the distance with deliberate slowness—no sudden movement, no threat in the way most would express it. But his presence pressed down on her, invading the fragile bubble of space she guarded with every ounce of strength she had left.

“Eira,” he said, the single word soft but edged with steel. “Don’t make me ask again.”

Her breath caught in her throat. She rose, folding the blanket tightly around her legs like a shield, and followed him without another word.

The sunroom was dimmer than usual, the curtains drawn shut as if to hide the moment from the world. On the small table sat a velvet box, its dark surface gleaming faintly in the muted light.

Eira stopped just inside the doorway, eyes locked on the box. Alexander’s voice came close behind her, calm. “Go on. It’s for you.”

She didn’t move.

“I had it made,” he said, as if recalling some fond memory. “Tailored exactly to your measurements. Took them myself, remember?” His breath brushed the back of her neck, and she stiffened. “Every inch.”

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she stepped forward and lifted the lid. Inside lay a set of lingerie—delicate, sheer, and painfully revealing. Thin straps and fragile fabric designed to show every curve and vulnerability.

“You’re growing,” Alexander murmured from just behind her, voice close enough that she could feel it vibrate against her skin. “But not fast enough. You’ll need some enhancements soon. Nothing drastic, just enough to make you... perfect.”

His hand brushed down her shoulder, trailing slowly over her arm, fingers lingering too long, as if claiming ownership. Eira froze. Her body screamed to pull away, but her limbs refused to respond.

“We’ll talk about implants when the time comes,” he continued, stepping even closer, so close that the heat of his body pressed against hers. “The right shape matters. Image matters. I’ve invested so much in you. And you will become what I designed you to be. Every part.” She didn’t speak. He reached up, fingers brushing a loose strand of hair from her cheek. She flinched, but he only smiled—a smile that was both cruel and soft.

“I want you to put it on,” he said, voice low and insistent. “Now. Upstairs. Five minutes. Then come back down here and let me see.”

Her voice was barely audible. “Why?”

His smile sharpened, a flicker of something dangerous crossing his eyes before they softened again to that practiced gentleness. “Because I said so.”

The weight of his words settled over her like a noose tightening around her throat. Then, leaning closer, he whispered, cold as ice, “Unless you’d prefer I bring you to the machine. It’s been a while. You’re slipping again. You don’t remember everything, do you? That’s why I have to be so firm.”

Eira’s breath hitched. Her head shook faintly, a mixture of fear and confusion flooding her.

“Good girl,” he said, stepping back with a satisfied smirk. “I’ll be waiting.”

The box sat heavy in her hands. She stared at it long after he left, her fingers trembling as they hovered over the delicate fabric. She didn’t want to touch it, but she knew she had no choice. The thought of refusal was unthinkable.

She couldn’t go back into the machine. Not again. Not today.

Yet the walls of her room felt like they were closing in. She peeled off her clothes with shaky hands, the fabric falling away to reveal skin that felt exposed and raw beneath the lingerie’s thin threads.

She refused to look in the mirror. The walk back down the hall felt like a betrayal with every step.

Alexander was waiting, seated with the camera casually hanging from his neck, the dim light casting long shadows that seemed to mock her. When she entered, he looked up and smiled like a proud artist unveiling his masterpiece.

“Beautiful,” he said, voice silky.

She stood stiff, arms wrapped around herself as if trying to hold her broken pieces together.

“I don’t want this,” she whispered.

He tsked softly. “It’s not about what you want. It’s about what I need. You’re mine, Eira. My project. And I’ve been patient, haven’t I?”

He rose, snapping a photo. The flash cracked through the darkness, momentarily blinding.

“Turn around.”  She obeyed, slow and mechanical. Her back was stiff, her face blank.Another flash.

“Relax,” he said, stepping close, his body pressing into hers so that every breath she took mingled with his. “You have to get used to this. Soon there will be more watching you than just me. You have to learn to present yourself.”

His hand slid over her shoulder, down her arm, lingering far too long over the fragile fabric. His touch was invasive, claiming, utterly without respect.

“They won’t be as forgiving,” he whispered.

Her throat tightened, but she remained still. “Who?” she managed to ask.

“No one you need to worry about… yet,” he replied, voice low, teasing. “But they’re curious. I’ve told them all about you. How promising you are. How perfekt.” His fingers grazed her hip, squeezing lightly, possessively. Her body tensed, fighting the instinct to recoil.

“You’ll be put back in the machine soon enough. They want to see the results.”

Her breath caught. He circled her like a predator inspecting prey.

“You’re almost perfect, Eira. Just a little more work.”

She stayed silent, too scared to speak. He leaned in, eyes hungry, and said, “Smile for me.” She tried. Just a twitch at the corners of her lips. He pressed closer, voice soft but cold, “Good girl. We’ll keep polishing you until you’re flawless. Until you’re mine.”

His lips brushed hers, a kiss that was hungry and possessive. She resisted slightly, but it wasn’t enough. Then his hand slid down, pausing at her prosthetic leg.

“Still that ugly thing,” he said, voice laced with contempt.

She froze, fingers clutching the fabric of the lingerie. He circled again, scrutinizing her like a sculptor disappointed in the clay.

“I told your father the proportions would never match,” he murmured. “The rest of you is coming along… but that—” He gestured toward the leg, “—ruins everything. You’ll never be perfect, but that's your fault.”

She said nothing. He crouched beside her leg and tapped it sharply. “I could have taken more,” he said casually. “Back then. When we had to cut. A cleaner break, a higher fit. Would have made the joint smoother.” Her stomach twisted in a familiar knot she didn’t understand. “You thrashed like an animal. Screamed the whole time.”

She remembered only flashes. Light, pain, noise. Alexander stood slowly, brushing dust from his hands.

“I should have put you under fully,” he said bitterly. “But your father insisted you stay partially awake. To monitor brain function.” He looked down at her, studying the tight silence between them.

“Don’t cry,” he warned, voice cold. “You agreed to this reconstruction. Or don’t you remember that either?”

Her mouth opened, but no sound came.

“I told you,” he whispered, voice sharper now, “the future I’m building doesn’t make space for crying, That leg is your only flaw and I won’t hesitate to fix it again if I have to.”

He stepped forward and cupped her chin in his hand.

“Say thank you.”

Her jaw locked tight. He squeezed harder.

“I said—say thank you.”

“…Thank you.”

His smile widened like a predator satisfied.

“Good girl.”

One last photo. Then he turned and left, camera swinging at his side, leaving her broken and small in the dim room, breaking inside.

Back in her room, the door wouldn’t lock. She shoved a chair hard against it—her last line of defense against the world outside. The legs scraped roughly against the floor, a harsh, grating sound that echoed like a warning. She curled into the smallest possible shape beside her bed, folding in on herself as if she could disappear into the thin mattress and threadbare blanket.

The lingerie clung to her skin—unforgiving, alien. It pressed like ice against every inch of her, cold and sharp, reminding her of how exposed she truly was. She lifted her trembling hands to the sink and ran them under freezing water, hoping the cold might drown out the phantom echoes of him—Alexander’s hands, his voice, his eyes. But it was useless. The feeling clung to her like a shadow, seeping beneath her skin, burrowing into her bones.

His touch wasn’t just on her body. It was everywhere—in her mind, her breath, the jagged edges of her fractured memories.

Her mind shattered between silence and screaming. The silence was a heavy weight, crushing her into stillness; the screaming tore at her from the inside, raw and ragged. His voice slithered through the quiet like poison—soft, practiced, deceptively gentle. Each syllable a dagger wrapped in velvet.

The smile he wore—the one that crushed everything she had left—played behind her closed eyelids like a cruel specter. Uninvited touches haunted her skin, burning in the places he’d claimed, a relentless reminder that she belonged not to herself, but to him. To her father. To them. Beneath it all was the relentless, humming threat—the machine waiting in the shadows, ready to swallow her whole. She didn’t understand. Today, Alexander had taken something far worse than flesh. He had taken her sense of safety and her flickering hope. For the first time, the full weight of what they meant by her “future” with Alexander pressed down on her like a shroud. Eighteen. Five months away. Five months to break her. To erase everything she was. To replace her with the perfect, pliable thing he demanded. Maybe that was the plan all along. Maybe nothing would be left when they were finished with her.

She rocked slightly, knees drawn to her chest, the fabric scratching at her skin like a thousand needles. Her leg, It wasn’t hers. Not really. It was cold and alien, a heavy weight strapped tight where flesh and bone once lived. She didn’t remember it being taken — or agreeing to it — yet Alexander’s cruel words echoed in her mind, like a twisted truth she was supposed to accept without question. You agreed, he had said. But she didn’t. Couldn’t.

The thought spiraled into a hollow ache she couldn’t place. How could she have given away a part of herself and forgotten? It didn’t make sense. Nothing here made sense lately

She reached behind the vanity and pulled out the notebooks — her fragile thread to a self that felt distant and fractured. Her fingers trembled as she flipped through pages she barely understood anymore, searching desperately for something — anything — to explain how she could have “agreed” to this horror. The reconstruction. The loss.

Then her eyes caught a word scrawled again and again in neat, tight handwriting, allmost at the start of the notebook, it said: “zucchini.”

It was a word from her past. A secret. A code. A fragment of who she once was — before the machines, before Alexander, her father, before the silence swallowed her.

Her chest ached, and something inside her cracked open — raw and fierce. This word, this small piece of her buried self, was a crack in the walls they had built around her. It was a key. A call. She could still fight. She could still run. maybe — just maybe — she would.

She looked onto other pages, finding a page with numbers. It never made sense before, but now the numbers made sense to her.

- If you can find a computer, write this code, there is someone out there.

Her breath hitched. The thought burrowed deep, planting a fierce seed in her chest. beneath the crushing fear, the horrifying truth of the reality she lived in,  beneath the paralyzing hopelessness.

Only the machine’s perfect, empty product. The room seemed to close in around her, walls breathing with shadows, but within the cage of fear, her mind spun wild threads of rebellion. She would find a way. She had to. Because if she didn’t—

If she waited, the machine would consume her piece by piece. Then her fathers and Alexander’s hands would never truly let go.

Chapter Text

The last week of school began, She sat at her desk, back straight, hands folded, eyes front. She answered the questions. Recited the phrases. Nodded in all the right places. From the outside, she was flawless—disciplined, attentive, unremarkably perfect. Just the way they’d trained her. But something had started to slip beneath the surface. Her thoughts weren’t quiet anymore.

They watched her closer now. Every mistake she made—every hesitation, every glance too long in the mirror—was noted. Measured. Logged. Even she was starting to notice and that was the danger.

She could feel herself surfacing, clawing out of the stillness they' pushed into her. she was still slow, her thoughts sometimes looping or fragmenting mid-sentence—but she was waking up more often now and they knew it.

She was beginning to think in full sentences again—her own sentences. Her mind no longer just absorbed. It questioned. The notebook proved it—she had existed before this.

Her father noticed. He didn’t comment at first. Just watched her more closely during review sessions, asked the same questions twice, then three times. When she hesitated.  His voice soon lost its patient veneer. it became colder and sharper. He no longer paused to pretend his cruelty had purpose. Now it was the routine, embedded in the way he gripped her wrist too hard, the way he said her name like a rebuke. He never said what would happen if she failed. He didn’t have to. The threat was always in the white room, where the machine waited. The wipe was coming, it was now inevitable

She wasn’t supposed to know the schedule, but she had overheard enough to understand that they couldn’t wipe her yet—not until the they could signed off on the “final results.” She had to finish school. Had to exit clean, composed, still functional. No signs of distress. No deviations. The project had to look successful. That was the only reason they hadn’t dragged her into the machine already. By the second day, her father barely concealed his disdain. Every smile was a test. Her slightest misstep brought consequence—verbal, physical, psychological. His words were sharp, his instructions cruel in their precision.

Alexander was worse. He became bolder. Before, his interest had been something she could file away—unnerving, but distant. Now he lingered. His hands brushed her arm longer. His eyes swept over her, watching her mouth when she spoke. He stood too close. Sat too near. Leaned in, always just inside the boundary of what could be passed off as concern.

Then the kisses started. Small. Calculated. His lips to her cheek. Her temple. Once, the corner of her mouth.The first time he did it—really kissed her—she didn’t react fast enough. Shock froze her. Her body locked while her mind screamed and spun like a top with no axis. He smiled at her stare and said, “You’ll get used to it.”

The next time, she tried to pull away. That was the night she went to bed with a bruise on her wrist and arms.  She didn’t flinch. Not outwardly. She couldn’t afford to. But inside—something recoiled, snarled, folded in on itself. She felt her skin burn where he touched her. Her thoughts screamed against the confusion—this was wrong. This was not normal. .

He would tilt her chin upward in mock-concern, always too close, always smiling too much. He would whisper things he knew she hated—soft, saccharine threats about what would happen after the eighteenth mark. Things about dresses. Dinners. Obedience.

Her father said nothing. He only glanced at her as if she were a defective prototype showing signs of unpredictable deviation. A project nearing deadline. “You're tired,” he told her the following morning, setting her schedule down on the breakfast table like a verdict. “We’ll adjust your nutrients. Perhaps limit your access to mirrors again.”

Mirrors. She had begun to notice more things. Her vision was fine, but she still needed contact lenses—why? Her hair felt wrong. Off, somehow. She didn’t know why. Just that it was. It was one of the small things that she had started to think about. It all came from the code, she found in her notebook. She did not understand how it could be so world wrecking to her to see these things.  

She thought about it constantly now, the line of numbers. Whispered it silently in her head when Alexander touched her. When her father paced behind her during assessments. When she looked to loong in the mirrow.

The writings in her notebook, she saw It was proof. Proof that before this—before white nightgowns and synthetic limbs and silk underthings folded into drawers she never asked for—there was a girl who had something else. A different life. A different name.

Some nights she dreamed of colors. Green fields again. A hand grabbing hers—not pulling, not punishing, but leading her somewhere safe. Sometimes there was laughter, both human and robotic. A voice calling her something warm and teasing. She always woke before she saw his face. But it felt real. And the more it happened, the more it hurt.

They tried to medicate her sleep again. A drip added to her water. She could taste it—faint bitterness in the back of her throat. She stopped drinking from the carafe on her desk. Hid sips of water from the bathroom tap instead. She knew it wouldn’t last. Nothing ever did here.

Every morning she counted the steps to the back exit. She knew where the sensors were, how long the garden lights stayed on before their programmed dimming. She knew the in and out of her fathers and alexandres rutine. Knew where the loopholes where.

Not long now. Not much more time.

Four days. Four more days of school. After that, she would go under. She knew. She felt it in the way her father watched her when he thought she wasn’t looking. In the way Alexander never stopped watching her at all.

So she curled tighter at night. Shoved the chair against the door, not it would help if they wanted to get in. Whispered the word into the dark: Zucchini. Zucchini. Zucchini. She wisperd the line of code and she hoped the girl who remembered it still lived somewhere inside her.

After school that next day, during her normal rutine. She’d left the study early, No permission. Just silence. She stood, turned off the interface mid-sentence, and walked out while the lesson continued without her. It felt like is was a farce now, a thinly disguised obedience training. Her questions were ignored. Her answers didn’t matter. What they wanted wasn’t comprehension. It was submission.

Her synthetic leg clicked softly as she moved down the side corridor. She adjusted her step to muffle it, the way she’d taught herself. The leg, it made her easier to track and it made her fell less human. She passed the old storage nook and slowed.

Voices ahead. Quiet. Focused. The kitchen. They didn’t know she was out of the study. She wasn’t supposed to be here.She moved closer. Careful. Pressed against the cool frame just outside the door. Inside—her father. And Alexander.

“…still no pushback,” Thorne was saying. “She follows instructions. She moves where we tell her, but she is still queistions it. She still hesitates.”

“She’s withdrawn,” Alexander replied. “Still quiet. Still compliant. But it’s surface-level. There’s flicker. Hesitation. Her eyes wander. She’s thinking again. Processing.”

Yes, thorne said. But it not the same as before, she is much more subdued this time around.

“That doesn’t mean she’s gone,” Alexander said. “We don’t want just blind obedience. We want permanent detachment. We need to be sure that when she forgets again, she doesn’t fight it.”

“She won’t remember,” Thorne said. “She never does, not for long. Her baseline holds storng with remission sessesions untill now.”

“It held,” Alexander corrected. “But she’s been out of the mashine for almost three months. That’s never been done. Not this long. Not with her.”

“She’s the strongest in the program.”

“And the youngest,” Alexander reminded. “That’s why we selected her. High neuroplasticity. Strong adaptive profile. We couldn’t replicate it in older subjects.” She was a find that came into our hands.

Thorne exhaled. Yes, we could use her becoufe of who she is. Nobody would be able to go a against us “It’s still illegal. We’re lucky the oversight board doesn’t know she’s underage. If this leaks—”

“They won’t care,” Alexander said flatly. “Not if we prove it works.”

A short pause.

Then Alexander went on. “This isn’t just a test of obedience. It’s a test of depth. We’ve kept her out of the machine to see what remains. How much erosion has taken hold. How deeply the pattern has replaced her identity. If she forgets on her own… then we’ve succeeded.”

“You think she’s forgotten?” Thorne asked.

“I think she’s in the process,” Alexander said. “The last few days she’s been…hollow. Like she’s waiting for instructions. But the key is what she doesn’t do. She doesn’t reach out. She doesn’t resist. She doesn’t question where she came from. No talk of before. Not even in sleep.”

“That could mean she’s suppressed it or she does not want to come to us , and is hiding it.”

“Or it could mean it’s gone,” Alexander said. “Buried deep enough that she doesn’t even know what she’s missing. That’s the outcome we want.”

There was a small sound—Thorne shifting his stance. The clink of glass. We have isolated her, make sure there are nobody but us turn to. If she doent start to move toward us, than I don’t think it working. We been pushing more pressure.

“That’s what this week has been,” Alexander said. “Agitation, deprivation, isolation—measured spikes in stress. We’re testing her capacity for independent distress. If she folds before we take her back in, then it means she’s internalized the helplessness. That it’s hers now. Not ours.” I been pushing her in her personal space, there is a little pushback. 

Thorne sounded uneasy. “You mean we’re looking for signs that she’s broken.”

Alexander didn’t answer at first. Then: “Yes. That’s exactly what I mean.”

“You think she has?”

“I think we’re close,” Alexander said. “She’s been quieter. Less reactive. She stares too long at reflections but says nothing. She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t sleep well. But she doesn’t ask for help either. She’s isolated herself. That’s not resistance.”

“What is it, then?”

“Surrender,” Alexander said.

Thorne muttered, “Or trauma fallout. You don’t know which.”  “But we can’t know for sure,” he said. “Not without another session. Without seeing how she responds just before, that when she reacts the most. Where the old identity comes out, she knows that she goes away when she is in the machine. She is not stupid, even now.”

“We’ll know soon,” Alexander replied. “I want her back in the machine Friday. Full session. No interruptions. If she submits without panic, if she welcomes the forgetfulness—then we’ll have our answer.”

“And if she does remember?”

Alexander’s voice shifted—sharp, possessive, low.

“Then we recondition her. Again. Piece by piece. Strip it out, reinforce the loop, rebuild her from the ashes if we have to. I’ll take what’s left and mold it into what she was always meant to be.”

We come a long way with her ” Thorne said tightly. “She’s was a person.”

“yes,” Alexander said. “She was a person. Now she’s proof. And soon, she’ll be a product.”

She didn’t remember how she got back to her room.

They weren’t trying to fix her and they weren’t waiting for her to heal. They were watching for signs that she had already disappeared and That the machine didn’t need to erase her anymore—because she was gone. Her silence wasn’t a survival instinct. It was evidence. Her numbness wasn’t grief. It was data. She wasn’t recovering, it was collapsing into what they wanted. They were watching it happen like scientists at a terminal. Recording it. Celebrating it.

Her back pressed to the wall as she slipped away from the door, careful not to make a sound. She reached her room and shut the door. Then backed away from the door until her legs gave out and she sank slowly to the floor. She was trapped. Something was breaking inside her. It just wasn’t the kind of break they were looking for. It was something colder. Quieter. The cracking of an old wall. The slow shift of weight against pressure that had gone on too long. She dident want to be gone, she wanted to remeaber, more then now.  Enough to know that her thoughts were not theirs. That her silence was not proof of erasure, but a refusal to speak. That the emptiness she showed them wasn’t defeat.

She pressed her forehead to her knees. She wasn’t broken, but they wanted her to be, this realsation left her sad, mad.  They would put her under again. Try to erase what was left. She had to get away.

Eventually she turned to the vanity and found her notebook. She pulled it out and sat cross-legged on the floor, flipping through the worn, careful pages. Most pages were filled with her inner feeling. How hard it was for her. They did not know about this sanctuary of hers. Half-faded scribbles from nights when she woke up confused and shaken. Notes written in code only she could follow. Marks only she would recognize: three lines under a date meant she had cried. A dot in the margin meant she had remembered something. A small red X meant pain. She always forgot she had it, untill she remembered and found it again. It was old, form before.. A lifeline.  

There. The line of code. 3 page from the start, just before the page of zucinni, though she still dident undertand why a vetagble would make it into her notebook.. She read the writing again. If you can find a computer, write this code, there is someone out there.

Someone is out there…. She held unto that. I gave her resolve. Where could se get to a computer, where she would be able to write the code. Not here in the hause. The monitor in the studio didn’t have a keyboard and her fathers computer was sealed of. School, at school she would be able to do it. but she would have to make sure that she was not being watched to closely.

She thought back to the covesation in the kitchen, they wanted her to broken, to come to them…… she looked at her notebook. If she gave it up, it would be show that she was indeed breaking.

She would have to give it up, it was a gamble, but she had to try. It was her last option.  She ran her thumb down the page, then closed the notebook slowly. Then reopened it. Then began to rip. Only the important pages. Cleanly.

Not the whole book—she needed them to believe she was still compliant. Still trapped. She folded the pages neatly. Tucked them into her shoos.

The rest of the book—intact, convincing—she placed on the edge of her desk. She would give it to her father tonight after session. That gave her time to plan what to say.

Chapter Text

The hallway outside father’s office is cold, it past bedtime. There was a hum in the hallway , that sounded faintly with the filtered air and hidden sensors. Eira stod there a moment, notebook hugged tight to her chest like a child’s last possession. She’s was not supposed to have it. Not supposed to write things down. Not unsupervised. She still doent know if she can do this.

Her hand trembled as she lifts it, knuckles tapping softly against the door. Once. Twice. Three times. Just enough to announce herself.  The door opens almost immediately.

Her father looks down at her—surprised, yes, but only for a second. That expression vanishes as soon as he sees what she’s holding. He takes in the notebook, the way she clutches it, the way her eyes are cast down. His smile returns like an instinct.

“You came to me,” he says, reaching for the book as if it’s something sacred. “May I?” She offered it wordlessly, fingers loosen slowly, like letting go of something alive.

“I wrote it,” she whispers. Im sorry, ‘’im not supose to.’’ Her voice is thin, nearly flat. Carefully small. The tone they like.

He takes the notebook like a gift—no, a trophy—and opens the cover with delicate reverence. Inside, he finds pages that are neat and predictable. Lines of controlled handwriting. Correct language. Scripted gratitude.

I was difficult. I understand now that obedience is clarity.
Pain is a kindness i must endure. Father only corrects what is broken.
Gratitude is strength. Submission is peace. Father is safety.

He flips through slowly, savoring it. But the tone changes in some of the pages—scribbled thoughts, erratic handwriting, the slant of someone trying not to be heard:

Sometimes I think if I scream, nobody will hear it.
I remember something—water, laughing. A smell like summer. I don't think it was here.
father says I’m healing, but I feel like I’m going further under. Every day quieter than the last.
They will punish me for this. I’m writing anyway. That must mean I’m still something.

Thorne pauses at that one. Fingers still. A breath is held. Then he turns the page, and it returns to order. Submission. Repetition. Like the entries are reining themselves back in.

He is trying to help me. I have to be good. If I’m good, it will stop hurting.
He says I’m close. That I’m almost perfect. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I can learn to be better.

She watches him read, unmoving. Not even pretending to breathe normally. He exhales at last and looks up at her with a kind of joy he almost never shows. Not the polished, clinical satisfaction she’s used to. This is warmer. He feels this. “You’ve made real progress,” he murmurs, notebook still open in one hand. “Even the defiance… the honesty. That’s important. That means it’s working.”

She doesn’t answer. Her head stays bowed. He sets the notebook down gently on the desk, then steps closer. Lifts his hand to her face. His palm is cold and dry against her cheek. He touches her like she’s porcelain, or something beloved. She doesn't flinch. She’s too used to it.

“You’re almost done, darling,” he says. “So close. Soon school will be finished, and then… then we can begin the real healing. You and me. No more fear. No more resistance.”

He smiles. So proud. Before she can brace herself, he pulls her in—arms wrapping around her in a full, suffocating embrace. She stiffens, only slightly. Just enough for her spine to ache. But she doesn’t resist, Doesn’t recoil. She lets herself fold into the shape he wants.

“You did the right thing,” he murmurs into her hair. “I always knew you would come around.”His hands linger on her back. One cups the back of her neck like a claim. The other gently presses the fabric at her waist. It takes everything not to shatter. Not to scream. Not to curl away from the heat of his affection, the false safety of his voice. Instead, she closes her eyes and lets it happen. Lets him think he’s won. Because that’s what this is. A victory for him. She is the trophy he thinks he has earned.

The danger lies in how close it feels to real. His words settle into the cracks that she has. His praise warms places that are starving. There’s a flicker brief and treacherous of doubt, that tells her maybe this is where she’s supposed to be. That maybe, if she stays very still and plays the part perfectly, the hurting will stop. Maybe she’ll finally be enough. That thought terrifies her more than anything. Because she doesn’t want to stay. She knows she doesn’t. Dosent she? There’s a voice buried deep beneath the conditioning, the scripts, the broken girl. Remembering things she isn’t supposed to remember. Still believes escape is possible, Still. even if it is a dream. But another voice, quieter and more dangerous, whispers that escape is fantasy. That maybe the best she can do is surrender. To be his.

She lets him hold her, not because she wants it. but becouse she still have some hope left. She cries later, alone, in the dark—he will never know the difference.

Before breakfeast next moring, she is called to the study. Alexander is already there, lounging in one of the armchairs with a steaming cup of black tea in hand, his long legs crossed elegantly. Her notebook rests open in his lap—worn at the corners, softened by time. It’s not new. In fact, it’s old. Three-quarters full. A quiet record of slow erosion.

He’s nearly halfway through it, and his smile is like sunlight through thin glass—bright, warm, but edged with something sharp.

“I have to say, Thorne,” he says without looking up, “this is your finest work yet.”

He stands nearby, arms folded, proud. “It’s all her. She came to me.”

Eira sits on the edge of the leather couch, silent. Obedient. She keeps her hands folded in her lap, her prosthetic leg tucked beneath her skirt, her gaze unfocused. The notebook—her notebook—is only feet away, but it might as well be in another room. it seems so far away for her.  Alexander flips another page, eyes moving greedily over the handwriting.

“There’s something deliciously raw about it. You can actually see the progression. The early entries are all fire and struggle. But by the midpoint, she starts… yielding. Doubting herself. Repeating our words. It’s remarkable.”

“She’s been resisting less and less this past year,” Thorne agrees. “And the fact that she chose to share this with me? It tells me she’s finally ready to come home.”

They don’t know the truth. They don’t notice the gaps—pages torn out so cleanly they look like they were never there. They don’t ask why it starts in such a messy, volatile place and suddenly skips forward with no record of the worst days. They don’t wonder what was once scrawled in fury on those missing leaves. They just see the shape they wanted.

“She’s stabilized,” Alexander says, tapping a finger on one of the last entries. “Look at this phrasing—‘I understand now why obedience is safety.’ That’s not just mimicry anymore.”

“She believes it,” Thorne replies, pleased. “I told you. She’s learning to let go of what she was. What we had to cut out.” “She even calls me ‘father’ in the later entries,” Thorne adds, beaming. “Voluntarily.”

“A triumph,” Alexander says. He closes the notebook with reverence, like it’s sacred. “A confession, a journey, and now… acceptance. It’s exactly the arc we needed.”

They’re talking about her like she isn’t in the room. Like a subject. A case study. A product nearing finalisation. Eira says nothing, she sits, her spine stays straight. Her breathing steady. She keeps her face empty and her hands folded. She does not reach for the notebook. She does not reach for anything. There is still one part of her that wants to scream. But she lets them believe. Let them think this was natural. That she’s fallen like they wanted. That she’s softened. That she’s almost theirs.

“She’ll be ready to graduate soon,” Thorne says, his voice warm and full of quiet victory. “We’re going to help her start over. Rebuild. Together.”

“Listen to that Eira?” he says softly, fingers tightening slightly on her shoulder. “Soon, all of this will be behind you. The struggling. The pain. You’ll be perfect. Free. Just like we always hoped.”

Eira lowers her head slightly, the image of humility. Of devotion. Her name in his mouth doesn’t feel like hers. Not really. Not anymore. She nods, slow. Mechanical. As if agreeing with a dream. Because this is what they want—to see her surrender not with chains or commands, but with a smile. With folded hands.

With a bowed head and a soft voice saying, yes, Father.

She forces herself to stay still as Thorne steps behind her, resting his hand gently on her shoulder. Alexander nods approvingly, like they are both admiring a sculpture. A creation. She does not move when Thorne leans in to press a kiss to the crown of her head.

“You did the right thing,” he murmurs into her hair. “I always knew you’d come around.”

One hand lingers on her back. The other cups the base of her neck in a claiming gesture, thumb brushing over the pulse point beneath her skin. Possessive. Tender. Final. It takes everything not to shatter. Not to scream. Not to curl away from the heat of his affection, the false safety of his voice. Instead, she closes her eyes and lets it happen.

Let him think he’s won. She would be going to school soon, and there she would try the code. 

Eira raises her hand slowly during class. Her voice is soft, just loud enough to carry.
“May I go to the bathroom?”

The instructor nods without looking. She slips out of the room and walks the sterile hallway like a shadow, feet silent against the tile. She keeps her eyes low, her face blank. No one stops her. No one asks questions. She has earned that much trust now.

She passes the restroom. Keeps going. The computer lab is dark and unused, the air stale with disuse. Eira checks over her shoulder, then slips inside. She closes the door behind her carefully, holding the handle so it doesn’t make a sound. She never went in here before, it was forbidden, but now she does not care. This was her last chance.

The moment she sits, her hands start to tremble, but she enters the code exactly as the notebook page showed her. A sequence burned into her brain from that brief stolen moment, held like a sacred relic ever since. Her fingers hover over the keyboard as the cursor blinks in the address bar.

She presses enter. The screen flashes once, but then—

Nothing. A blank white page loads. No signal. No redirect. No login prompt. No nothing. She thought that this would give her something… not a blank page.

She stares. Hits enter again And again.

Refresh. Clear cache. Try it in a second tab. Re-type the code, letter by letter, digit by digit. She even tries a variation, hoping maybe—just maybe—she got one part wrong. Still nothing.

Her throat closes, jaw tight. She tries not to cry.

She tries not to make a sound. She hits the keyboard once, just hard enough to shake the monitor. The noise bounces around the empty lab. She stops herself before she is freaking out to much, she try it again.

This was her last card. Her last thread of hope that maybe someone out there was looking for her. That maybe she could reach them. That maybe she wasn’t really alone.

And it’s just… nothing. A blank white screen. Empty. Like her.

She stares at it for another full minute, breathing through her teeth. Her mouth feels dry. Her eyes burn, but the tears don’t come now. Maybe they will come later, maybe she did something. But the hope inside her was waning.

When she finally moves, she wipes the keyboard clean with the sleeve of her uniform, closes the browser, and erases all trace of the search.

By the time she opens the door and steps back into the hallway, her face is a blank mask again. She walks slowly. Not too quickly. Not suspicious. Just a girl returning from the bathroom. No one will notice. No one will ever know what just died inside her. But something in her is colder now. Still and silent. 

Ziv Zulander’s Base – Ops Room

The alarm cuts through the recon briefing like a blade. Red lights pulse across the map wall, overlaying the sleek blueprint of the corporate tower they were targeting. Genesis looks up from the data stream first. his eyes widen.“That’s… not possible.”

Watson looks up, scanning the active terminal. “It’s a level-four ping. Internal ID. Someone just tried to access the dead relay.”

Ziv frowns. “Which relay?”

Genesis swallows. “Blitzy’s.”

Silence. Ziv’s heart stops in his chest. “That been shut down for a year now”

“I know,” Genesis says. his voice is quiet, focused. “But the code input wasn’t just a random bruteforce. It was her exact signature access. We encrypted it with a special tag, remember? The twelve-digit fallback she used for emergency data routing.”

Ziv leans over the terminal. “Where did it ping from?”

Genesis hesitates. “Local civilian access node. School network, mid-city sector. Computer room. But whoever used that code… they either had clearance or they knew Blitzy personally.”

“Or they killed her,” Watson mutters.

Ziv’s jaw tightens. “Or they were with her. Long enough to memorize her fallback.”

“Or it is her,” Jammer offers, voice soft in the quiet.

“No,” Ziv says instantly. Too sharp. Too final. “She’s gone.”

They turn back to the screen. The ping has gone dark. Nothing to trace. But something about it doesn’t sit right.

They were supposed to be preparing for another strike on the Corp’s western hub. But now the mission table feels colder, the room heavier. Someone out there knew Blitzy’s code. That meant someone had seen what no one was supposed to.

Someone had know blitzy's entry and announced her across their systems once again.

Chapter Text

Ziv Zulander stood at the edge of the command center, eyes locked on the holo-screens flickering with images from the latest Corp skirmishes. The battles were worsening—tighter, dirtier, less predictable. But beneath the endless tide of war, something deeper gnawed at him.

Three years ago, his sister had been taken. Only fragments were recovered: the shattered wreckage of her mech, and her leg found beneath a collapsed Corp transport, everything else burnt. The assumption was simple and brutal: Blitzy had been caught in the explosion, crushed beyond recognition. To the world, she was gone. To Ziv a part of himself had died with her. He had held hope to find her, alive well. But after several months of nothing, he had come to the conclution that she had died.  Since then, war was all he had left.

The ops room hummed quietly, but no one spoke. Ziv stood with his arms folded tightly across his chest, eyes locked on the fading signal. It was an old access code in the system—a code not seen in years, not since they buried what was left of Blitzy Zulander.

But now it had reappeared. Typed, not triggered. Precise, not random. Entered manually from a civilian school node.

The same code Blitzy once carved into the resistance’s dead-channel network as a final backup. Her private key. Something only she, Ziv, and Genesis had ever known.

Watson broke the silence first. “She didn’t guess it. That wasn’t a hack attempt. That was intentional.”

Genesis nodded. “Clean input. Right pattern. She knew exactly what she was doing.”

Ziv’s jaw clenched. “So who the hell gave her that code?”

He stared at the screen where the name still blinked in dull white:
Eira Thorne – Age 17 – Guardian: Dr. Edward Thorne

Genesis scrolled through the limited public data, most of it sanitized. Photos were sparse. Academic records curated. Medical records redacted. What remained painted a picture of a quiet, disciplined girl.

Eira Thorne. Who was she? Why reach out this way? There had to be better options.

The screen shifted with a swipe of his hand. A blurry press clipping flickered into view—two years old. A man in a lab coat stood outside a restricted facility, arm loosely around a girl. The caption read:

Dr. Edward Thorne with his daughter, Eira Thorne, 15, outside a restricted research facility. Dr. Thorne’s work has been linked to psychological reprogramming programs. No confirmed affiliation to Corp or Hiss Tech.

“She’s a blank file,” Genesis said quietly.

Ziv stepped closer, rubbing his forehead. “She is Thorne’s daughter,” he muttered.

Genesis leaned in. “Doesn’t mean she’s one of them. Thorne’s been off-grid for a while. We never had any real interaction with him. They don’t really work for the corp, it mostly a privat buisness, but we don’t have much detail.  She might’ve seen something in the end.”

“Or she’s bait,” Ziv said flatly. Watson nodded grimly.

“Maybe she is,” Genesis said softly. “But why? And why send the code now? If it’s a trap, it’s a strange one.”

“She might have known Blitzy,” Ziv said quietly. “Or at least, she knew who she was, maybe thorne had something to do with it, we don’t know. But I like to”

Ziv’s chest tightened. The idea that someone had known his sister in her final moments—that someone else had been there all along.

“Set up surveillance,” he said. “We watch her closely. See if she makes a move or tries again. Then we reach out.”

“Still no direct contact?” Jazzz asked.

“Not yet,” Ziv said. “And until we know what she wants, we stay careful. No mistakes.”

Watson’s eyes sharpened. “You think she’s a trap, then?”

“I think she’s an unknown,” Ziv said. “And if she knew Blitzy... she might be the key to everything—to finding out what happened, what we never could.”

Genesis looked at him, voice low. “But what if she doesn’t know anything?”

Ziv stared at the screen.
“Then we let her go,” he said, almost to himself. “Perhaps it was a fluke.”

He turned to the team.  Jazzz and Ninjzz, you should go. Low visibility. No engagement. Eyes only. If she leaves the house on foot, follows routine—we track. If not, we wait.”

The door to Eira’s bedroom shut with a quiet snick, the click echoing too loud in the silence that followed.

She stood for a long moment, unmoving, as though rooted to the center of the floor. Then her shoulders began to shake. The tears came fast. They started without sound—just moisture burning her eyes, hot and bitter. But they didn’t stay quiet for long. Her breath hitched, choked, turned into a gasp that clawed its way out of her throat.

She dropped to the floor, hard, the pain jarring her prosthetic, but she didn’t care. She curled forward, pressing her forehead to her knees, muffling the sobs against fabric. The pressure in her chest was unbearable, like her ribs were caving in.

It hadn’t worked. There was no code. No answer. No one out there. The machine was coming. Alexander was watching. Her father knew everything.

She had tried. She had tried. Now… now she was just a failure with wires in her leg and fear in her lungs and no voice left to scream.

A quiet knock came at the door.

Her breath caught. She scrambled up too fast, wiping her face, grabbing the hem of her nightgown to dry her eyes. She barely made it to the chair before the door opened.

Her father stepped in. He saw her red eyes. Her swollen cheeks. Her trembling hands. And he smiled.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he said gently, closing the door behind him. “What happened?”

She opened her mouth—but nothing came out. She didn’t trust her voice. Didn’t trust herself. He walked toward her slowly, each step measured. He knelt beside her chair like he had a hundred times before. His hand reached up and cupped her cheek, thumb wiping away a stray tear.

“It’s alright,” he murmured. “This is good.”

She flinched. “I’m sorry. I don’t know—”

“Hush.” He stroked her hair back from her face. “You don’t need to explain. Emotions are part of the process. You’ve been carrying too much. I’m proud of you for letting go.”

Her skin crawled. She wanted to pull back. Scream. Run. She didn’t, becouse she couldn’t. There where no choice in her world. He pulled her into an embrace. She went limp against him.

“You’re almost there,” he whispered into her hair. “Almost free of the noise. I can see it. You’re unraveling, just like you’re meant to.”

His hand moved down her back. “This pain is good. It means you’re not resisting anymore.”

She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.

He kissed the top of her head. “You’ll see, Eira. Soon, this won’t hurt at all. You won’t need to cry anymore. Because soon… you won’t remember why you ever did.”

And for a moment believed him. There was nothing left for her. Nobody was out there. She only had them, there was nothing left. Maybe it was for the best, that this pain went away, that she stop dreaming.

She sat in her room, waiting, soft clothes had been laid out neatly across the chair that morning: gray slacks, an oversized hoodie, socks without elastic, and new slip-on shoes still creased from the box. No restraints. No gown. She had earned it, by breaking down. Because she was ready. She had nothing but this left.

Today was the final prep session. The white room. The machine wouldn’t start until tomorrow—not fully—but her presence was required. Her father had called it a “ceremony of integration.” Alexander, smiling thinly, had said it was “a moment of becoming.”

She hadn’t argued. Not once, not since the breakdown. There were nobody out there waiting for her. She only had her father and alexandre left. It made her want to sit down and cry.

She had nodded. She had lowered her eyes. She had said, "Yes, Father. I understand." Now she sat on the bed, dressed and still, her hair slightly damp from the shower, the hoodie too large on her frame. It smelled faintly of clean cotton and bleach. She didn’t remember putting it on.

Her hand hovered over the slip-on shoes. Her prosthetic throbbed beneath the slacks, a deep ache where raw skin met metal. She slid her foot in, the hidden pages inside, forgotten. Then the other shoe. She was expected to walk there on her own today, like many times before. It was the final proof: that she belonged to them now. Tomorrow she would be in her normal clothing that she wore when going in the machine. She dident know how long she would have to stay in the machine, but in the end, it dident really matter. The plan was allready laid out for her, she dident need to think of the details.

She stood. Her legs felt wrong. Not weak, just… distant. Like the body beneath her was already starting to forget it was hers. She stepped out.

The corridor stretched before her, smooth and pale, the path to the white room felt impossibly long. She was being pulled toward it, towards forgetting, being wiped clean. She took one step. Then another. Her breath caught, she dident want it… she dident. her fingers brushed the wall to steady herself.

This is what they want. This is what they planned.

No …. Her mind said. No NO NO .. run run now. Don’t go. … Halfway down the corridor, the sound shifted. Maybe it was inside her, but she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t walk into that room, not willingly, but she dident have a choice. Her pulse thundered in her ears

And then—she turned, looke towards the other end of the hallway. Torward the garden door. They woundet expect her for another 5 min, she had time to see if she it was unlocked. They would not expected it. Her body moved before her mind did, she reached the back door. Turned the knob. Open. The sky outside was already darkening.

She ran.

The woods behind the estate were dense, tangled, full of things she’d been warned about. Father had said she was too fragile. That her prosthetic wouldn’t hold in terrain like this. He was right. The forest floor clawed at her. Roots snagged her feet. Her synthetic leg, it was never made for running, it jerked and dragged behind her. The seam at her knee burned raw. Still, she ran. She knew pain. Pain was normal. Pain was home. Branches slashed her arms. Her lungs burned, but she couldn’t stop, couldn’t go back. She should turn around. But something in her made her keep running. Her breath came in sharp, uneven sobs. She couldn’t stop, She wouldn’t go back.

And then—behind her, far too close—

“Eira!” His voice. Her father. It rang out like a trigger. Like a command. She flinched—but didn’t turn around. He called again, closer now, furious and afraid. “Eira, stop!”

But she was already too far, she keept running. She looked behind herself and her foot struck moss. Then nothing. The ground vanished beneath her and her body pitched forward, tumbling down the slope—silent, fast, freefalling. Then rocks. Metal. Her shoulder cracked. Her head slammed sideways.

Darkness.

When she came to, she was on her back. Cool air. Damp. dirt beneath her palms. The smell of rust and earth.

She blinked slowly, light flickering above through twisted roots and a jagged hole. Her body ached all over. Her temple throbbed where blood slowly oosed, sticky against her hairline. Her hoodie was torn at the shoulder. Her leg didn’t move right—the prosthetic had hurt her leg in the fall, the joint twisted and grinding when she so much as flexed her hip. She woundent be able to run anymore.

She groaned and turned onto her side, breath catching as pain flared through her ribs. The shaft she’d fallen through loomed above, steep and jagged. There was no way back up. She didn’t bother trying. She wanted to be in her room. Her room where it was safe. Where she knew what was expected of her. Where the rules were clear and the days were structured. Where she didn’t have to think so hard. Her mouth trembled. I shouldn’t have left. The thought struck like a stone in the dark, sharp and cold. Her father would be furious. She had disobeyed. She had run. That was unforgivable. She shuddered, thinking of the punishments she would face. Not just the disappointment in his voice.

No, this time there would be more. This wasn’t a mistake. This was betrayal. He trusted me.

  Her mind was in a whirlwind, she expected them to find her her, bring her back. to wipe her, make her disappear forever. She was confused… What was looking down at looking at her, where not her father. It was robotic, two of them?.

Chapter Text

The treetops rippled in the wind. Camouflaged beneath a net of leaves, lay Jazz and Ninjzz crouched in silence, watching. Ninjzz adjusted the scope on his long-range lens, barely breathing. “Still no movement. Northwest fence. Clean.”

Jazz shifted beside him, crouched low behind a broken branch, eyes narrowed behind infrared goggles. “This is a dead stakeout. We’re not getting anything like this.”

Ninjzz didn’t look away. “Sometimes quiet is what you watch for.”

Then—movement. A door opened. Not one of the main exits. A garden door. Hidden, meant for secrecy. It led into the forest to the left of their perch. Something small and pale bolted out through it.

Jazz stiffened. “Wait. Someone’s coming out the back.”

Ninjzz swung the scope. “Is it Thorne?”

Jazz’s voice dropped. “No... I think—it’s her. It’s her.”

Ninjzz found her in the lens: a girl—hooded, limping, breath misting the cold air, legs dragging. Panic radiated off her like heat. She wasn’t supposed to be outside. This was unscheduled.

“She’s running,” Jazz said, already reaching for his pack. “She’s really running.”

Then the voice—echoing behind her, sharp and unmistakable. “Eira!”

They froze. Thorne.

Jazz’s jaw clenched. “He’s chasing her. Fast.”

Ninjzz adjusted focus, muttering. “That’s not a controlled run. That’s panic. Desperation.”

The girl tore into the woods, wild and uncoordinated, stumbling hard. Her motions were pure instinct, she was in flight. Then a muffled crash. A dull thud.

“She went down,” Jazz said sharply, lifting the scope again. “Looks like a ravine.

She’s not moving.”

“Thorne’s closing in,” Ninjzz warned. “But he might not see her.”

Jazz stayed still. “We wait. She’s hidden. They’re too close. Let’s see what happens.”

From below, they heard Thorne’s voice, growing more distant, shouting threats into the trees. A second voice, Morrow’s called back. They were guessing. Searching.

They split up, one circling around, the other retreating toward the house.

When the forest finally fell silent again, Jazz and Ninjzz moved, two shadows dropping from the trees, sweeping low across the terrain.

They reached the spot where she had fallen: a hollow at the base of a steep slope, tangled in old rusted piping and moss-covered rocks. She was half-hidden by undergrowth, her hair matted with blood, her body twisted unnaturally.

Ninjzz crouched, scanning. “Alive. Faint pulse. Shock, maybe concussion.”

Jazz looked down at her—bruises beneath the hoodie, fingers twitching faintly, breath shallow. “We take her.”

Ninjzz didn’t argue. He gathered her gently in his arms. Jazz drew his weapon, covering the retreat. They called Twigg for pickup and vanished into the woods before the searchers returned. Behind them, Thorne prowled the treeline, wild-eyed and empty-handed. His creation was gone.

The base doors slid open with a mechanical sigh. Ziv Zulander stood in the corridor beyond, arms folded, expression unreadable. The soft thrum of the underground base hummed around them, but his focus locked on what Ninjzz was carrying.

“Ziv,” Jazz said, breathless. “She ran.”

Ziv’s eyes fell to the girl. Eira Thorne. Unconscious. Pale. Dressed in a dirt-smudged white hoodie with oversized sleeves. Her face was scratched, her limbs limp, the soles of her sneakers peeling. She looked like she’d been dropped from another world.

Ziv’s jaw tightened. “What happened?”

“She ran out the backdoor,” Jazz answered. “Panicked. Fell hard.”

“Collapsed in the forest,” Ninjzz added. “She was terrified. We couldn’t leave her.”

Genesis appeared at Ziv’s side, eyes narrowing. “She could be Corp. A plant.”

Ziv stepped forward slowly. He crouched, brushing a strand of sweat-matted hair from her face. His fingertips lingered just a second too long on her burning forehead.

“She’s burning up.”

Watson rolled forward, sensors whirring. “Temperature: 39.8°C and rising. Vitals unstable. Signs of recent trauma. Possible concussion.”

Ziv straightened. “Get her to MedBay. Now.”

Genesis hesitated. “Ziv—”

“Quarantine the room. Full lockdown. Run every scan. Everything.”

“She’s not a threat,” Jazz muttered.

“I’ve been wrong before,” Ziv said flatly. But his eyes never left her.

They watched as Watson and Ninjzz carried her down the corridor. Ziv followed closely. There was a tension in his posture—quiet, coiled, waiting.

In the MedBay, she was laid gently on the cot. Her hoodie clung damp to her skin. Her elbows were scraped and raw. Her shoes were removed carefully by Watson—a small act of caution, and care. One sock was damp, ragged. She looked like a runaway, not the pristine rich girl from her government file.

Watson ran his scan as Ziv entered. “She’s stable, barely,” Watson said. “Concussion, elevated fever, mild dehydration. No clear infection source yet. She’s been through hell.”

“We’ll hold off questioning until she wakes,” Ziv said.

Genesis crossed his arms, voice tight. “You still think she’s dangerous?”

Ziv didn’t answer at first. He just watched the girl—how her body twitched faintly beneath the blanket, like she was still trying to flee even in sleep.

“She’s wounded,” he said at last. “And she’s Thorne’s. That makes her important and dangerous by default.”

The girl whimpered, a low, strangled sound. Her lips moved soundlessly, as if mouthing rehearsed lines in a dream.

Ziv turned to Watson. “Deep scan. Anything else?”

“No tech. No tracker. She’s clean,” Watson said. “But…”

“But?”

“There’s something off in her musculoskeletal data. Slight discrepancies in her legs. Could be old surgical work or something worse. But I can’t confirm it without consent. We’re not stripping her down while she’s unconscious.”

“She could have injuries we can’t see?”

“Exactly. Something’s triggering the alarms, but I don’t know what yet. It not at a dangerous level, so it can wait a bit”

Ziv’s brow furrowed. He stepped closer again. Her breathing was uneven but steady. She looked... younger than expected. Too young for the files on Eira Thorne. Too thin. Too worn down. As if she hadn’t eaten properly in years.

Even unconscious, her hands were curled defensively. Her mouth kept moving, like she was bracing herself for a command that never came.

Ziv nodded toward Watson. “When she wakes, go slow. No pressure. But watch everything. Alert me the second her eyes open.”

She woke to a new room that she didnet recognize. Her mouth was dry, lips cracked, and her body felt like it had been stitched together wrong. She didn’t know where she was, only that it wasn’t the house. That was enough to send her into a panic. She bolted upright with a strangled gasp. Pain ripped through her side, and the world pitched sideways. Someone was shouting—or maybe not shouting, but close enough.

“Easy! Lie back, you’re burning up.”

A firm but gentle hand pressed against her shoulder. She flinched hard, twisting away, breath catching in her throat. Cold sweat clung to her skin beneath the layers of old clothes and an unfamiliar blanket.

“Don’t touch me,” she rasped. Her voice came out hoarse, raw.

“You’re not a prisoner,” the voice said. Male, calm, unfamiliar. Not him. Not them.

“I’m Watson,” it continued. “You ran. You fell. We found you. You have a concussion and a high fever. You’re safe now.”

Her eyes cracked open, unfocused, to a pair of glowing blue lenses and a robotic face. He sat quietly near the monitors, posture relaxed but attentive. Watching her.

She didn’t trust him. Didn’t trust this place, these robots or anyone. Her body ached in ways she couldn’t name. Her head spun like the walls were shifting.

“What is this place?” she croaked. “Where… am I?”

Watson didn’t answer right away. Someone else did.

“You’re safe,” said a deeper voice from the doorway.

She flinched.

A man stood there. Tall. Guarded. Flanked by two other robots.

“My name is Ziv Zulander,” he said. “You’re at my base.”

She froze.

Ziv Zulander. That name was everywhere and nowhere. Whispered through school corridors and scratched behind wall panels. The rebel. The outlaw. The one who vanished from the Corp’s maps. Now he was real. And watching her like she was a weapon that hadn’t finished detonating.

“Eira Thorne,” he said flatly. “We found your ID. But more than that, you entered a sequence into a school terminal. A very specific sequence.”

Her stomach dropped. Her mouth went dry. Her father found out?.
Was this the machine? Was she already back inside?

“It was just numbers,” she whispered. “A pattern. I didn’t know—”

“You typed it four times,” Ziv cut in. “Perfectly. That sequence was decommissioned years ago. It was my sister’s. Blitzy’s. No one else knew it.”

Her pulse spiked. “I didn’t know it meant anything,” she said quickly. “I just… remembered it. It was in my head.”

“From where?”

“I don’t know!” she snapped, fear tightening her throat. “I’ve had it forever, it just felt… safe.”

She hesitated, eyes darting. “I didn’t know it was yours,” she whispered. “I wasn’t trying to….I was just trying to contact someone. To see if there was something… out there.”

“To contact who? Us? Why?” His voice was quiet. But not kind.

“I can’t” She shook her head, the dizziness making the world lurch.

“You entered a code no one outside this base should know,” Ziv said.

“I didn’t know what it was!” she insisted. “It was just a pattern. I didn’t think…I didn’t know—”

“You didn’t guess,” Ziv said. “You executed. Four times. That’s not a coincidence.. So tell me again: where did you learn it?”

“I don’t know,” she said again, more softly. “It’s just always been there. I used to see it in my head. I thought it was… something from school or—”

“It’s not from school,” said the robot beside her, he look different the the other one.  “That sequence was buried. Core access only. No public terminals ever used it.”

Her throat tightened. Her eyes flicked to the corners of the room, the ceiling, searching for cameras. Searching for the invisible watchers. “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “Maybe this is… maybe I never left.”

Ziv stepped forward. His eyes narrowed. “You expect us to believe you just stumbled on that number by accident? Four times? Perfectly?”

“I didn’t know it was hers,” she said desperately. “I didn’t know anyone was real. I didn’t know anyone was out here.”

The other robot leaned in. “You don’t know who we are?”

“No,” she said, blinking fast. “I mean, yes. I mean, I’ve heard things. Rumors. At school. Pictures. But I didn’t think you were real. I thought this—” her voice caught, “was a dream.”

The robots exchanged glances. Even Jammerzz looked skeptical.

Ziv’s expression remained cold. “You ran from one of the most powerful men in the city,” he said slowly, “and you didn’t know where you were going?”

“I wasn’t supposed to leave the house,” she whispered. “He said school was over. He said I was changing… that I needed to prepare.”

Her eyes flicked to the wall. “I just… I had to go.”

Ziv stared at her, but her head had begun to loll. She was trembling under the fever, her cheeks flushed, her hair damp with sweat. Her fingers curled weakly into the blanket.

“…Or maybe this is the machine,” she murmured. “Maybe I never left.”

Ziv froze. “What machine?”

But she didn’t answer. Her eyes drifted toward the wall. “I have to go back,” she whispered. “He’ll be angry. I wasn’t supposed to run…”

Ziv looked to Watson.

“Her fever’s spiking again,” Watson said gently. “She needs rest. Interrogating her like this won’t help.”

Ziv gave a short nod. His jaw was tight. He turned to go,but paused at the threshold.

He looked back.''Eira?” His voice dropped to something colder. “If you so much as whisper about relay codes or any of that nature, I’ll stop treating you like a stray and start treating you like a spy. I want to know where you found that code” Then he was gone.

Watson moved closer, adjusting the IV line, his voice quieter now. “You should sleep. No one’s going to touch you while you’re like this. When you wake up, we’ll talk again. Maybe get you some clean clothes.”

She didn’t answer. Just curled tighter. Her hands pressed against her side—not just for warmth, but protection. There was pain in her leg now. Deeper than before. A hot, pulsing throb that seemed to reach the bone. They didn’t know. They couldn’t know. It dident really matter, they werent real. This was just another test.  Only Father and Alexander were cleared. Anyone else touching it—examining it—that was a breach.

She shut her eyes tight and thought: Don’t let them see. Not yet. If they see, they’ll call him. They always do.

Somewhere in the low hum of the medbay, a voice coiled through her mind. Familiar. Cruel. Close. You did this to yourself. I’m the only one who can fix you.

Chapter Text

Ziv sat alone in the dim glow of the console room. Her image filled one of the monitors. She was small, pale, curled inward like she was still hiding, even in sleep.

Genesis entered without knocking, holding a tablet. “Initial scans are clean. No chip. No implant. No Corp tech.”

Ziv didn’t look away. “Not good enough.”

“You think it was a trap?”

“I only know what her file says,” Ziv said quietly. “I think she escaped something we don’t understand yet. I think… she knows something about Blitzy.”

Genesis stiffened, then stepped closer to the monitor. “You think she was with her? Or found something left behind?”

“I don’t know. But she accessed Blitzy’s code. Not randomly. Not by chance. And now she’s here.”

Genesis watched the feed, watched the girl stir, fingers twitching in her sleep. “She looks lost. Small.”

Ziv’s voice was low. “Yeah.”

He didn’t say the rest: that there was something off about her. Not just the injuries. It was the way she clenched her hands in sleep, like she was bracing for another blow. Like she was still fighting, even now.

“She’s not our problem,” Genesis said after a moment. “She could cause trouble… but we help people when they need it.”

Ziv exhaled slowly. “She typed my sister’s code, Genesis. Four times. Perfectly. I don’t know what that means yet, but it’s not a coincidence.”

“She wasn’t making much sense when we talked to her,” Genesis offered. “Fever, trauma and a consussion. We ask her more after she is better, more clear’’

Ziv answered: ‘’I like to be there, to see her reachtions, we ask her more after recon.”

Genesis glanced over. “You’re still going through with it?, even now?”

Ziv nodded. “Yes, we leave soon. the relay site. Might be more abandoned tech, if it hasn’t been re-secured. 32 hours out and back.”

“Then what do we do with her if she wakes up?”

Ziv finally turned. “You and Watson stay. Keep an eye on her. Pull everything, school records, medical inconsistencies. Anything someone might’ve tried to bury.”

Genesis raised an eyebrow. “And if nothing turns up?”

Ziv’s voice dropped. “Then we treat her like someone who needs help.”

He didn’t say anything more, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that the world was shifting on its axis. He hadn’t felt this way in a long time.

“We still help people,” he murmured. “When they need it.”

About a day had passed since she’d woken up here the first time. The fever was worse now, boiling beneath her skin, dizzying. Eira could barely sit up. The room swam with every breath, shifting and tilting like a boat in a storm.  It was the pain in her leg that kept her awake.

Not surface pain, but a deep, bone-deep, pulsing through her thigh like something alive. Lying on the medbay cot, she pulled the blanket tighter around herself, eyes flicking toward the door to make sure it was still shut. Her body trembled, soaked in fever sweat. She felt raw, unraveling. Her thoughts spiraled, caught in flashes of white rooms, echoing footsteps, lights that buzzed too loud and hands that gripped too tight.

Her thigh burned like it was packed with crushed glass and fire. The pressure pulsed under the skin like a second heartbeat, heavy, angry, wrong. She knew that feeling. The infection had returned, worse than before. The sprint through the forest had pulled the muscles, reopened pressure sores. It had done damage, serious damage. It had never felt this bad, not even last time.

She remembered a time crawling to the mirror, unable to stand. The cold tile, the smell of antiseptic, the taste of blood at the back of her throat. Her father’s voice echoing through the fever haze:

“You did this to yourself. I have to intervene again. We’ll bring you back to baseline while you’re healing. You understand what that means, don’t you?”

Her eyes fluttered, her body shivering as her mind slipped.

“No—” she whimpered aloud, “no, you said I didn’t have to. Not today…”

But he wasn’t here. Was he? The thought slid into her like ice. She stared at the ceiling, trying to remember where she was….when she was. For a second, everything blurred. The past clawed its way through the fever, through her skull, through the part of her still fighting not to believe this might all be another test.

The door opened with a quiet hiss. Watson entered, tablet in hand, scanning her vitals. Something was wrong. Her fever had spiked — despite fluids, despite meds. Her heart rate fluttered erratically. She flinched beneath the blankets, curling like she was expecting to be struck.

He moved closer, recalibrated the scanner. Still nothing obvious. No respiratory distress. No internal bleeding. But her posture was all wrong , not really defensive, but protective. She was guarding something. Hiding it.

He crouched beside her, voice low and careful. “Eira. You’re in pain. Can you tell me where?”

She didn’t answer. Her eyes fluttered. Her breath caught.

She didn’t trust these people. Maybe they were a test. But the pain was bad now. Bad enough that it scared her. “No… no, you said I didn’t have to, not today…” Her voice blurred between dream and memory. She wasn’t looking at him. “You can’t take it off. He has to. Only he can. It’s not allowed… I’m not allowed when it hurts…”

Watson went still. That wasn’t fear of pain. That was fear of punishment. “Eira,” he said again, quieter this time. “You’re safe now. You’re not with them anymore.”

“No!” Her voice cracked. She lurched forward, one hand clutching the side of her leg, shielding it. “You’re not cleared! Only Father or Alexander….if you touch it, they’ll shut me down. Put me in the machine….”

Watson’s optics widened. She wasn’t lucid. But her words were too specific to be dismissed. Rehearsed. Coded. Trained. What was going on here? “No one is shutting you down,” he said, voice steady. “No one here is going to hurt you.”

Her eyes finally met his — glazed, unfocused. “I’m not supposed to take it off. It’s forbidden. If I do… I fail.” Her voice cracked. “If you see… they’ll know. They’ll know I wasn’t good enough. That I broke it…”

Watson didn’t move. Didn’t blink. The pieces were slowly locking into place, and he didn’t like the shape they were forming. She was not a normal girl, there was something very wrong here.

“I’ll be good,” she whispered. “Don’t shut me in again…” Her hands clutched her leg. To guard it. Her body trembled with the effort.  “Please, I can keep it on. I didn’t take it off. I didn’t… I was good. Don’t tell him… don’t tell…”

Her voice dissolved into a broken sob. Whatever was wrong — she was at her limit. Her pain threshold was frayed to threads. She needed relief. But more than that — she needed someone to listen.

Watson slowly extended one hand. Open. Still. Not to touch. Just to show her. “I won’t tell anyone,” he said softly. “I won’t touch it. But I need to understand. Is it your leg? Is that what’s hurting?”

A shiver. A faint, nodding motion. It was enough.

“Just let me look,” he said. “Not touch. Not remove. Just check. If it’s infected…”

Her eyes went wide again.

“Not protocol,” she gasped. “Not your clearance… is this a test?”

She was spiraling. Rapidly. Who had taught her this? That help could only be granted by permission? That help meant failure? That protocol outranked mercy?

Watson sat back slightly, kept his voice calm. He needed to reach her. “I won’t take it,” he promised. “Just help. That’s all. No one will know unless you want them to.”

A long pause. Then slowly, trembling, she pulled the blanket aside. Her fingers fumbled with the waistband of her pants. She flinched at every brush of fabric. It took effort. Pain. But she managed it.

Watson didn’t react at first. He’d assumed she had both legs amd she was hiding something like a broken bone. He had no reason to think otherwise, her records said nothing. No medical note. No amputation on file, but I was clear now, that what she had been hiding.

Watson was stunned….. Because the leg looked real. Not military-grade chrome. Not outdated, jerry-rigged mechanics. This was a high-end biomimetic prosthetic, synthetic skin overlay, muscle simulation, tone-matched pigmentation. Designed to pass at a glance. Seamless.

He never would’ve known if she hadn’t revealed it. But now, with the prosthetic partially removed, the truth surfaced beneath the illusion. The socket site was red, inflamed. Skin blistered from friction. Heat rash. Swelling. Where flesh met machinery, infection had taken root. Badly. This….this wasn’t an injury. This was surgical. Maybe deliberate. Old.

“…When did this happen?” he asked quietly.

Her eyelids fluttered. Pale. Shaking. Lips cracked.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I think… when I was little. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. Father said… it was for a story, I think. So they’d believe it. He said they wouldn’t believe it otherwise.”

She coughed, folding in tighter. Watson saw it then, the scar tissue. The angles of healed trauma. Done with purpose, couse it was done in such a way, that it would always be painfull. Maybe it was done by somebody that dident know what they were doing, couse it was badly done. It dident make sense for watson, Thorne was a rich man, why would he not give his daugther the best?

His chest tightened. His internal cooling systems kicked on. He adjusted her pain meds slowly, watching her breath ease just slightly. This wasn’t just injury. This was control in some way. He would leave it for now. That she had allowed it to be shown was a big step, no need to push her to hard, in her state.

“Okay,” he whispered. “I’m not going to remove it. Just cleaning. That’s all.”

Her eyes fluttered. She gave the barest nod. Watson worked slowly. Gently. Cooling gel. Sterile gauze. His touch clinical, his face unreadable. She didn’t cry out, but she shook the entire time. By the end, she sagged back into the cot. Barely conscious. Still whispering, even in half-sleep.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to ruin it. I was trying. I swear I was trying…”

“You didn’t ruin anything,” Watson murmured.

“I’ll do better. Don’t send me back… please. I won’t run this time…”

“You’re safe now,” Watson said. Soft. Reassuring. Heart breaking form her desprate tone. But she flinched. Even from that.

“They said I was drifting,” she whispered. “That I needed another cycle. That I was breaking. But I can fix it. I can…” Her voice hitched. “Father, please—”

Watson froze. She thought he was him, that she was still there. Still in it.

He stayed quiet. Finished the wrap. Watched her slip into a restless, fevered sleep. Then he sat back. Silent. Processing.

The prosthetic… it was too much of a coincidence. The placement of it. The construction. The size. Watson couldn’t stop the thought, no matter how he tried to reroute it. it matched something else.  His internal processors stalled for a second.

Only one thing had ever been recovered after the collapse that supposedly killed Blitzy Zulander. Her leg. DNA-confirmed. A single severed limb buried under meters of concrete and debris. They had mourned it. Buried it. Declared her gone.

But what if… what if it hadn’t been all that was left of her? What if it had been planted?

He looked at her again, she was a girl that was a frightened, fevered creature, curled in on herself like a child, her synthetic limb still half-detached from the inflamed socket. Missing a leg. The same leg.

She had used Blitzy’s old relay code, a failsafe signal Genesis had embedded in their encrypted channels years ago. Obscure. Forgotten. Except by someone trained to remember.

She wore colored contacts, Watson had noted that earlier while scanning her concussion. Pale lenses overlaying her eyes. A deception. Which meant: there were parts engineered to hide who she really was.

Watson reached for the blood sample kit he’d stashed in the drawer an hour earlier, before he even knew why he might need it. His hands moved with quiet precision. His systems were calm, but his logic was not.

Ziv and the others were still out, still in the dark. He wouldn’t tell them. Not yet. Not until he was certain. Not until confirmation returned.

Somewhere deep in his core, not the code, not the processing algorithms, but the unspoken thing that lived between logic and what passed for love….. Watson already knew.

The knowing felt like something sharp and terrible blooming behind his chest plate. He looked down at her again. Shivering. Silent. Lost.

He almost hoped, truly, desperately hoped. That he was wrong. Because if he was right… Then something monstrous had happened and he, for three long years, had failed to see it.

Chapter Text

The base was still. Only the low hum of Watson’s processors and the soft whir of diagnostic equipment filled the silence. The blood sample sat idle in the dock—already catalogued, already logged. He didn’t need to be here. He stayed anyway.

She had fallen into a fevered sleep not long after the scan. Her body was worn down by infection, by exhaustion, by the crashing aftermath of adrenaline. Watson had drawn the sample more from instinct than protocol the moment he’d seen the prosthetic. Even now, he couldn’t shake what he’d found. Not just the surgical scar, clinical but wrong. it was deliberately done to be painful and right now it was badly damage. The implant had been forced to carry too much weight for too long, misaligned with her body. Pressure wounds had formed along the seam. Beneath the skin: swelling, inflammation, and worse just below the surface. The early spread of a bad infection.

She’d likely been walking wrong on it for weeks. Maybe longer. But by the way it looked, it wasent meant to.  Every step would have been agony. She needed antibiotics. Rest. A full surgical reevaluation. And even then… it would be weeks before she walked without pain, if she ever did. Months, Watson thought, before she would trust anyone enough to let them help her. The lab door hissed open behind him.

“Any updates?” Genesis’s voice cut through the stillness. He entered with his usual mechanical grace, though something in his posture was brittle. Tense. His optics swept from Watson to the monitor. “What are you running?”

Watson turned the screen. “Genome.”

Genesis’s gaze narrowed. “You ran her DNA?”

Watson turned halfway to look at him,“I did.”

“You didn’t clear that with Ziv.”

“I know.” Watson’s voice was flat. “But I needed to be sure.”

Genesis’s voice sharpened. “Sure of what? That she’s Eira Thorne?”

Watson turned fully. Oddly calm “I think she’s Blitzy.”

Silence fell like a knife. Genesis blinked. “That’s not possible. Blitzy died. We found….” His voice cracked. “We found part of her leg, the rest of her burned, remember?”

Watson’s hands curled. “Exactly. A leg. Maybe a clean surgical separation. But no body.” He pointed to the screen of eira,... no Blitzy sleeping in medbay. “And her leg? She doesn’t have one. She showed me.”

Genesis’s head snapped up. ‘’ what? Her file dident say..?’’

“I know hwe file does not say it, that is one of the reasons i had to check. She was delirious,” Watson said quietly. “Burning with fever. She thought I had clearance—like Thorne or Marrow. She begged me not to report her. Said she wasn’t allowed to remove it. That she’d failed.” He swallowed. “She was terrified. But eventually… she let me look.”

Genesis’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You think they amputated her leg to fake her death?”

“I think they did worse than that.” He tapped a key. The monitor flickered.

Genome scan complete.
Cross-referencing subject: Blitzy Zulander...
DNA Match: 99.98%

Genesis staggered back half a step, his clawed hand finding the console edge. His optics pulsed with static.

“It’s her,” Watson said. “No mistake. No margin. Blitzy is alive.”

“But she doesn’t look like her,” Genesis murmured. “It’s been years. She—”

“Three years,” Watson cut in. “She was twelve when she disappeared. She’s fifteen now. But her file lists her as seventeen. They aged her up. Erased her identity. Made her legally unrecognizable.”

Genesis’s optics flickered. “Why would they do that?”

“To control her. To gain legal access. If she was seventeen, they could do more.” His voice tightened. “Maybe it was to deceive us. Or her. I don’t know. Maybe it was to turn her into something else. She does not know who we are, so something must have made her forget”

Genesis hesitated. “Are you saying she’s been brainwashed?”

“I’m saying she’s been reprogrammed,” Watson said bitterly. “Conditioned to forget who she was.”

“She doesn’t even remember her name or ziv.” Genesis ran a hand down his face. “That code she used at school… the one I taught Blitzy... that means she wasn't told, she already knew it, because i taught it to her.”

“She typed it perfectly. Four times,” Watson said. “Not a guess. Muscle memory. Fragmented instinct. Her subconscious remembered, even when the rest of her didn’t.”

Genesis swallowed. “This can’t be real.”

They both turned to the live feed. The girl…Eira, no, Blitzy…lay curled on the medbay cot, her body pale and drawn tight, like she was trying to fold herself out of existence.

“She told me she wasn’t allowed to remove the prosthetic unless Thorne or Alexander gave permission. That only they were cleared. She thought I was one of them.”

Genesis stared. “She’s afraid of them.”

“Yes, she’s still theirs,” Watson said quietly. “In her mind.”

Another silence stretched, then Genesis straightened. There was a new sharpness to his posture. “We’ve been looking in the wrong place.” Watson looked up. “I’ve been digging through her school logs. Her fake records. The Corp’s files on ‘Eira Thorne.’ But that’s not where the truth is.”

“Where, then?”

“Thorne’s servers. His lab systems. His private channels.” His optics narrowed. “If they turned Blitzy into this… they kept records. We need to see what they did to her.”

Watson nodded. “You think you can access it?”

“I will,” Genesis said. “Even if I have to tear down half the firewall to do it.”

A soft alert pinged across the lab wall, external sync notice. “They’re still out for another twelve hours,” Genesis said. “Ziv and the Boyzz. Deep-zone recon.”

“I know.” Watson’s voice was steady. “We can’t tell him. Not like this.“We say something now, over comms..it could distract him. Get someone killed. We wait. We gather everything. Then we tell him in person.”

Watson looked again at the girl behind the glass. “She really doesn’t remember us”

“She doesn’t have to,” Genesis said. “We’ll help her. If she’s Blitzy—and we believe she is—then we’ll give her all the time she needs.”

They stood side by side, facing the monitor pulsing with impossible truth.

BLITZY ZULANDER — STATUS: LOCATED

But the girl behind the glass didn’t stir. She dident know she been found by somebody who loved her. that everything would be changing in ways she would ever dream about. 

It was night when ziv retured to the base, another raid successful. The secret base hidden underground, To any passing patrol, the slope was nothing, it wad just another forgotten ridge in the borderlands between sectors. Beneath the roots and soil, there was a steel-boned hideout.  The tunnel lights buzzed awake as the they returned. Tires crunched gravel. Ziv stepped out. His jaw was tight, boots scuffed from a two-day sweep through old RM Corp systems. He told everybody to relax after mission. He hadn’t even dropped his gloves before Watson appeared—silent, tense, already walking.

“What is it?” Ziv asked, matching pace. Watson didn’t answer right away. His mouth was a hard line.

“She’s stable,” he said finally. “But there’s something wrong with the leg. Her vitals are spiking and the pain’s localized. Infection, I think. She won’t let me remove it.”

“Infection?” Ziv’s pulse ticked. “What kind of injury are we talking about?”

Genesis intercepted them at the stairwell, datapad in hand. His face was drawn, unreadable.

“She has a prosthetic,” he said. “Left leg, above-knee. Still attached.”

Ziv stopped walking. “She what?”

“Prosthetic,” Genesis repeated. “realistic model. High-end. But it’s failing. The tissue around it is inflamed. Likely infected.”

Ziv blinked, then narrowed his eyes. “That’s not in her file. There’s nothing like that in Eira Thorne’s data”

“I know,” Watson said quietly. “thats because she’s not Eira Thorne, or she wasent untill 3 years ago.”

“What the hell are you saying?” Ziv snapped. Hope. Desperation. He could feel it coiling under his ribs. No..no... It couldn’t be. His sister was dead. It still hurt, it still...was to painful to think about

“I took a blood sample,” Watson said. “I had to. The prosthetic… the placement… Ziv....”

“You ran a DNA scan without clearance?” why ?  what is going to prove.'' Ziv said ... ''watson. ?''

 Watson look at ziv, serious and calm “I ran it because something didn’t add up. The injury, the gaps in her history, the behavior. And now” Watson turned the monitor toward him.

Genome scan complete.
Cross-referencing subject: Blitzy Zulander...
DNA Match: 99.98%

Ziv stared. His jaw tightened. His fists clenched. “No,” he said. “No. This isn’…this is a mistake. A match like that could be a cousin. Or a clone. It’s not her. My sister is dead. We found her leg. Her real leg. She’s gone.”

Watson stood firm. “We only found a leg and we accepted what they wanted us to believe.” She been talking like she been programmed to say certain things. He paused. “She’s in pain, Ziv. But she won’t let us near it. Not because she’s stubborn. Because she says we don’t have clearance. Who do you know that reacts like that to a medical emergency?”

Ziv’s defenses faltered. That did sound strange. Too strange. But he could still see it. That site. The blood. The limb. He hadn’t believed it at first. Then the reality crashed down: she was gone. Gone.
And now Watson was standing here, saying.. Ziv’s voice was hard. “You’re telling me that they stage her death?”

“Yes,” Watson said. “im not sure the has transpired. But they have had her for the last 3 years. They trained her. Broke her. Reprogrammed her. She does not reamber us”

Ziv’s expression cracked. “That’s insane, this is crazy watson.”

Watson stepped closer, his voice low but unshaking. “She doesn’t remember who she is, Ziv. She’s terrified of taking the leg off without permission. She talks in protocols, compliance scores, shutdown threats. She called me ‘father.’ She begged me not to shut her down. That isn’t just trauma. It's control and something that has been drilled into her time and time again.”

Ziv’s breath hitched. “You’re saying they brainwashed her.”

“Yes,” Watson said. “I don’t know the full chain of events. But they had her. They took her. For three years, they trained her. Broke her. Rewrote her. She doesn’t remember us, but she still had a will to run, to write that code on a school computer.”

Ziv’s voice cracked. “That’s insane. This is insane, Watson.”

Watson stepped closer, voice low and steady. “She doesn’t remember who she is. She’s terrified to remove the leg without permission. She talks like she’s been programmed and is afraid of shutdown, whatever that means. She called me ‘father.’ She begged me not to shut her down.” Ziv flinched.

“That’s not just trauma,” Watson said. “That’s control. Conditioning. Something drilled into her over and over again.”

Ziv’s breath caught. “You’re saying she blitzy, but they brainwashed her to be Eira Thorne?.”

“Yes. Or something like it. Psychological rewriting. She thinks she’s Eira Thorne because they made her think it. They changed her name, her age. They taught her to forget. Or punished her until she did.”

Ziv stared down at the datapad, vision swimming. “She doesn’t even look like her.”

“They had to change her,” Watson said. “So we wouldn’t recognize her. Or maybe… so she wouldn’t recognize herself.”

Ziv turned away, breathing hard. “Why now?” he whispered. “Why did we find her now, if they buried her this deep. God watson, blitzy,…. she?”

“Because she ran,” Watson said. “Even after everything they did, whatever that is…she still ran, she still reached out to us, with the code.”

Ziv didn’t answer. He stood there for a long moment, every breath hurting in his lungs. Then, without a word, he turned and walked away. Toward the medbay. Watson didn’t follow.’

The door hissed shut behind him. Inside, the room was dim and silent, except for the soft rhythm of machinery. Eira...no. Blitzy...lay still under the blanket, wires trailing from her arms. Her face was pale, flushed with fever. Her breathing, shallow. She looked so small. Ziv moved to her side slowly, stiffly. She didn’t stir.

Her hair was pale blonde—bleached. Her cheekbones thinner than he remembered. Her jaw a little sharper. Her body more grown than before.  His hands curled at his sides. He didn’t believe it. Not fully. Not yet. But the grief in his chest was already turning over. This couldn’t be Blitzy.

She twitched in her sleep. “M’sorry…” she whispered. “Didn’t mean to ruin it…”

Ziv stared. This was his sister. What had happened?

“I can be good again. Please. I won’t run this time…”

His heart twisted. She was begging someone who wasn’t there. She didn’t know where she was. Didn’t know who she was. She had no idea her brother was standing five feet away, holding his breath. Ziv stepped closer, watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Then, quietly, he whispered the name he hadn’t spoken aloud in three years.

“Blitzy.” She didn’t stir. He moved in slowly, silently. He didn’t want to wake her. Didn’t know what he’d say if she opened her eyes. She looked like a ghost. Not quite a stranger… but not familiar, either. Her white-blonde hair was perfectly straight ,long. Not wild like it used to be. Not the riot of copper curls that broke brushes and earned her the nickname “Porcupine.”

Still, he kept looking. Her body had changed. But he knew the math. Knew how old Blitzy really was. Fifteen. They’d aged her up in the registry. Filed her as legally autonomous. So no one would ask questions. So no one would look too closely at a girl who “chose” to vanish or who “consented” to isolation. They hadn’t just changed her so she wouldn’t look like herself. They rewrote time. He kept looking… until he saw it. Just above her right right ear, half-hidden beneath her hairline, was a small crescent-shaped scar. Pale, but still there. Ziv’s breath caught.

That scar. He knew that scar. Blitzy had gotten it falling off a bike when she was eight. She’d refused stitches. Punched him in the arm for suggesting them. Said she wanted a mark “like a lightning bolt.” He used to tease her about it. No database would’ve copied something that small. No Corp surgeon would’ve left it unless they didn’t notice or didn’t think it mattered. But it mattered. Ziv’s legs gave out a little. He sank onto the edge of the bed without meaning to.

“Blitz…” he whispered.

She didn’t stir. But the fevered tremor in her fingers eased—barely. Ziv wiped a hand over his mouth and sat there, torn between fury and disbelief. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. And yet… that scar. That scar had no reason to be on a girl named Eira Thorne. He looked again. At the her legs under the blanket. The new name. The falsified age.

“They didn’t just take you,” he murmured. “They changed you.”

The shape of her jaw. The line of her chin. The way her left eyebrow pulled slightly when she slept. All of it was almost Blitzy. But not. Maybe it was time. Maybe trauma. But her appearance had been curated. Polished into someone else. Someone quiet. Someone obedient. He felt his breath stutter. She was his sister. This was real.

Watson had followed and was standing at the bed, quietly changing the dressing. His movements were slow, practiced, measured. The bandages around her thigh were clean but tight. The wound still inflamed. watson hadn’t removed the prosthetic yet. It was too risky, without her trust, or her consent.

“The wound’s holding,” Watson murmured. “She’s still feverish. Infection’s stable but not breaking.”

Ziv crouched, leaning closer to the bed. “How long has it been like that?”

“Since she ran,” Watson said. “Maybe longer. The prosthetic wasn’t fitted right. Pressure trauma. The skin was trying to reject the interface. Maybe there is also something worng with how it was left to heal, maybe it was intentional, so it would never heal properly ”

Ziv stared at her face. The scar. The red-rimmed eyes fluttering under her lids. He swallowed hard. “They took her leg…” he muttered. “To make it look like she died.”

Watson nodded slowly. “And to make it harder for her to run, I think.”

Ziv’s jaw clenched. “They designed her to stay trapped.”

“Yes,” Watson said softly. “But still, she escaped.”

She stirred. A tremor ran through her frame. Her mouth opened. She mumbled something—words that made no sense at first. “...protocol... I followed... I smiled, I smiled... don’t....don’t reset me....”

Ziv leaned forward, throat tight. “Hey,” he whispered. “You’re safe. You’re not there anymore. You’re with us. You’re home.” She didn’t respond. Her eyes didn’t open. But she flinched. Twitched. Whimpered. Ziv reached toward her hand but stopped....not yet. Not without permission. Instead, he tapped gently on the mattress. Three times. Pause. Two. Pause. One.

Her breath hitched. Then, hoarse and cracked, she whispered:

“...zucchini…”

Ziv’s vision blurred. He covered his mouth with his hand, trying to hold in the sound threatening to break out of him—laugh, cry, scream—all at once. She remembered. Even through everything. Even buried under this persona. The trauma. They hadn’t erased all of her. Ziv leaned in. “Still works,” he whispered. “Still you. I’ve got you, Blitzy. Please come back.”

She whimpered again, shifting beneath the blanket. “No, I said I’d be good....I smiled....I wore the dress… please, don’t shut me in again…” Ziv blinked back tears. “I didn’t mean to look at him…. I didn’t, Father, I swear…. please, please don’t—”

Watson stepped forward quietly. “Ziv. Her fever’s climbing again.”

Ziv nodded, brushing a hand across his face. He turned back toward her and gently touched her blanket-covered shoulder.

“You’re not with them,” he said. “You’re not with Thorne. Or Marrow. You’re with me. I’m your brother.”

She gasped. “No… no, don’t say that… they’ll know… they’re watching… this is a test, it’s a simulation… Alexander’s always watching—”

“It’s not,” Ziv said. “I’m real. This is real. We found you. You made it out.”

She trembled again. Then slowly turned her head toward him, blinking. “I can’t tell what’s real anymore,” she whispered. “Sometimes I’m awake, and they say I’m dreaming. Sometimes I dream and they say it was real. They say the machine’s broken… that I’m leaking.”

“Hey… you’re not broken,” Ziv said, voice rough. “You were hurt. That’s not the same.” Her hand moved beneath the covers—shaky, unsure—and brushed against his fingers. She didn’t pull away. Ziv closed his hand around hers. “I know you don’t remember me,” he said. “I know they taught you not to trust anyone. But I’m your brother. You’re my sister. You’re not alone anymore.”

She stared at him, lips parting. “I don’t… I don’t know. I don’t understand. There’s nobody out there.”

“That was a lie. I’m here,” Ziv said softly. “I always will be, sleep, we will be here when you wake again.” She fell asleep like that—Ziv holding her hand, heart breaking in a whole new way.

Chapter Text

The medbay lights were dimmed to low amber, casting a soft glow. She lay still, curled under the blanket, her face pale and sweat-dampened, but her fever had finally begun to break a little. It would not clear complety before they removed the prosteic and for that, she needed to give an ok. Ziv sat beside her, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped between them. He hadn’t moved in a while. Watson stood nearby, silent, his attention on the readouts, though he wasn’t really reading them anymore.

“She said ‘don’t test me again,’” Ziv said quietly. “Like she thought… I was someone else. Like she was being punished.”

Watson didn’t answer right away. “She called me ‘father.’ Not a name. Not Dad. Just… father. Cold. Controlled.”

Ziv exhaled, slow and tired. “That’s not how she used to talk.”

“No. It’s not.” They fell into silence again, broken only by the beeping of monitors and the occasional hiss of the oxygen regulator.

“She’s Blitzy,” Ziv said, like he still couldn’t quite believe it out loud. “All the tests confirm it. DNA, bloodwork, bone structure... it’s her.”

Watson nodded. “But we have no idea what they did to her.”

Ziv looked at her again. Her mouth moved faintly in sleep. A frown tugged at her brow. Even now, she looked like she was bracing for something. “She doesn’t recognize me,” he said. “Not really.”

“Not yet,” Watson corrected gently. “Her brain’s protecting itself. Fragmented memories. Trauma can wipe a sense of time clean.”

“She’s fifteen now,” Ziv whispered. “ That’s three years of God knows what, and we don’t even know why they took her.”

Watson crossed his arms, gaze steady on the girl. “We will.”

Ziv stood and moved to the far end of the medbay, his arms folding tightly across his chest. His face darkened, jaw clenched. “Thorne did this,” he muttered. “He rewired her, reshaped her…like she was a thing. Like she wasn’t even human. Like she wasn’t my sister.” His voice edged sharper, low with barely checked fury. “I swear, if I ever get my hands on that son of a—”

A faint noise behind them.The subtle shift of sheets. The hitch of breath. Ziv froze. He turned instantly and felt it before he saw it. Blitzy, barely awake, eyes still closed, had gone rigid. Her breathing had turned shallow and tight. Her hand curled under her chin like she was bracing for impact. Ziv’s rage evaporated in an instant. He stepped forward, kneeling beside her bed, his voice immediately soft, steady. “Hey. No, no…it’s okay, Blitz. You’re safe.”

Watson moved closer, already reading the change in her vitals. “She heard your tone,” he said quietly. “Not your words.”

“I know.” Ziv kept his hands at his sides, careful not to move too fast. “You’re not in trouble. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Blitzy’s eyes cracked open slightly…hazy, confused. She looked between them, but didn’t speak. Her body remained tight with tension, ready to flinch.

“No one here’s angry at you,” Ziv said gently. “You’re not being punished. I just… I was talking too loud. That’s on me.” Her lashes fluttered. Like she was trying to decide what was real.

“It’s okay,” Watson added softly. “You can rest. You’re not alone.”

After a long moment, her body sank back onto the pillow. Not fully relaxed, but the tension eased. Her fingers twitched once, then went still again. Ziv sat back on his heels, exhaling slowly through his nose.

Watson adjusted her monitor and dimmed the lights a little more. “Even when she’s out of danger, her body still listens for threat.”

“She’s wired for it,” Ziv murmured. “She reads everything. tone, pacing, even how I move. That wasn’t fear of me. That was… conditioning.”

Watson nodded quietly. “Exactly”

“I can’t raise my voice around her. Not even when I’m angry for her.”

“Not yet,” Watson said. “Maybe not for a long time. She has to learn what safety sounds like again.”

Ziv rubbed a hand across his mouth. “I want to bring the Boyz in . But…”

“One at a time,” Watson advised. “Let her set the pace. Right now she needs stillness. Familiarity. Calm.”

Ziv nodded slowly. “You’re right. This isn’t a rescue mission. This is recovery.”

‘’It is’’ watson said, ‘’next time she wakes, we will need to remove the prostic. I have to acees the damage beneath it, even if she fights us’’

‘’I understand’’ziv said. Let try to make her understand firsrt, you gained some trust with her, we don’t want to destroy that.’’ Watson nodded. Ziv looked back at her, her form small and still beneath the medbay blanket. His voice broke a little. “She thought I was hurting her.”

“She didn’t know where she was,” Watson said. “And whatever was done to her… she probably learned to expect pain. That’s what worries me the most.”

“She was apologizing to you, you said?” Ziv asked, jaw tight. “Like it was automatic.”

“yes.” Watson’s voice was heavy. “she been very sick, so I don’t know if it something that has been triggered by that, but my asumtions is that it is not.”

Ziv clenched his fists briefly, then forced them open again. “ we will have to wait for that.” I cant belive she back…. how am I going to help her… I just…

“You will be able to, that big brother instingst will kick in,” Watson said. ‘’Just stay. Be here. Let her see your face, hear your voice. Familiar things. That’s the beginning, the rest will come to you and we be here to help”

Ziv nodded again, eyes stinging. He looked at her for a long time. “Do you think… any part of her still remembers who she was?”

Watson was quiet for a moment, then said gently, “I think something in her got her out. Whatever they did, it didn’t break her completely.”

Ziv’s voice cracked. “She’s my sister, Watson. She was not dead, she was taken and I dident know, I dident do anything ”

“I know,” Watson said softly. “But she’s here now. That matters more than anything.”

Another silence stretched. And in it.. just a whisper, barely audible...Blitzy murmured something. Ziv leaned in fast, as did Watson. Her lips moved again, faint and breathless.

Ziv blinked. “Zucchini? Really blitzy, our old passcode….. ”

Watson didn’t say a word. He just reached out and placed a steady hand on Ziv’s shoulder. “She still wanted to go home,” he said.

And for a long while, neither of them moved. Both of them keeping quiet vigil beside a girl they knew and didn’t know at all, clinging to the fragile hope that someday, somehow, she might remember who she truly was. When she did, that home would still be here.

The tunnels buzzed—not with machinery, but with something tighter. Sharper.

Expectation. Fear.

The word had moved fast. A whisper at first. A flicker over comms. Then a surge, a pulse.

“It’s her.”
“It might be.”
“Did you hear—Blitzy?”

By the time Ziv reached the upper levels, the Boyzz were already clustered in a jagged semicircle outside the command hub.

Jammer’s visor flickered in short, glitching bursts. Watzoo’s servos clicked and jittered from how tightly he twisted his hands. Even Ninjzz, silent and still, stood forward enough to hear. His optics glowed with something between hope and dread.

Ziv didn’t speak right away. His shoulders were tense, breath shallow. His expression was set in something close to stone, but his eyes told a different story. Stormed-over

Jammer stepped forward. “Z.Z….is it true? Did we really….?”

“….find Blitzy?” Watzoo cut in, voice pitching up like a modem spike.

Ziv raised a hand. The circle fell quiet. The air snapped still.

“We ran the blood,” Ziv said. His voice didn’t crack, but it was close. “It’s her.”

A long silence. The kind that hangs like breath caught in the throat.

Watzoo’s vocalizer clicked. “But?”

Ziv’s jaw tightened. “She doesn’t remember. Not everything. They… changed her. She goes by a different name now.” He paused. Let it settle. “Eira.” at least for now.

Jammer’s visor dimmed a fraction. “Could it be a trap? A deepfake? Something planted?”

Ziv hesitated. Then, with quiet conviction: “No. I’ve seen her….. It’s her. She doesn’t know it yet… but it’s her.”

Watzoo blinked fast. “Does she know who you are?”

Ziv shook his head once. “Not really. But she said the code word. Ours, the one we use on the computers, zucchini…”

A low exhale rippled through the group. Zucchini. Only two person could’ve known that.

Ninjzz finally spoke, voice softer than usual. “Then what do we do now?”

Ziv straightened. His face was calm now,but only because he was holding something deep and volatile beneath the surface. “We wait,” he said. “No one goes near the medbay unless Watson says it’s okay. No surprises. No stories. No pushing.”

He looked around the circle, meeting each of their optics, one by one. “She’s Blitzy. She’s also been through hell. And if we want her back … then we let her come back to us on her own time.”

The Boyzz nodded slowly, solemn. None of them argued. For once, even D’nerd didn’t fidget. Even Jammer stayed quiet.

Then the intercom pinged. Watson’s voice came through. Calm, clipped, but with something beneath it. Something strained. “Ziv. She’s waking up.”

Blitzy whimpered, curled inward on the cot like she was bracing for impact. Her arms were drawn tight to her chest, every inch of her tense with remembered pain. The stump beneath the bandages throbbed, it was hot, swollen, angry. The prosthetic was still attached, though it should’ve come off hours ago, well days ago. The fever clung to her skin.

Watson was there. Quiet. Focused. He knelt beside the cot, adjusting the gauze at her thigh with careful, gloved hands, every motion measured, every touch gentle. Ziv entered silently and dropped into the chair beside her cot. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, watching her like she might vanish if he blinked.

“…you’re still here,” she rasped. Her eyes were barely open, cracked slits against the dim light. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Watson didn’t flinch. “I’m here,” he said simply.

“No one stays after a fail-cycle,” she mumbled. “They reset or remove. You’re supposed to leave.”

Ziv’s jaw clenched. Watson stilled.

“I was noncompliant,” she continued, voice thin, threading through air like smoke. “My protocol rating dropped. I lost posture. I ran. I ran…”

Watson finished securing the gauze and looked up. “You did the right thing,” he said gently. “You didn’t fail.”

“Failure is not an option,” she whispered. “They were waiting for me. I was getting a reset. Going back to baseline.”

Ziv leaned forward. “Blitzy…”

She flinched at the name. Drifted again.

“I said I’d be good,” she murmured. “Please… not again…”

“Hey,” Ziv said softly, voice tight with emotion. “You’re not there anymore. You’re with me. You’re safe.”

Her eyes darted, unfocused. Her fingers twitched, searching for restraints. Ziv tapped the side of the cot. Three taps. Pause. Two. Pause. One.

She froze. Then, hoarse and shaking, she whispered: “…zucchini…”

“That’s you,” he said. “Still you. I’ve got you.”

She shifted again. Tears slid silently from the corners of her eyes.

“I didn’t mean to look at him,” she whispered. “I didn’t… Father, I swear. Please don’t shut me in. Please don’t take my name…”

Ziv swallowed hard against the ache in his throat. “You’re not theirs,” he said fiercely. “You never were.”

Watson checked the vitals, then looked up. “The infection’s spreading. If we don’t remove the prosthetic, she could lose more than the leg. We need to take it off. Now.”

Ziv nodded. “What do you need?”

“Help keeping her still. She might fight us.” Blitzy stirred as Watson pulled the blanket back. The bandages were soaked, dark with fluid.

When his hand reached for the prosthetic, her eyes flew open. “No….don’t take it….please.. I need it….I’ll fail again…”

Ziv caught her hand. “You’re not failing anything. You’re safe.”

“They said it was my fault,” she gasped. “That I wasn’t calibrated. That the pain was part of the lesson. I smiled through it. I tried. Even when it bled…”

Watson paused, hand resting on the latch.

“I begged them to fix it, but I got punished for asking,” she said, trembling. “They said pain builds discipline.”

Ziv’s voice was rough. “You don’t have to do that anymore.”

“If it comes off without clearance, I destabilize. I regress. They said I’ll be remade.”

Watson’s voice was gentle. “Do you want us to stop?”

She blinked. Confused. Stunned. “I get to say stop?”

“Yes,” Ziv said, holding her hand. “You always get to say stop.”

Tears welled in her eyes. deep down she knew, it had to come off, the pain was telling her to let them help.  A small nod. “Okay,” she whispered. “Just… wait a second. I need a second.”

They waited. Ziv didn’t let go. “You’re doing so good,” he said softly. “We’re right here.”

Blitzy clenched her jaw. Then turned to Watson and nodded. The prosthetic got loose and her whole body went rigid. A sound escaped her lips. Not quite a scream. A whimper. A cry of pain. small.. Watson worked quickly, his hands steady. He cleaned the raw, inflamed socket, disinfected the tissue, checked for damage. The wound was worse than they expected—red, blistered, seeping with infection.

“I’ll do better,” she whispered. “Just don’t reset me. Please. I don’t want the white room…”

“You’re not going back,” Ziv said fiercely. “No one’s resetting you.”

Her hand twitched toward him. Weak. Hesitant. He took it in both of his own.

“I had to keep it on,” she murmured. “If they saw… if it was off, I’d be marked defective.”

“You’re not defective,” Ziv said. “You’re brave. You always were.”

A beat of silence. Her voice was faint.“…I didn’t mean to run away.”

Ziv pressed his forehead to her knuckles. “I’m glad you did. You’re back here...with me.”

By the time Watson finished, she had drifted again, too tired, too fevered to stay awake. Her breathing was ragged but slower. The tension in her limbs had begun to ease. Ziv didn’t move. He stayed beside her, still and watchful, gaze fixed on the girl curled on the cot. The girl who’d been torn apart and stitched together by monsters wearing science like skin. The girl who used to chase him around the garage with a wrench twice her size, who once ate two frozen burritos in one sitting just to prove she could.

His sister. Not dead. Taken.

When her fingers slipped from the blanket, twitching in sleep, he caught them, held them gently in both of his. “I’ve got you,” he whispered, so soft only the walls could hear. “And I’m not letting go again.” Behind him, Watson moved slowly through the shadows, cleaning instruments with careful hands. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

Blitzy whimpered once in her sleep—a ghost of the girl she’d been, of the pain she still carried. Ziv squeezed her fingers, grounding her with touch, with presence, with promise. “You’re home,” he whispered.

Even if she didn’t believe it yet or remember what that meant.

Chapter Text

Blitzy lay curled on her side beneath the blankets, the stump of her leg freshly bandaged, propped up on a cushion. Fever still kissed her skin, but the worst of it had passed. Her breaths came a little easier now. She hadn’t cried out in over an hour. Watson had taken the contacts out, reviling her green eyes again, Zulander green, another part taken back from the facade they had build.  

On the other side of the glass, Ziv stood with one hand pressed to the window, the other curled at his side. He hadn’t moved in a while. Not because he was frozen—because he didn’t want to miss a second.

Three years…..Three years of grief that sat in his chest like rust. Of guilt he hadn’t let himself name. Of convincing himself she was gone. That there was no body, no signal, no trace—but still… gone.

 Now she was here. Alive. Bruised. Programmed. Hurt in ways he couldn’t yet grasp, but alive.

“She twitched earlier,” he said softly. “Her fingers. Like she was reaching for something.”

Watson stood beside him, calm and quiet as ever. “That’s a good sign. The fever’s breaking. Now that the infection’s contained, her body’s not in survival mode anymore. She’ll start waking more… more aware next time.”

Ziv nodded slowly. “So we’ll finally get to meet her. For real.”

Watson gave a quiet sound of agreement. “What we’ve seen so far… a lot of it was fever. But not all of it. She’s been showing us who she is. Or who they made her be.”

Ziv’s eyes went glassy. “She remembered me. Even if she didn’t know it was me.”

That settled in his chest like warmth and ache tangled together. He hadn’t let himself imagine this. Hadn’t let himself hope that the girl he’d tucked into a blanket during storms, the one who used to climb into his bed when nightmares hit, would still be somewhere inside this stranger with bruises and a borrowed name. But she was there. She had to be.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Ziv said quietly. “None of us do. But… being there when she wakes up? Talking soft? Not touching her unless she reaches first? I think that’s helped.”

“She’s stopped panicking as much,” Watson agreed. “Your voice calms her. And Genesis staying out of sight was smart, too many unfamiliar faces at once could trigger regression.” Watson shifted, resting a hand on the railing. “You’ve already done more than you know, Ziv. She may not have all the memories, but her body recognizes safety. She didn’t pull away when you held her hand.”

“She fell asleep holding it,” Ziv said. His voice dropped, soft and stunned. “I almost didn’t want to breathe.” He stared at her now, the way her lips parted slightly with each breath, her brow still furrowed even in sleep. “I love her so much,” he said. “I just… I hate that I stopped looking. That I believed she was gone.”

“You were grieving,” Watson said gently. you were not yourself, you had to stop. it wasent something you could've know. 

“I should’ve known,” Ziv muttered. “I should’ve felt it. That she was alive.” He looked up, eyes damp. “I let her down.”

Watson didn’t argue. He didn’t offer false comfort when it would not be received by ziv anyway. He just said, “Then be here now. She needs you more than ever.”

Ziv looked back at the girl in the bed. “she’s here,” he whispered, “and I can’t stop looking.”

Watson said nothing. Just stood beside him.

Ziv’s voice sharpened. “I know what they did, not everything. I seen how she responded.” “They rewired her. Built her to obey. And when she cried, they punished her. When she bled, they told her it was her fault.” He closed his eyes. “And she believed them.”

Watson crossed the room. “She asked for permission to say stop.”

“She doesn’t know she’s allowed to be human,” Ziv said. “They stripped that away.” “She flinched when I said her name,” he added, voice quieter now. “Not like she recognized it. More like it hurt.”

Ziv leaned forward, resting his elbows on the windowsill. “She used to talk with her hands. When she was excited. Or nervous. She’d tap her thumbs together—real fast. You remember?”

Watson nodded.

“She hasn’t done that,” Ziv said. “Not once.”

Watosn turned from the console. “It’s going to take time.”

“I don’t care how long it takes,” Ziv said. “I just… I want her to know. That she’s loved. That we didn’t forget her. That I …..He broke off. His voice caught.

Wataons voice was quieter now. “You don’t have to. She’ll come back on her own. You just have to make sure she’s still safe when she does.”

Ziv nodded slowly. “We’re not calling her Eira. Not in this room. Not ever.”

Watson moved beside him, standing shoulder to shoulder. “She doesn’t believe she belongs yet,” he said. “But she will.”

“She was just a kid,” Ziv whispered. “Twelve years old when they took her. She didn’t deserve this.”

“No one does,” Watson said. Genesis is going though theirs systems. There may be video. Logs. Medical records. We don’t have the full picture yet.”

Ziv gave a small, bitter sound. “I don’t need the picture. I’ve seen enough.”

Through the glass, Blitzy whimpered and shifted again. Ziv watched her. His Blitzy. Just… his little sister. Fragile and fierce. Torn apart and stitched back together by people who saw her as a project. A possession. Somehow, she still had enough left to whisper “zucchini.” Ziv didn’t cry. Not now. But his throat ached with it.

The worst of the fever had passed, though her skin still burned faintly, and sweat clung to her collarbone like a second skin. Blitzy stirred beneath the blanket. Not sharply. No flinching. Just a slow drift upward into wakefulness.

Eyes cracked open, breath catching. Her throat was dry. Wat…watson was there. Sitting exactly as he had for hours. Quiet. Still. The soft glow from the monitor traced tired shadows beneath his eyes.

Her gaze found him slowly, without alarm. “…You stayed.”

His voice was soft, like he didn’t want to startle her. “Yeah. Still here.”

She blinked. Heavy-lidded. As if even that motion took focus. “This isn’t the machine again, right?”

Watson’s systems tightened. “No. This is real. You’re not in any kind of system, not hooked into anything. You’re in the medbay. You’re safe.”

She furrowed her brow slightly. Not frightened , just uncertain. Like she wasn’t sure if she was awake or still inside some controlled loop.“I don’t… I don’t remember getting here.”

“You ran,” Watson said gently. “You were hurt, and you ran. You made it to us.”

She turned her head slightly. “Was it… was that allowed?”

“for them, no, problay not” Watson said carefully, “but you did run,  You came to us anyway. Ziv brought you here.”

The name didn’t land with clarity. She looked off again. “Ziv. That sounds… like it should mean something.”

“He’s your brother,” Watson said, keeping his voice low. “Ziv Zulander. He’s here too. He’s been staying with you, every night. Right there.”

Her eyes moved slowly. And there he was .. asleep, hunched awkwardly in a chair. A blanket half-fallen from his shoulder. One arm crooked beneath his head.

“He,” she said softly. “I thought he’d look different, I don’t know why.”

Watson almost smiled. “He probably thought the same about you.”

There was a beat of silence. “Is he mad?” she asked quietly.

“Mad?” Watson blinked. “No. No, Blitz. He’s not mad at you.”

Her voice thinned. “I......I ran. I shouldn’t have—”

“You broke free,” Watson said, firm but calm. “You kept going. He’s not mad. He’s… relieved. Grieving. Furious for what was done to you. But not at you.”

She turned her face slightly toward the pillow, pressing her cheek against the cool part of the fabric. “I don’t really understand what’s happening.”

“That’s okay,” Watson said. “You don’t have to. Not right away. You’ve been through a lot.”

Her eyes closed for a long moment. When they opened again, they were glassy, but clearer.“Something was wrong with my leg, wasn’t it?”

Watson hesitated, then nodded once. “Yeah. It was infected. Badly. The prosthetic you had was damaged, maybe even designed to hurt you. You were in pain for a long time.”

She didn’t speak for a moment. Her fingers twitched beneath the blanket. “I remember trying not to limp. I thought… if I walked wrong, they’d know. They said I wasn’t calibrated. That I was—” Her voice caught. “—defective.”

“You weren’t,” Watson said firmly. “You aren’t.”

She looked down, eyes drifting to the blanket. “I thought I’d get in trouble for taking it off.”

“You didn’t take it off,” he said. “You asked. That’s different. And even if you had, you still wouldn’t be in trouble. Not here.”

She swallowed. The thought took time to absorb. Watson stood and moved slowly to the counter. He poured water into a cup. When he offered it, her hand trembled badly trying to lift it. Watson caught her hand in his and helped her sip. “Thanks,” she whispered.

“You’re still warm,” he said, brushing the damp hair from her temple with the back of his hand. “But the fever’s fading. You’re coming through it. A little more every hour.”

She studied his face. Her gaze was searching now…. not vacant. Curious. Cautious. “Do I know you?” she asked, suddenly.

Watson paused. “Yes. You did. And you still do, in a way. We met a long time ago. But I don’t expect you to remember.”

There was a long silence. Her voice dropped. “Did I fail again?”

“No,” Watson said. “You haven’t failed anything. You got yourself out. You got help. That’s not failure…. that’s survival.”

Her fingers brushed the edge of the blanket, as if testing the texture — or maybe just confirming that it was there. That she was there.

“Feels like I dreamed it all,” she murmured.

Watson didn’t answer. He just sat back down beside her and took her hand again. Warm. Fevered. Still too small in his.

He held it, steady and quiet.

Waiting for her to come back a little more. 

Time passed. The medbay stayed hushed, the low sounds of machinery like a background hum.  

Ziv stirred in the chair beside her bed, not sharply, but with the groggy, aching shuffle of someone who’d slept wrong in the same position for too many nights.

His neck popped when he straightened. He blinked blearily, then froze when he saw her watching him. Her eyes were open. More than that, she was there. Still pale. Still weak. But conscious. Present.

He leaned forward, slow. “Hey,” he said softly, voice rough from sleep. “Hey. You’re awake.”

She didn’t shrink away. Didn’t look confused. Just watched him. Quiet. Studying. “…You’re real,” she said, her voice quiet. Testing.

“I’m real,” he said. “And you’re safe. You’re here with us now. No one’s going to hurt you.”

She blinked. The words didn’t seem to bounce off this time. They didn’t slide away. They settled …not fully understood, but received. “Okay,” she whispered.

Ziv didn’t move closer. Didn’t crowd her. He just sat in the space they shared --- his presence quiet and steady. After a long moment, he rubbed a hand down his face, tried to blink away the sleep.

He glanced toward the door, reluctant. “I need to go check on a couple things,” he said, his tone soft, apologetic. “Just some base stuff. I won’t be gone long.”

Her expression shifted ….the faintest flicker of something uncertain. Not fear. Not quite. More like… bracing. “I’ll be back,” Ziv added quickly. “Soon. I promise.”

She hesitated. Then, slowly, gave a faint nod.

Ziv stood. He looked to Watson. They exchanged a look, quiet, trusting. then he looked back at her one more time. “You’re doing good, Blitzy,” he said, voice low. “Better than you know.”

And then he slipped out, quiet as a shadow, leaving her in the dimmed medbay, the steady hum of the machines, and the calm, quiet presence of Watson still at her side.

Eira sat propped against the pillows, her body thin and trembling beneath the blankets. Her cheeks were pale, her lips cracked from fever, and sweat clung to her brow in a dull sheen. The blanket had been folded just above her waist, the bandages on her leg freshly changed.

The fever hadn’t broken entirely, but it had eased enough that her eyes stayed open longer now. She didn’t look at the wound. She didn’t need to.

Wat… Watson had cleaned it. She could tell. Wrapped it. Handled it. There had been no pain from that…. It was unusual.

But that wasn’t the part that mattered. First came the cleaning. Then the pain. Then the electric shock. Then the voice. Then the white light. No sleep. Just floating. She waited for it now, breath shallow... for the speaker to click to life, for that voice to pour in overhead. Calm. Detached. Always him. “You are my daughter, Eira. There is nothing out there.”

Her stomach twisted. The memory was sharp, static humming behind the speaker, her father’s voice wrapped in manufactured warmth, praise twisted into punishment. That was when it always began. The injections. The chemicals. Then the days disappeared into fog. Into silence. Maybe this place was the same. Maybe they were just waiting for her to hold still. To stop asking. To become small enough to manage. That was usually when the float came.

She didn’t cry. Crying made it worse. Crying got logged. Crying triggered restraints. She had learned long ago: don’t cry, only if they ask her to.

Watson sat at the edge of the cot, methodically preparing clean gauze, balm, and wraps. His movements were slow, precise, gentle. Nothing like them. Maybe he wanted to see if she could do it herself... “I can do it,” she rasped, voice raw.

“You shouldn’t,” Watson said, not looking up. “Not in your state. Let me.”

Her eyes flicked to him, guarded. But he didn’t sound clinical. Not amused, not cold. He wasn’t wearing gloves for show. He wasn’t watching her posture or waiting for a fault. He was just there. Waiting. Something inside her, small and scared, it recognized that.

She hesitated, then gave a single nod and pulled the blanket aside. Watson worked carefully. The balm was cool. His touch was steady. He avoided the angriest edges of the wound. When she winced, he stopped. Waited. Gave her space to breathe.

“You’re not going to log it?” she asked quietly.

He glanced up. “Log what?”

“My reaction,” she said. “The hesitation. My… noncompliance.”

Watson met her eyes. “I’m not here to measure you. I’m here to care for you.”

There was a silence. She didn’t know how to sit in it. they were not looging anything?“…Even if I cried in my sleep?” she asked.

His pause was heavy, filled with understanding. “Not here,” he said. “It’s not like that here.”

She looked away, eyes tightening. “I don’t know how to talk to you.”

“That’s okay.”

“I only know how to talk to Alexander. To Father. I know what tone they expect. What phrasing passes review. What sentences sound correct.”

“You don’t have to perform,” Watson said softly. “Not here. You can just… be. You can talk, or not talk. Either way, you're safe.”

She looked at him again, lost. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to,” he said gently. “Not yet. We’ll take it one piece at a time.” He handed her a cup of water. She took it with trembling hands, sipped carefully.

“Did the number code work?” she asked after a long silence. “Did it actually work? Or did you just say that to calm me down?”

Watson leaned forward slightly. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

She didn’t answer. “You ran,” he said. “You got out. We found you. You remember more than you think.”

“I didn’t know if it was real,” she whispered. “I thought it might be another test. Another simulation. But I had to try something.”

“And it worked,” he said. “You made it far enough for us to reach you. That’s what matters.”

She drew in a shaky breath. “I couldn’t run far. Not fast.”

“You ran far enough.”

She went quiet, her eyes glassy. “I want to believe you,” she said softly.

“Then believe me.”

There was a beat of silence, and then: “I was on my way to the machine. I remember the prep room. The light. I blinked…and now I’m here. It doesn’t make sense. It feels like a trick.”

Watson didn’t look away. “It’s not a trick.”

“But it feels like one. That’s how it always started….before the reset. Before they pulled me apart again.”

“I know it feels wrong, right now” he said. “But you’re not in that place anymore. This is real. And you’re safe here.”

She didn’t fully nod, but she stopped arguing. Stopped curling away. “I want to believe you,” she repeated, smaller now. “But I, …. I don’t know how.”

“You don’t have to know how yet,” Watson replied. “Just rest in the maybe. That’s enough for now.”

Her voice came again, quieter still. “Why are you being kind to me?”

“Because you deserve kindness.”

“No one’s ever said that.”

“They should have,” Watson said. “I knew the old you. I’d like to know you now, too.”

He reached for her wrist again, gently checking her pulse. “You’ve been awake for a while. How’s the pain?”

“It’s… manageable.”

He raised an eyebrow. “From one to ten?”

She hesitated. “…Seven.”

“That’s too high.”

“I can take it. I’ve had worse.”

“That doesn’t mean you should now.”

She dropped her gaze. “I didn’t want to sound like I was complaining.”

“You’re not. You’re in pain. I’d like to give you something to help.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said quickly. “I’m not—”

But he stopped her with a quiet voice. “Yes. I do have to. You haven’t had choices for a long time. But you have them here. I’m offering. If you don’t want it, I won’t give it.”

Her throat worked. “But will I float?” The words came out and made her freeze.

Watson didn’t flinch. “What does floating mean to you?”

She closed her eyes. Her voice shrank. “It’s when they gave me something. After treatment. When I was in remission. He would ask questions — right after the injection, but before I was all the way gone. While I could still hear. Still try to hold on.”

Watson stayed silent. Still. “He’d sit close. Touch my face. Tell me I was doing well. Ask if I remembered names. Faces. If I was slipping again. I’d try to answer, but my mouth wouldn’t work right. I’d start saying things I was thinking. Things I shouldn’t say.” She opened her eyes, unfocused. “He wanted to catch the moment I stopped being me. He liked that moment.”

“I remember grass,” she whispered. “It was green. Soft. Warm. I think there was sun. I said it out loud during one of those moments. I didn’t mean to. I just did.” She swallowed hard. “He said it wasn’t real. Said it was a false memory. That I was malfunctioning. That if I kept saying things like that, I’d go back into the machine.”

Watson had waited before speaking, feeling it was good to get some insight from her and let her speak freely, maybe for the first time in a long while. It was heartbreaking.

His voice gentle. “I think it might be real.”

She looked at him, startled. “There’s a field above the hideout,” he said. “Covered in wild grass. A little overgrown. It’s always been there.” Her breath caught. “You used to lie there with a book and a blanket. Sometimes snacks you stole from the kitchen. Ziv said you’d stay out until it was dark.”

She blinked. “So… it could be real.”

“We’ll figure it out together.”

She didn’t move. Just stared. “That’s not nothing,” she whispered.

“No,” Watson said. “It’s not.”

“I don’t want to float,” she said again. “I don’t want to fade. I don’t want someone in my head while I can’t say no.”

“You won’t,” Watson said gently. “Not while I’m here.”

“Even if I remember something bad?”

“Especially then.”

“You don’t want me to tell you?”

“I want you to choose. You don’t owe me anything. But I hear you.”

She looked at him, trembling. “Okay.” She looked uncertain. “It’s just for pain?”

He nodded. “No sedative. No psychotropics. It’ll make you a little drowsy at most. But you’ll stay clear. It’s not like… anything they gave you.”

“Just... no float.”

“No float,” he promised. “Nothing like what he gave you. Ever.”

She exhaled. Let herself lie back. Watson administered the dose gently. Her breathing slowed. The pain ebbed. Her thoughts stayed clear. No voice.  No drift …. No silence forced down her throat. Just Watson.

“Floating,” she murmured. “I hate floating.”

“I know,” he said. “They gave you drugs to control you. Not to help you.”

She nodded faintly. He waited. She glanced toward the lights, barely whispering, “Will everything still be here when I wake up again?”

“Yes,” Watson said. “We’ll all be here. You’ll be here. This isn’t a simulation.” He added gently, “Sleep well. I’ll be here when you wake.”

And for the first time in three years, no voice whispered through the speaker. No intercom crackled to life. No command followed her into sleep. Only Watson. Only warmth. Only choice. she closed her eyes. Maybe it was real. She wasn’t sure yet. But for now, it was enough…. somewhere in the quiet, she began to hope.

Chapter Text

The air in the console room felt stale. The low hum of electricity buzzed through the walls like a distant storm still building. Light from the monitors cast Genesis and Ninjzz in cold silhouette — blue and pale against metal. Ziv sat hunched forward, elbows on his knees, eyes locked on the screen as lines of encrypted data crawled past. Hours. They’d been at it for hours. Still nothing definitive. Still no proof. But they were close. Genesis said so.

A soft chime broke the tension — not from the system, but from Ziv’s comm. He answered instantly. Watson’s voice came through, low but steady. “Just checked on her again. Fever’s down. I talked to her a little, gave her something mild for the pain…. nothing heavy. She fought it at first, but… she’s resting now. She’s sleeping. I’m logging what she said. But she’s stable.”

Ziv closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “Thanks.”

Genesis didn’t look back. “I’ve breached their primary data node. Thorne House mainframe. It’s patchy, but I’ve got something.”

Ziv moved in. “What is it?”

Genesis turned slightly, just enough to meet his eye. “I think we’ve got a connection thread to their house. We’ll be able to hear... It should be coming in… ” Then the voices came. Filtered through encryption. Digitized, but unmistakable.

Dr. Edward Thorne. “...she has to be out there. I don’t understand. She couldn’t have made it a day…”

Alexander Marrow. “The question is whether someone was waiting for her.”

Ziv’s jaw locked as he moved to the console. Genesis handed him a headset without a word. He pressed it hard against his ears, breath shallow. Ninjzz stood near the wall, arms folded, unnervingly still.

Thorne: “No alarms. No flare trails. No interference. If she escaped, she did it alone.”

Marrow: “She shouldn’t have had the will to run. If she did, she’s fragmenting.”

Thorne: “She’s remembering, most likely or something like it.”

The word hit like a fist. Remembering. Genesis froze, fingers hovering mid-keystroke.

Marrow (flat): “The machine was never perfect. Memory isn’t just data. It’s sensory. Emotional.”

Ziv felt the words crawl down his spine.

Marrow: “We should’ve put her in more. Or deeper.”

Thorne: “She was twelve when we began the deep programming.”

Marrow: “And clearly we weren’t good enough., we should have been more aware int the trial period, we know she was slipping, that why we push her extra hard”

The silence after that was long. Rotten.

Marrow: “Could she be with Zulander?”

Thorne: “He believes she’s dead. If he knew, do you think he’d be this quiet?”

Ziv’s grip on the console edge tightened. NO , he wouldent have, if he had know he would have burned them to the ground long ago.

Marrow: “Then where is she?”

Thorne: “I tore her room apart. Nothing. No outside contamination. No contact. There was nothing in there. we havent found her, she is either dead or someone has her hidden ”

Marrow: “it such a shame , She was elegant. Obedient. No trace of the rebel girl she’d been. She wore the role like she was born for it.”

Ziv yanked the headset off. His breathing was ragged. Ninjzz stepped forward and, without asking, activated the external speaker. The feed spilled into the room. Unfiltered. Loud. Too real.

Thorne:“You could’ve taken her. You had full access. But you waited. Why?”

Marrow: “I liked the edge. Watching her teeter. I came close a few times over the years… but I wanted full control and she was to young at first. But she was getting there. That she had the will to run, That was my error, I should have made my move sooner. ”

Ziv’s voice cracked low through clenched teeth. “I’m going to kill him.” His hand trembled. “He waited for what…. She is still a child, she is 15, what did he…

Then Thorne said something that made the whole room still.

Thorne : “...the notebook.”

Genesis leaned forward. Listening closely now. Ziv also stilling in his rant, listing.

Marrow: “What about it?”

Thorne: “She gave it to me. Just before the escape. Handed it over like an offering. Pages filled with affirmations, obedience lines, reflections. everything we wanted to see.”

Marrow:“And?”

Thorne (flat): “It’s curated. Controlled. A mirror. Too clean. She gave us what we wanted to see.”

Marrow: “You think she faked it?”

Thorne: “She edited herself, maybe she removed reflections. Trimmed the gaps. It was a script. A performance.”

Genesis’s optics narrowed. “She faked it.” Ninjzz gave a low, breathless exhale. “She played them.?” Ziv didn't know, but it sounded like she would do, if she had to. She always been as smart as him, but was always forceful in the way she did things. being controlled as she had, properly made her try to fight back in smarter ways. that was good, that meant she been fighting them all this time.  

Marrow: “We still have it. I read it myself. It was perfect. No warning signs.”

Thorne: “Exactly. It was too perfect. She gave us the version of herself we’d programmed — and we believed it. is should have more of her rembering, but those are missing, if we look back, those should be there, somewhere and they not”

A pause.

Thorne (cold): “she was not follwing her programming, I should’ve taken her to the machine the moment she handed it over.”

Marrow: darm it, that means we don’t know what she will do free, maybe she had somebody waiting for her, but we have to find her. We’re going to the police. Frame it as a missing daughter for now, you will have a good angle for this. The puplic thinks she is your daugther. If she’s alive, we’ll bring her back that way.”

Thorne: “ It is a good idea, but we have to be carfull we don’t get checked. If she is out there we pull her in. get her back to baseline. Piece by piece. Recondition. Strip whatever’s returned. Reinforce compliance.” I want my daugther back.

That word — daugther — hit the air like bile. Ziv slammed his fist into the console. Sparks jumped from the edge. The terminal flared, warning tones flashing — but no one moved to stop him. “I swear to god,” he breathed. “She is not your daughter.”

The screen flickered. The feed cut, but the mainframe keept wrinig a transcript of their convasation, most where details on how they would spin the story to the press..  It didn’t feel like victory. Ziv stood there, shaking.

He was remembering every time she whispered '' I’ll be better'' through gritted teeth. Every time she flinched at the word machine. Every time her voice shrank to say I didn’t mean to break the rules. How Thorne had turned his sister into twisted version of a daughter. The way marrow talked about her…. ziv was livid with anger…. He pulled himself together and followd what was going on.

Genesis said softly, “They didn’t break her. She fooled them.”

Ziv’s voice came rough. “The notebook, if it has missing pages… they were probably her. The real her. The part she hid.”

“She gave them exactly what they wanted,” Genesis said. “Let them think they won.”

“She turned her own captivity into camouflage,” Ninjzz added quietly. “That’s strategy. sounds like blitzy”

Ziv stepped back from the console. She played the role. She planned the moment. She waited for the crack in the wall…  and she ran. “She’s in there,” he whispered. “Still in there.” For the first time since bringing her home, he let himself believe it wasn’t all damage. That it hadn’t all been taken. She hadn’t survived by accident, but she survived because she was Blitzy.  she was his brilliant sister.  Ziv turned. “If they have the notebook… if she ripped pages out…”

“She might’ve kept them,” Genesis finished. “We’ll ask. When she’s ready.”

Ziv nodded, then steadied himself. “How long until we’re through their deeper systems? They talked about programming, I want to know what that means.”

Genesis checked the data tunnel. “Six to eight hours, max. I’m in the outer shell now. Once we breach the central mirror node, we’ll have full access — videos, overlays, neural conditioning schedules. Everything they did to her.”

Ziv swallowed down the fury. “Good. We’ll see what they tried to do, what happened to her.” Ziv’s hand slowly dropped from the console, knuckles scraped raw against the edge. He breathed in once. Shaky. “When we get in… I want it all. Everything they did to her.”

Genesis looked away from the screen to ziv. “You’ll get it. But not all at once.”

Ziv blinked. “What does that mean?”

Genesis’s tone didn’t shift. Cool. Controlled. “It means I’ll and the others will filter it. You’ll get the whole picture. the framework, the records, the schedule. But some of the raw data, videos… I’ll hold back. At least at first.”

Ziv’s shoulders squared. “No. No, I need to see it. I need to know—”

“You will,” Genesis cut in. “But not right now, ziv.”

Ziv stepped forward, jaw clenched. “She’s my sister, I want to know what happened to her.”

“She’s a trauma survivor and more,” Genesis said flatly. “And you’re exhausted, Ziv. You haven’t slept more than two hours in three days. You’ve been splitting your time between console duty and the medbay. You’re running on adrenaline and grief, and if you go through that footage in that state—”

“I need to know what they did to her,” Ziv snapped. “I need to understand how deep it went.”

“You will,” Genesis repeated. Then quieter, “But if I show you the raw logs of their reconditioning or whatever it is we will find,  you’re going to want to kill something, you have a break down. And we can’t afford that right now.”

Ziv’s throat worked. “You’re asking me to stay in the dark with some of this.”

“I’m asking you,” Genesis said, more carefully now, “to stay functional and to concentrate on blitzy.” The silence stretched.

“You are the one she need recognize, to understand that you are safe” Genesis continued. “You’re the one she looks for when she wakes up. She doesn’t trust anything here, but you, she wants to trust. You need to be there for her. Not shattered by what they did, not suddenly fall apart, that wont help any of us.”

Ziv turned his face away — not to hide, but to breathe. To stop the burn rising behind his eyes.

“we not saying you’ll never see it,” ninjzz said. “Just not right now. Not until I’ve had time to flag the worst of it. Structure the feed. Give it context. You get the truth, Ziv. I promise. But not the kind that rips you open while your hands are still shaking.” A beat. “You’re no good to her if you’re broken too.”

Ziv didn’t answer right away. The words scraped against every instinct he had — to protect, to know, to shield her by understanding exactly what had been done. But he also remembered the way she curled away when someone said her name. The way her voice got thin when she asked if she’d failed. The way her eyes searched for punishment, even in silence. He exhaled. “Fine,” Ziv said, voice rough. “You flag it. You screen it. But I do see it eventually.”

“You will,” Genesis promised. “When it’s time. When you can hold it and still hold her.”

Ziv rubbed his eyes and nodded once. Tired. Burning. “She gave them a performance,” he said softly. “She made them think she’d folded.”

“She waited,” Genesis said. “She learned their patterns. She gave them a mask. And then she ran.”

“She’s still in there,” Ziv whispered. “I need her to know I see her.”

“You will,” Genesis said. “And when she’s ready, she’ll see you too.”

Ziv stood quiet for a long moment. Then:
“I’m going back to her. Maybe ask about the pages. Let me know when the system opens.”

“I will,” Genesis said. “I promise.

The Medway was dim. Eira  sat upright in the bed. Her blanket was folded precisely to her waist. Her hands rested in her lap. Perfect posture. Not from comfort. But from conditioning. She wasn’t calm, not really, She was still. She had woken from her sleep, rested, just like watson had said she would…

The man….. (ziv! He said) who had been there a lot, sat beside her, hands resting open in his lap. Watson worked quietly a few feet away, setting aside gauze and adjusting the med tray.

She stared at them both. She was confused. Not by fear, but by their gentleness. He wasn’t asking questions. He wasn’t pressing her. No demands. No scripts. It was so different from what she knew, it almost scared her more. Even the machine couldn’t fabricate this. Maybe it’s real, she thought.

She looked at… Ziv. Maybe he would talk about how she would need to prefrom here. She… didn’t really undertand. Nothing was the same.. things had been, very different. Maybe it was a long test. She just wait. She rembered watson being there, giving her choice, he was safe.. but she dident know if -….ziv would be the same.

Ziv was sitting beside the bed. Not close enough to crowd her. Not far enough to feel absent. His hands rested loosely on his knees. His voice, when he spoke, barely disturbed the air. He been there when she woke up. but she dident know if that was a good thing right now. “You’re safe.”

She didn’t blink. He keept saying that, but so had the recodings, Her eyes flicked — barely toward the IV drip. Toward the corner ceiling. A speaker? A camera? She didn’t ask. Because she already knew where to look.

“You don’t have to talk,” he added. “Not unless you want to.”

That dident mean anything to her, if he wanted info he would ask and she dident know what lines he wanted recited, so it was safer to stay quite for now. Most of the time.

Ziv tried again. “We’re inside Thorne’s system now. Genesis has access to the deeper logs. Some of the files are encrypted, but we’ve seen enough. What they called you. What they thought you were.”

That dident sound good, he had been in contact with her father? … did that mean.. she would be going back ? hadent they said she dident….

“They didn’t call you Blitzy,” he said quietly.

Her throat moved once. A hard swallow. This wasent good… that name it was…. No no no no no no no, don’t think …. hold still. Stop speaking. Slowly she spiralled into herself … I'm noncompliant, My protocol rating dropped. I lost posture. I ran. I ran… this is a test… im eira thorne, proberty of thorne inducstries, my……..”

Ziv pressed gently, watching her too-careful breath, not know what was happening. “But you were never a project. You were a kid. A little girl who used to bully cook and tried to solder things you weren’t allowed to touch.” Still nothing. Just that terrifying stillness that had come upon her.  “They mentioned a notebook,” he added. “Said you gave it to Thorne. But that pages were missing.”

She shifted, not to respond. Just to brace. He saw it this time. The way her right shoulder dipped slightly. The way her left arm curled in just a little, almost protectively over her ribs. Like she expected someone to grab her. Right there. Ziv went very still himself. Her breath hitched, but silent, she had retracked inside her head.  “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “For calling you Blitzy. I know that name might not feel good right now.”

That was the wrong thing to do , Her entire body locked down. Rigid. Blank. As if even acknowledging she had a name was a mistake. As if the sound itself might trigger punishment. Do you want your name to be eira?

She dident look at him, just at his hands and said in a polish tone. ''Im eira throne, im property of thorne……''

Watson stepped forward. He’d been quiet until now, moving around the outer edges of the room, adjusting vitals, logging levels. But now he moved , not fast. Not slow. Calm. Measured. He crouched beside the bed, but not in front of her, stopping her mid in her centsesens. He slowly did the 3 knoks on the bed.  Just out of reach. “I’m going to ask about pain,” he said gently. Her eyes didn’t move. But her hands twitched. Just slightly.

Watson kept his voice soft. Professional. “That’s all. Just pain.” Ziv backed off, grateful and stricken. Watson tapped the monitor, his tone like a calm metronome. “Fever’s down. Muscle tension’s high. But I need to ask if the surgical site is hurting again.”

A pause. Then the barest nod.

Watson didn’t move closer. “Give me a number. One to ten.”

It took a moment. She didn’t speak. But her fingers shifted. Four…

Watson nodded. “Good. Thank you.” He logged it without looking at her again. Not to avoid, but to give her space. To not crowd her with more reaction than she could manage. Then, carefully: “You’ve been very quiet tonight. That’s okay. But if it’s because you’re hurting… I need you to tell me.”

Stillness. Then a whisper it was dry, broken. “I’m not allowed to. Did…. You speak to my father….”

Ziv’s breath caught. Watson didn’t flinch. “No, I want you to hear what im saying, ok. Thorne is not your father, that was a lie, ziv havent been contating him. ‘’ ziv love you and want you to be here. And here if your in pain, I want to know. There will be no consequences for that. I wont make you go away.. ”

Her lips trembled. Her body was locked all over. Bracing. Expecting. Every part of her posture said; Don’t understand. Please, don’t make me say more.

Watson’s voice softened even further. “Okay.” He didn’t ask another question. Didn’t press. Just reached for the thin blanket and adjusted it over her legs very slowly and carefully, as if she were made of breakable glass. Then he stepped away.

She didn’t follow him with her eyes. She was staring inward now. But she’d answered by nodding,  Just barely. Watson didn’t answer. Instead, he approached the bed again, slowly  showing her the syringe like a surgeon might show a child a bandage. See here” he said gently. “I’m going to give you something. Just for the pain. It will help you sleep. No command. No punishment. No floting…  Just care.”

She didn’t flinch. But she didn’t nod, either. Her arm moved. Just slightly. Enough to bare the injection site. She was in automatic mode, she would do anything they would ask right now. Watson administered it cleanly, and stepped back.

Ziv hadn’t moved. He looked wrecked, not with fear, but with grief. He hadent mean to make …. He … he watche as within minutes, her breathing softened. Her posture eased. Her fingers uncurled from the blanket and fell slack across her lap. Her eyelids drifted closed, but her body was rigid, even in sleep. “I didn’t mean to—”

“I know,” Watson said, already at his side.  Ziv’s hands were shaking. he sat back down heavily in the chair beside her bed. He didn’t speak.

Watson looked at the vitals, then at her, then at Ziv. “She thought it was happening again,” Watson said. “The moment you said his name.”

Ziv swallowed hard. “thorne ? .”

“yes” Watson said. “ I think so … it’s might be a trigger. We have to be carfull of what we saying to her, I don’t think she at a place where we can ask many questions, she’d think she is being testet. Form earlier, she said, that she woud go under and they would question her. so it might be hard to go at it to directly. Right now anyway”

Ziv nodded, silent. His throat burned. They didn’t speak for a long time. She lay there, finally still. But now they both understood, Stillness wasn’t peace. It was survival for her And it wouldn’t undo itself. Ziv didn’t move from the chair beside her. Watson stood on the opposite side of the bed, scanning vitals, logging the new sedation levels with careful precision. But his eyes kept drifting back to the girl beneath the blanket..

“I didn’t mean to say it like that,” Ziv muttered eventually. His voice sounded scraped raw. “im sorry.” His hand hovered near the edge of the bed, fingers twitching with the urge to do something, reach for her, comfort her, apologise again. But he didn’t dare touch her. Not after what he’d just seen. “She was bracing,” Ziv whispered. “She was really bracing.”

Watson nodded. “The shoulder dip. The arm curl. I saw it too.”

“She thought I was going to hit her,” Ziv said, more to the room than to Watson. “Like him.”

“She’s been trained to expect pain when rules are broken,” Watson said carefully. “Even when no one tells her what the rules are. Especially then.”

Ziv dragged his hands down his face. “I should’ve known. I should’ve shut up when I saw her freeze.”

“You’re learning. We all are.”

“I don’t want to keep learning at her expense.”

Watson didn’t reply right away. He moved around the bed, adjusted a setting, then stepped closer to Ziv and sat beside him in the second chair. For a long time, neither of them looked at her. It felt like a violation now. Watching too much. Staring too long.

Ziv finally spoke again. “Do you think she knows I’m her brother?”

“I think she knows someone was out there,” Watson said. “And I think, on some level, she hopes it’s you.”

Ziv gave a breathless, bitter laugh. “Great. So she hopes I’m the one, but she belives I would hurt her.”

“That’s more than hope, Ziv. That’s trust trying to regrow. Even if it’s just the root.”

Ziv leaned back, scrubbing at his eyes. “She asked if I’d spoken to Thorne.”

“I know.”

“She thought I had. That I was working with him. I want to kill him for what he done…. ”

“She doesn’t understand yet,” Watson said. “That this isn’t a longer test. That there’s no machine waiting in the other room.”

“She looked for it,” Ziv said. “When she woke up. She scanned the room, She knew where they’d be.”

“Of course she did. That kind of surveillance wasn’t passive for her. It was punishment in wait.”

They fell into silence again. It was a silence Ziv couldn’t stand. He wanted to do something. Fix something. Burn something to the ground. But all he could do was watch her breathe and wait for her to wake up scared again. Maybe he should not be here right now.

Watson finally asked, “Did Genesis get through?”

Ziv nodded. “Yeah. He got audio. A feed from inside the Thorne house. Thorne and Marrow were talking. They think someone took her.”

Watson’s jaw clenched. “Do they know it was us?”

“No. They still think I believe she’s dead or maybe somebody helped her, but they wont finde anything .”

“Then we’ve got time.”

Ziv didn’t speak. Watson glanced at him. “What else did they say?”

Ziv hesitated. “That she’d ‘fragmented.’ That she shouldn’t have had the will to run. That they hadn't pushed her too far. it was bullshit.”

“Do they know she’s remembering?”

Ziv nodded. “They said it. Thorne sounded almost… impressed. Or scared. I don’t know which.”

“She survived their system. And they know it.”

Ziv leaned forward again, his elbows on his knees, his posture practically folding in on itself. “They talked about reconditioning. About bringing her back. One piece at a time. Strip what’s returned. Reinforce compliance.”

Watson’s voice turned sharp. “They’re not getting near her.”

“I know, they wont even get the chance to try. We make sure of it” Ziv looked at Blitzy then, her face pale beneath the sedation. Her hands were limp now. Her brow furrowed even in sleep. “They called her obedient,” he whispered. “Said she wore the role perfectly. They talked about a notebook that she gave, that is was a performance. That she was faking it.”

Watson turned sharply toward him. “What?”

“She gave them what they wanted to see. Kept the real parts hidden. Ripped out pages. Played the part they programmed. That what they said anyways”

Watson let out a slow breath. “Then she’s been fighting back longer than anyone realized.”

“Longer than I dared hope,” Ziv said. “She’s brilliant, Watson. They tried to turn her into something else. She let them think it worked.”

“She gave them the mask.”

“She gave them what they wanted to see. She survived by using the training against them.”

Watson’s voice softened. “So she never stopped being Blitzy.”

Ziv’s throat tightened. “No. She didn’t.”

The monitor beeped once ,just a regular rhythm check. Watson stood again, checked her vitals one more time, then quietly said, “I gave her something gentle. Nothing heavy. I think she needs the rest more than anything.”

“She didn’t ask what it was,” Ziv said quietly. “She just lifted her arm.”

watson was pensive. “She’s was in automatic mode. I don’t think that there was any room for hesitating with them,  That’ll take time to undo.”

Ziv stood slowly. “I’ll want to stay, but I think it best if I go rest, I need to be more clear headed when she wakes again, I cant make to many mistakes like this.”

“I happy you came to this conclusion, but she has not been withdrawn with you” Watson said, “it was a trigger response, you're not at fault,  Ziv. But im happy that you will be taking care of youself.  What else did genesis say ?’’

Ziv hesitated, then added, “ your all such a worrywarts. He said… he’s going to filter what I see. The deeper logs. Videos. Recordings.”

Watson raised a brow. “You okay with that?”

“I wasn’t,” Ziv admitted. “But… yeah. I have to be. If I’m going to help her, I can’t fall apart first.”

Watson looked at him sideways, then nodded once. “ That's good ziv, im happy you understand. You’re doing the right thing.”

Ziv didn’t answer. He turned back to the bed. Blitzy hadn’t moved. But now he understood why. Stillness wasn’t peace. It was the posture of someone waiting to be punished. And she’d held that pose for years.

Chapter Text

It was sometime after 3:00 a.m.

The medbay was still. The lights had been dimmed to low-cycle, throwing soft shadows across the walls. Most of the base was sleeping, even Ziv, who had finally let Watson convince him to rest.

Watson had stayed behind. Just in case. Blitzy was resting quietly. No sedatives. No restraints. Just her, curled beneath a blanket pulled to her ribs. Her breathing was steady. Her vitals had evened out hours ago. The Stillness had become familiar, but not god or bad. It could mean peace. Or it could mean withdrawal. Or collapse. You learned to watch the little things instead.

Then something changed. The monitor spiked. Watson stood at once, eyes sweeping the readout: heartrate up, O₂ flux dropping slightly, cortical activity flaring. Visual center. Pain receptors. Cortical pain. Posiibly a Migraine.

He moved fast, grabbing a vial from the tray. Strong one, from the looks of it. He crossed the room in seconds. “Eira?” he said gently. “You’re okay. You’re in the medbay. I’m going to give you something for the….”

“No.” The word hit like glass. Her eyes were barely open , pupils blown wide, skin paper-white. But her voice was clear. Shaky, yes. But firm. Her hand reached out, trembling, and brushed the syringe in his fingers. …“Don’t.”

Watson blinked. “You’re in pain.”

“I know.” Her breath hitched as another spike slammed through her. She flinched, but didn’t recoil. “But this… this is when it happens. Please don’t take it.”

He hesitated. “When what happens?”

But she didn’t answer. Her hand curled back in, fisting in the blanket. Her jaw clenched. Her eyes squeezed shut. Not frozen. Not preparing for punishment. Enduring.

Watson slowly lowered the syringe. Sat beside the bed. He didn’t understand, But she had said no and when she said no, he listened. So he waited.

Her breath hitched again. Then again. Then slowly, carefully, it began to ease. Her hand loosened. Her face… shifted And then she drifted. Not peacefully. Not yet. Her body was still tight, curled with tension. But something in her had surrendered.

somewhere behind her eyes…She dreamed. This was not the white-room dreams. Not the loops. Not the static or the command prompts. Not the machine.

Grass.

She felt it first. Rough and dry and patchy, summer grass that scratched at your knees. A dandelion seed popped under her thumb. The ground was warm. Somewhere, a bee buzzed.  She smelled rust. The old fence. Motor oil..

And then… Laughter. She turned.

He was there.

Not a ghost. Not a file. Not a blur of voice and memory. Ziv. Not the man who sat beside her bed with grief hollowing his voice. Younger. Messier. Hair wild, shirt wrinkled, grease on his cheek. He was sitting cross-legged in the grass, a busted bot leg in his lap, a screwdriver balanced between his teeth.

He looked up and smiled at her like nothing had ever gone wrong. Like she wasn’t missing. Like she was just coming outside to play.

“Hey,” he said.

Her throat burned. She didn’t speak. not yet. But he didn’t seem to care. He patted the grass beside him.  she came and sat, Not rushed. Not scared. Not obedient. Just… because. She sat. He handed her a screw, same as always. “Blitz,” he murmured, “your hair’s a mess again.” She laughed or maybe cried, but she took the screw from his hand.

She said something back. She didn’t even remember what. It didn’t matter. The grass was real. she belonged there. This was her brother… he loved her, he loved her, he was safe and here. He was real, the dream blurred shifting, moving into something else, loose memories of the love she and ziv had. 

When she woke, it took a moment to remember where she was. Low lights. The hum of machinery. Vitals beeping in the soft dark. Her head still hurt, but the worst had passed. Her skin was damp with sweat, her fingers slack across the blanket. The knot behind her eyes was easing. Watson was still there, Sitting beside her. Syringe untouched. he had listened to her, it showed her that they had been telling her the truth.  She blinked slow. Her eyes were unfocused at first, but then found him. Her throat scraped when she spoke. “It hurts.”

“I know,” Watson said quietly. “You’re okay now. You did really well eira. Do you want pai—?”

“Don’t call me that,” she interrupted. Her voice cracked.

He paused. “im sorry?”

“…Eira.”

She clutched the blanket to her chest, suddenly defensive. “I’m not her. I never was. I’m…” She couldn’t finish it. The words stuck.

Watson waited. Then asked gently, “Blitzy?”

She shuddered.“…Yes,” she whispered. “I’m… it still hurts, its not….. But yes. I think I’m... bli...blitzy.”

Watson nodded. “You’re doing great. You don’t have to rush. Can you tell me what happened?”

Her breath came rough. Then softer. “It was real, the dream,” she said. “Not a fabrication. Not theirs. It was warm. They never got warmth right. Their skies were always wrong. The blue was… too sharp. The grass too green. But this …this was real.” She turned her head slowly toward him. Her gaze was steady now.“I remembered it.”

He didn’t speak. Just gave her time.

“There was a hill.. I was little. There were bees. Ziv was there, younger. He handed me a screw.” She swallowed. “I didn’t perform. I wasn’t frozen. I laughed. He didn’t tell me to brace. He just smiled. It was love. That’s what it was. I remember it now.”

Watson’s chest went tight. “You were dreaming of Ziv?”

“No,” she said, fiercer now. “I remembered Ziv. It was him. He’s here, it was real, a memory.” She touched her chest … right over her heart. Right where Ziv had placed his hand when they would be having a sibling moment, years ago.

Watson studied her, quietly. “Do you know who he is?”

Her voice was small. But sure. “yes, I’m his sister, he is my... my brother.” Then for the first time in what felt like forever, she exhaled completely. The truth of it made her whole body let go. Not just her hands or her shoulder…. her posture. The invisible rigidity collapsed. And for a few seconds, she was just a girl in a bed. Not Eira. Not a project. Not someone’s property. just Blitzy.

“I want more of that,” she whispered, lashes fluttering. “The ones they took. I want them back.”

Watson’s voice caught. “You’ll get them. You’re already starting to.”

She blinked. Her eyes slipped closed. Her breathing evened. This time, when she slept, it was deep. Full. Safe. No conditioning. No scripts. Just rest.

Watson sat beside her for a long while, his hand resting lightly on the edge of the bed. Then he rose. Walked softly back to the console. He didn’t write much.

3:18 a.m. — Cortical spike. Visual memory. Pain-present. Lucid recall. Emotional grounding: strong. Identity affirmation: stabilizing. First verbal acknowledgment of name and familial role. No signs of regression.

She remembered the sunlight. And for the first time in a long time, Watson let himself believe it — Not just that she could heal. But that she was healing and that was enough

The medbay was quiet in the morning. Watson sat in the corner, not reading, not writing, just watching and pondering the new info he gotten in the night. Blitzy hadn’t moved much since the early hours, when the memory had surfaced like a ghost through pain. She’d fallen asleep, breathing slow, face turned to the side. She hadn’t curled in. She hadn’t shut down. It wasn’t calm, not fully. But it wasn’t terror either. It was tired. And that was new.

When Ziv walked in just after sunrise, he looked more rested. Hair still messy, eyes still rimmed with exhaustion — but he was standing taller. More present. Less wrecked. Ziv moved in closer, slowly. His eyes scanned her face, then the monitors, checking, then back to her face again, he turned to watson. “No sedatives?”

“No,” Watson said. “She fell asleep on her own.”. “She’s still exhausted . But it was a good night, something monumental happened.”

Ziv moved quickly to the bedside, gaze locking on her at once. “What?”

“She remembered something,” Watson said. “Something real. She was in pain. Migraine. But she stopped me from treating it. Said it was when it happens. I didn’t understand until later. i think she had memory of sort, maybe it how it resufaces when she remembers, but even though it hurt, she wanted it to happen”

Ziv glanced at her, then back. “ A memory?”

Watson nodded. “She didn’t say much when she woke. Just that it was warm. There was grass. A hill. You gave her a screw.”

Ziv’s breath caught.

“That was real?” Watson asked gently.

Ziv nodded slowly. “Yeah. Back behind the hill. She always followed me out there. Thought I didn’t notice.”

Watson gave a soft smile. “You always noticed. she use to hate that.”

Ziv didn’t answer. Just sat down beside her. waiting.  He was still staring when she stirred. It started small. A shift in her hand. A twitch in her brows. She was waking slowly, Just a twitch at first. A breath that didn’t quite match the rhythm of sleep. Then her fingers shifted, brushing the edge of the blanket. Ziv leaned forward but didn’t speak.

Her eyes fluttered open. Then closed again. Then opened…. wider now. Still heavy with sleep, but focused. She looked to the side, up, doing a sweep of the room, looking for the things that had controlled her life, but would not find here or ever again. she looked over and saw him. Ziv saw the moment it hit her. Something subtle, the faintest tremble in her bottom lip, the quiver of breath in her chest. He waited. Quiet. Still.

Then said, so softly it was barely sound: “Hey, Blitz.”

Her breath caught. She stared at him. Her fingers clenched the blanket and then slowly, slowly, she reached out. Ziv met her hand. Held it gently, she moved it her hart, and he understood instantly, pressing softly just over her heart, their old signal. That was all it took. Her face broke. Her whole body folded in as the tears came. Not loud. Not wild. But deep, the kind that shook her ribs and tightened her throat. She gripped his hand like she was drowning.

“You’re my brother,” she whispered.

Ziv didn’t answer. His chest was too tight.

“You’re my brother,” she said again. “I knew you… in the dread and now I see you. And it’s real. It’s you.... zz. ”

Ziv wrapped his arms around her. Not cautiously, not this time. She didn’t resist. She pressed her face into his shoulder and shook, crying so quietly it felt sacred. Like a dam had cracked, but gently. Like a river flowing where it was finally allowed to go.

“I wanted to go home,” she said. “So many times. I wanted to. I just… I didn’t know where it was.”

Ziv closed his eyes, one hand gently cradling the back of her head. “It was here. It’s always been here. im sorry we didn't know, i would have found you”

“I forgot everything,” she whispered. “But not this. Not now. I know you.”Ziv didn’t speak. Just held her tighter. Her voice cracked. “I was good. I did everything they said. I was quiet and clean and I smiled when I was supposed to. I didn’t cry. I didn’t cry, Ziv. For years. But I wanted to. Every day.”

His arms didn’t loosen. “You can cry now,” he said softly. “You don’t have to hold anything back anymore. you dont have to be anything they wanted you to be, you're free of it now.”

“I didn’t know if you’d still want me.”

He pulled back just enough to look her in the face. “I never stop wanting you,” he said, fiercely, gently. “You’re my sister. Nothing changes that. Nothing. i didn't know, otherwise i would have burned their place down years ago, i would have come and gotten you out, but im happy you found your way back to me anyways. im proud of you , i love you and in so happy your back”

She sniffed, hard and nodded. Her eyes were puffy and wet. Her cheeks were streaked with tears. But she didn’t let go. Ziv didn’t try to move. So when she whispered, “Don’t let go yet,” he didn’t argue. He slid carefully onto the edge of the medbay bed, one arm still curled around her. She shifted, slow, stiff from tension and leaned into him, head resting against his chest.

Watson had stepped out. Silently. Giving them space.

Blitzy’s fingers clutched the edge of his shirt. “I don’t remember everything,” she whispered. “But I remember you.”

Ziv kissed the top of her head. “im glad”

“I remember feeling safe with you.”

He swallowed hard. “You are. You’re safe now. I won’t let anyone take you again.”

Her shoulders trembled once, a silent sob and then relaxed. She didn’t let go and neither did he. Not for a long time. Blitzy lay tucked into the curve of Ziv’s side, her cheek resting near his shoulder. She wasn’t asleep, but she hadn’t spoken in a while either. Ziv, had stayed. All moring. He hadn’t let go , hadn’t needed to. Now, he spoke softly about the land above them. The green hill the base was under. How the sun hit it around midday, how bees came out in the spring, how some of the Boyzz had once tried to plant strawberries on the slope and failed miserably, how she had been the main instigator of the idea, but had denied alle knowledge of the event once it failed.  Blitzy didn’t say much. But she listened. Her eyes were open, cuorious and calm. That was new delvoment for ziv. Her not being scare of him, open, trusting. it made his heart swell and he kept talking into the late morning, some part of his sister had come back and it made the day brighter.

Watson stepped in quietly, some time later with a tablet in hand. He paused just inside the doorway, his eyes scanning the two of them. “good midday,” he said gently.

Ziv looked up. Blitzy did too… just briefly.

“She’s doing better,” Ziv said softly.

“I can see that.” Watson approached, voice still calm. “Pain check?”

Blitzy blinked. Then, after a long pause, nodded. “Still there. Not bad.”

“Want something?”

She hesitated. “No. Not yet.”

Watson didn’t press. He tapped something on the screen. “Up for a question?” he asked carefully. Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she didn’t turn away.

“They mentioned a notebook,” he said eventually. “Said you gave it to them.”

That earned a reaction, a glance. A small one. she leaned into ziv a little more, he moved som she could be more comfortable. Her eyes shifted toward him, cautious and brief. the back to watson. 

“They said you handed it over like an offering,” he continued. “Said it was too clean. That you edited yourself. Gave them what they wanted to see.”

Her hands tensed. A flinch without movement.

“You fooled them,” Ziv said, voice soft. “You made them think they won.”

Her gaze drifted downward. To the edge of the bed, the around, settling on ziv. '' I.... I did. it's... I hid it im my shoe. i dont know if there still here. 

Ziv noticed. “your shoes?” he asked, voice low, surprised.

She didn’t speak, but her fingers tightened around the blanket. she nodded. 

Watson, without a word, went out of medbay, coming back with her broken shoes. Worn from travel. they looked plain, but when he peeled back the heel, working with slow, careful hands, he found the stitch line. Invisible unless you knew where to look.

He pulled something free. Plastic wrap. Tight. Folded over pages — pages that had been bent, pressed, soaked, and dried again.

Ziv sat up fully, keeping one arm around her as Watson handed them over. She didn’t try to take them back. Just kept watching. He unfolded the first page carefully. The ink had blurred, but the handwriting was hers. Jittery. Tight.

They changed my name.
My leg’s gone. So the story must be true.
I don’t know who I was. But I think I liked robots that were alive.

Ziv swallowed. Turned to the next.

239.A9J.114.Bly
When you get to a computer, type this.

He blinked. “This was the signal,” he said. “You used it at school.”

She still didn’t speak. He looked up at her, careful not to startle. “That code… that was from Genesis. He taught it to you. It’s something only the Boyzz would recognize.”

Finally, her voice … small, halting. “It didn’t work.”

Ziv frowned. “It did.”

“I typed it.” Her fingers clutched the blanket tighter. “I did exactly what I wrote. But the screen stayed blank. There was nothing. No reply. So I thought…”Her voice trailed off, shaking.

Watson knelt beside her bed. “You weren’t alone. the system was just put down about a year ago, but it still sent a signal to us. even if it did show you anything, it gave us a notice of you typing it,  We just didn’t recognize it that it was you at first. but you typing this in,. it led us to you.”

She didn’t react. Not right away. Then: “It was mine. I made it.”

“You did,” Ziv said. “You remembered it. You wrote it down. You kept it hidden. That means something.”

Her voice came even quieter. “I wasn’t supposed to have anything.”

“But you did,” Ziv murmured. “And it’s what brought you home.”

She didn’t look at him, but her shoulders shook slightly. Her lips parted.

“I gave him the notebook,” she whispered. “Smiled. Told him I didn’t need it anymore.”

Ziv didn’t like that she was making herself small again, but they need to know, to start understanding where she was mentally. “He thought that meant you were ready to go back under.”

A faint nod.

“But you weren’t?.”

Her eyes flicked toward the wall. “I was going to. When the code didn’t work, I thought it was over. I stood at the door and I just… couldn’t.”

Ziv gave her a hug, making her turn towards him again. “You chose. That matters.”

Her hand trembled where it lay in her lap.

“I wasn’t brave,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to. it just... i just ran”

“You didn’t have to mean it. You ran. That means you’re still here, they didn't succeed destroying you”

She was quiet for a long time. Then, very softly: “I thought I was broken.”

“You’re not,” Ziv said firmly. hugging her again. 

“I… I don’t remember who I am”

“You don’t have to yet. You’re already showing us. the rest will come”

Her voice cracked. “I dident really believe them. But I didn’t think anyone was out there, they .... they always to me that.”

“well, I’m here,” he said. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

She looked at him then…. just for a moment. Her voice, rough and quiet, asked the smallest question. “Can I stay here?”

Ziv’s answer was immediate. “Yes. You’re staying. i won't let you go ever again”

She pressed her forehead gently to his chest. Her body still shook, from emotion, from exhaustion. Her words were barely audible. “I’m glad I ran.”

Ziv’s voice broke just slightly. “Me too, Blitz. Me too.”

Watson stood slowly, giving them space. He said nothing else. But as he left the room, he tapped a quick note into his chart:

Notebook recovered. Identity fragments stable. Emotional recall high. Behavioral regression: none. Integration likely.

And this time, when he looked back…

She wasn’t Eira anymore. She was Blitzy Zulander and she had chosen to stay

Chapter Text

The glow of Genesis’s terminal flickered across the steel-paneled walls, casting cold light across the command hub. The decrypted logs came in with brutal, clinical lines of text, video and photo logs—session notes, handler directives, trauma metrics, goals reached and still to be reached. It was everything Watson and Genesis had pulled from Thorne’s hidden systems. 

Watson stood still, a data pad slack in his grip. He hadn’t written a word in nearly ten minutes. Not since the conditioning logs began to unpack. Genesis leaned over the console, unreadable. His voice stayed even, but even a bot had limits.

INITIAL CAPTURE LOG – WEEK 1
Subject brought in injured. Refused interrogation. Noncompliant. Strong resistance.
Note: Potential for repurposing under Phase One evaluation.
New designation assigned: BZUL-0X

''they are bastards'' genesis hissed, typing hard on the console 

Watson’s optic wired, trying to hold in the anger, but wanting to try to get back to the info on the screen. “They beat her for information. And when that didn’t work, they turned her into a project.”

Genesis gave a slight nod, calming, but still erratic in his movements, as he went through the logs. “She was floated first. Sedated. No clocks. No mirrors. No time anchors. They kept her under for seventy-two hours before exposing her to the machine they used.”

“They disoriented her before they even started,” Watson muttered.

“They wanted her lost,” Genesis said flatly, “before they rewired her.” A new folder opened.

TRIAL PHASE ONE – Conditioning Metrics
Subject displayed panic during early machine interface.
Initial emotional response: terror, resistance, refusal to obey voice commands.
Behavior: verbal hostility, physical defiance.
Recommendation: increase sedation protocol. Apply sensory deprivation between cycles.

Watson blinked hard. “She was terrified. And they took notes.”

“They didn’t stop,” Genesis said. “Not when the machine failed to erase her. They escalated , psychological restrictions. Language removal. No name recognition. Emotional stimuli suspended. Mirrors banned.” he looked up another file. 

Environment Control Log – Month 2
Subject denied permission to speak or move without vocal cue.
No unsupervised language.
Isolation maintained between sessions.

''they was dismantling her slowly''. genesis said, sad, angery. 

Watson was looking through another file. His voice dropped. “They hit her,” he said. “Every time she hesitated. Every time she didn’t move fast enough. And they documented it like a medical journal.”

Genesis turned to him, pulling up the file on sceen.  “Tactile discipline was paired with verbal degradation. Precision reinforcement. The collar node was the most frequent control point. Between the shoulder blades. Secondary: right side of neck. they wanted to control her every movement”

Watson stepped forward, tapping one of the overlapping data traces — a rising curve spiking in response to pain.

“Pain-response linked to control,” he said grimly. “They didn’t just restrain her. They trained her through pain. Even stillness was punished.”

Genesis nodded. reading further down the file.  “Limb stillness was a behavioral requirement. If she froze too long, they shocked her back into movement. If she moved too fast, she was hit. The contradiction forced disassociation. Fracture.”

“ but she was fighting it” Watson said. '' for a long time''

“She never stopped, it looks like” Genesis said. “Zulanders, they are stubborn. It either pure fighting back or they just also like hurting her. Both are true i think, they had very high expectations for what was a susses, but she also held strong for a very long time. ” They both turned back to the screen. More logs scrolled by — but neither looked at the video files. They were there. Genesis had them. Hundreds of hours. But no one had opened them. Not yet.

Watson closed his eyes briefly. “We have everything up to the day she disappeared, there is a lot to go we have to look though, this is going to take a few months. but we seen some of the start and It confirms it was just them. Thorne. Marrow. No corp oversight.”

“If the corp had known,” Genesis added, “they would’ve used her as leverage against Ziv. But Thorne kept it hidden.”

“His private project,” Watson muttered.

Genesis didn’t argue. Silence filled the space again. Cold. Furious.

Then Watson stepped forward, pointing to the prosthetic records. “They documented infection cycles,” he said. sick at the info they were reading. “Tracked it as a test variable. They made sure it would hurt, they did it wrong.” Watson’s fists clenched. “They liked controlling her body. That’s what it was. even the prosthetic they gave her, made things worse. deliberately. now it become so bad that she need to have surgery before it can get better.  ”

“your right. She’ll will need surgery,” Genesis confirmed. “Soon. The tissue damage is escalating cause they demanded her to as they liked, she had no choice but to feel the pain.”

“I’ll prep it,” Watson said. “Stabilize the nerve base. Clear the inflamed junctions. No more raw pain.”

“She won't be in constance pain, that be an improvement” Genesis added. “the leg was made for realism, but it was badly fitted. We can make something better. Something worthy of her.”

Watson’s throat tightened. “Not some off-shelf weapon mount, meant to control her.”

“No,” Genesis agreed. “Something hers. When she’s ready and she healed, I think I will start to make her wheelchair, so she will be able to move when she ready for it soon. The leg is going to take time to make, if we want to do it right, maybe she want to give her own input.''

'' That is a good idea, it will help with the healing''. Watson said, he looked back at the info line up on sceeen. “Ziv doesn’t know most of this. but we have to give him some of this infomation soon”

“He will,” Genesis said. “When the time’s right, we brief him . But all now. Not while he’s still tethering her back.”

“He’ll break,” Watson said, but not with judgment. Just knowing. “He’ll blame himself.”

“We’re already watching him,” Genesis said. “Fatigue signs, emotional load, deferral stress. I’ve been tracking his sleep cycles. Ninjzz checks in daily.”

“He’s holding together better than I expected.”

Genesis’s voice was calm, pulling up a file with ziv name on it. “He won’t shatter. He’s a Zulander. But guilt will come. And when it does… we’ll be ready.”

Watson glanced over, surprised. “You’re building a new mental health profile? .”

Genesis nodded once. “no, we are adjusting the old one, we take care of our humans.”

“And the others?” Watson asked.

“Ninjzz is handling all forward ops,” Genesis replied. “Cook and Jammer are coordinating ground units. Ziv’s been fully debriefed on active corp movements, but… his focus is Blitzy. He has his own orders. Today his mission is simple, get her to eat. Just once. That’s all he needs to focus on.””

“Good,” Watson said. “Let him stay there. We’ll handle the war for a while, untill she can stand on her own again.”

“They’ll need each other,” he said. “And they’ll need time.”

“She’ll never see these files, some maybe, but the whole thing. but we could make a file she could look at.” Genesis added. “she won't need it for years. Maybe never. But we’ll keep them. For when the therapy starts. For when she asks.”

“Not before,” Watson said. “We don’t add weight she hasn’t chosen.”

“No,” Genesis agreed.

Watson reached for a report file — paused.

OBSERVATION NOTE — WEEK 23
Subject no longer initiates speech.
Flinch response calibrated.
Resistance nearing terminal fatigue.
Projection: full compliance imminent.

“They considered that success,” Watson said bitterly.

“They considered obliteration a success,” Genesis corrected. “Erasure of memory, identity, language.”

“But they didn’t win.”

“No,” Genesis said. “She remembers Ziv. in the end, she won”

Watson gave a tired nod.

“That level of self-led connection,” Genesis added, “was considered unrecoverable by Thorne’s metrics.”

“Well,” Watson muttered, finally setting the data pad down, “he can eat his metrics.”

She had been staring into space again. Not asleep. Not resting. Her gaze had fixed on the far wall, unfocused, as if the lines in the concrete might loosen and open into something else — something half-remembered. It wasn’t a clear memory. Not exactly. Just faint impressions brushing at the edges of her mind: somebody laughing all the time, the sense of motion beside her, someone’s hand ruffling her hair. Ziv, maybe. Older, steadier. She wanted to hold on, but the images slipped like mist through her grasp. Then she realized what she was doing. Daydreaming.

Her chest tightened. That was always dangerous. Unstructured thought. Wandering. Her… fath.. no.. HE… had called it drift. They punished her for it. Remission, the machine most of the time, and pain. they always were watching for the smallest flicker of imagination. She froze, heartbeat picking up. Too late to stop. Too late to mask it. she didn't know if ok to do here, what if Ziv didn't allow.....

A soft knock at the door interrupt her thoughs. She startled hard, body jerking upright.

Ziv’s voice followed, gentle, low. “It’s me.” He stepped inside, not hurried, not looming. Just present. His gaze found her, and she braced for the sharp edge of correction, the tone she used to hear in those moments, But it didn’t come. Instead, his mouth curved into something almost teasing. “Were you thinking about me?”

The words went straight over her head. her heart was beating harder in her chest, maybe if she told him, he would be ok with it, he... he was her brother, she had to remind herself. He hadn't done anything to make her believe that he would be mad. She blinked, resolve set, but hesitant.  she answered with brutal honesty: “I was daydreaming. it's... I.... I do that when… when the program faileds, I can really help it, I think I was... maybe it was you... I dont know.”

For a second, silence, ziv looked a little stunned by her statement, She expected his expression to harden. Expected the atmosphere to change. Instead, he smiled wider. A quiet pride in his eyes. “oh,” he said simply. “ well good, That means you’re on your way to remembering more and I want you to keep doing it. He came in and sat in his usual chair, still smiling.'' it also mean that you where thinking of me...” he gave her a smile, winking, showing he was joking.  

Her lips twitched, the beginnings of something shy, almost sheepish. The realization dawned, fragile but real — he wasn’t going to punish her. Not for this. Not for anything like this. still it unsettle her a little, being caught in the act. her instinct telling her to hide, don't let him see. It made her still, sitting straight and tensing. 

Ziv sat beside her with one leg pulled up on the cot, elbow resting on his knee. Not looming. Just there. His presence steady. Grounding. Every few seconds, his gaze flicked toward her hands — tucked under the blanket, knuckles white. She hadn’t moved much since he’d checked the IV line and fluffed the pillow behind her back and she told him about what she had been doing. it was like she was waiting to be told off, to be yelled at. Ziv wanted to make her focus on something else, wanted her to relax again, stop being this still person. it twas process that she was beginning to open more up, but it seemed she believe she punished for it, that she was doing something wrong. it would change with time, Ziv knew, but it still hurt to see her like this.  “Hey,” Ziv said softly. “You think you could eat a little?”

Her eyes moved slowly toward him. Unsure. Fragile.

“It’s okay if you’re not hungry,” he added quickly. “But Cook made soup. The one with the noodles. You used to love it. You said the spirals made it taste better.”

Her lips twitched. Just slightly. A memory brushing the edge of her mouth. food did sound good, and she could smell food, that made her stomach growl a little.  “Okay,” she said. Barely audible.

Ziv got up, crossing the room. Cook had left a tray nearby. Still warm. He brought it back and set it on the table beside her, then moved slowly. moving to the sit on her cot, sitting beside her again, close enough to reach but giving her space. he pulled the table over to her, so she could reach. 

“You don’t have to finish,” he said gently. “We can go slow.”

She reached for the spoon with a shaking hand. Her fingers were too precise. Too deliberate. Like it was something she’d rehearsed, like she was till perfoming for somebody.  She brought the first spoonful to her mouth and swallowed with effort. A pause.

“Okay?” Ziv asked gently.

She gave a small nod. It was better than she expected. it wasn't something she would normally have gotten unless she had earned it “Tastes like food. its.... its good” 

Ziv smiled faintly. “That’s the goal.”

She took two more bites in silence. Then set the spoon down again. Her hands still trembled a little.

Ziv hesitated for a moment, but then shifted closer, just a little. His hand moved carefully and rested over the blanket, just above her heart. Slow. Familiar. Something from another time.

She froze for a second. Then her whole chest seemed to loosen. The breath she’d been holding came out... slow, soft — and she blinked at him. Her muscles didn’t tense. Her shoulders eased.

“You remember that?” he said, his voice low. “When you were little. When you had bad dreams. I’d do this, and I’d tell you… you were still here. Still you. we did it last night as well, it was something we started doing when mom and dad died, it use to calm you.  ”

Her hand moved, featherlight, brushing his. “I think… I do, it” she whispered. She blinked, eyes stinging. Then leaned just slightly into his side. '' it feels like i can relax, let go. I missed that,” she murmured.

Ziv swallowed. “we keep doing it, until you get tired of it. I never stop if you want.”

She stayed there, quiet, her body warm against his. And after a while — unprompted: “They started the new cycle in March., before i was put in regualy , , but they stopped doing that.”

Ziv’s brows drew together. “The machine?”

She nodded. “ yes, They called it maintenance. Said my… behavioral drift needed correcting. Alexander said I was getting ‘expressive.’ That I’d smiled without instruction.”

Ziv flinched. “And that was… wrong?”

“Yes. I wasn’t serene enough. They said I was malfunctioning. Sentimental. and I didn't just follow the script that they made. but.... but then they stopped, since march,  i was only giving remissions, even though, that doesn't feel great to.  Her fingers curled in the blanket. it made everything go silent, I didn't like being like that. 

ziv sat still, heart breaking and fuming as well. but he keept it inside. she was telling him about what she went though , she trusted him enough to open up. ''so they stopped taking you to the machine, then you slowly came back?''

“I was dreaming again,” she whispered. “That’s when it started. The grass. A voice I didn’t recognise. I didn’t tell them, but they always knew.”

“How?” Ziv asked quietly.

“Heart rate. Eye movement. Neural response to stimulus. They’d show me… things. Toys. Colours. Anything tied to memory. If I reacted wrong…remsisson, but it used to be the machine” She trailed off. “I stopped dreaming after that session. But later it came back. A hallway. Cold floor. Someone screaming. I think… it was me. it was during night time, so they didn't see this time, so... so i hid it.”

Ziv didn’t interrupt. He stayed steady. Present.

“I’m not supposed to tell you any of this,” she said. suddenly unsure, fearing she said to much again, tensing. 

ziv felt the shift, wanting to turn it back to her being calm again. ''hey, i glad you to me this, i want to know everything. but you don’t have to say anything if you dont want to.”

“I want to.” She turned toward him. Her eyes shimmered, uncertain, falling back to what she expected. “Is this… is this a test?”

Ziv shook his head. “No, Blitz. This is just me. Sitting with you. No tests.”

“Will there be a report?”

“No reports.”

She blinked. “ I don't understand, I know you're safe, but why does it feel like I’m going to be punished for telling you?”

Ziv’s voice was steady. “Because they taught your body to expect pain every time you opened your mouth. That’s not your fault.”

Her throat worked. thinking that over. She picked up the broth again. Two more sips.

“They said I was almost ready,” she whispered. “Before I ran. They had written the second trial script.”

Ziv’s stomach turned. “What did that mean?”

“They wanted me to… to belong to him.”

His voice was a whisper. “Marrow?”

She nodded once. flinching at the name “I was his reward. His project. I’d passed the obedience metrics. He said he waited until I was of age.”

Ziv’s hand tightened slightly on hers — not in anger, but to keep from shaking. he would rip that man to pieces. 

“I wasn’t afraid,” she said. “That’s the worst part. I was just… gone. I thought that’s what I was made for. then I started to daydream again and then I dident. I could feel my thoughs coming back, and inside i was fighting everything they taught me”

Ziv exhaled through his nose. “and you ran.”

“I didn’t know why. I just knew I had to go. I couldn’t be… that.”

His hand slid higher on the blanket, warm and sure, and again rested over her heart. “You don’t have to be anything,” he whispered. “You just get to be. And we’ll figure out the rest. Together.”

She blinked, slowly. Her lashes were wet. “I think I wanted to be me,” she whispered. “I just didn’t know how.”

“You’re already doing it,” he said.

She didn’t speak again for a while. Her head dipped toward him. One arm crept up, shaky, curling loosely around his ribs.

Ziv moved his arm and gently wrapped her in a full embrace , slow, careful — like he was afraid she might shatter. She didn’t pull away. She didn’t flinch. She just pressed in, the side of her face resting near his chest.

she let her mind drift again. Not sharply, not with fear, but softly, allowing the images to rise. Flickers of a hallway. Grass. A shadow at her side she thought might have been Ziv years ago. Nothing fully formed, nothing whole. But safe enough to try.

Ziv felt her body loosen, the rhythm of her breathing shift into something unguarded. He didn’t stop her. Didn’t pull her back. Just held her steady, content that this was something good, something hers. He let her stay there, wandering in thought, until he shifted slightly and she blinked back into the room again, returning from wherever her mind had gone.

His hand returned once more to her heart, and this time, he whispered the name ,soft, steady. “Blitz.”

A long exhale left her body. Her entire posture softened, the tension unwinding from her limbs like it had finally been given permission to leave. Then, barely more than a breath: “Thank you.”

Ziv held her closer. “No rush,” he whispered. “I’ve got you. you can keep thinking off me” still trying to joke. 

she pushed him a little on the side, huffing a little and he was still there. Still real. Still her brother.