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Maven’s face flickers, the blue light painting their features in shifting bands. “I’ve set up a dead drop in the main lab. You need to get a sample of the new Protocol, get it out to me. I have someone inside who’ll pass it along.”
Ellis. It has to be.
“Can I trust her?” I ask.
Maven grins, but it’s a shark’s smile, nothing but hunger. “No one’s trustworthy here. Not even me. But she wants to live, and so do you.”
A sharp click echoes from the corridor. I freeze, crushing my wrist to my chest. Maven’s face shimmers, then resolves again, eyes narrowed.
“Someone’s coming,” I whisper.
“Go dark,” Maven orders. “I’ll ping you again at oh-three.”
I tap the side of the band, and Maven’s face winks out. I slide the sleeve down, adjust the band until it’s indistinguishable from the other trackers.
A minute passes. Then the outer door cycles.
I’m back in the main suite, perched on the cot, staring at the cracked screen of the wall monitor. Kang steps in, unannounced, his face a study in contradiction: Authority mask in place, but eyes wild, as though he’s just run through a minefield.
He scans the room, then me. His gaze lingers on my hands, my face, my hands again. “Lights were out of sync,” he says, voice clipped. “You have a malfunctioning fixture?”
I keep my voice steady. “Nothing I can’t live with.”
He stands there, letting the silence do his work.
I wonder what he sees: the same scientist he tried to break, or a version of me rewritten by Petrov’s pet Protocol.
“I need you to run a blood panel on a new batch,” he says, stepping closer. “Orders from the top.”
I nod. “I’ll do it in the morning.”
He shakes his head. “Now. It’s urgent.”
He tosses a vial onto the desk. I pick it up, scan the label: blank, except for a time code and a three-digit serial. Kang’s eyes flick to my wrist, then back.
I feel the panic rise, but tamp it down. “You want to stay and watch?”
He leans on the edge of the desk, hands splayed, eyes never leaving mine. “I don’t have to.”
He’s close enough now that I can see the hairline crack on his jaw, the way his pulse hammers at the corner of his throat.
I load the sample, start the process. The machine whirrs, clicks, and prints a strip of data. I read it, pretending not to know exactly what I’m seeing.
Kang watches every move, eyes hungry.
“Do you ever remember things that shouldn’t be yours?” I ask, voice just above a whisper.
He blinks, once, slow. “No.”
I smile. “Me neither.”
He stands, abruptly. The mask is back. “You’re due for another Protocol session tomorrow. Petrov wants results.”
“I’m sure he does.”
He moves to the door, then pauses. His hand drifts to his left hand—wedding finger, bare. He rubs it, a reflexive motion, then lets the hand drop.
“You ever get tired of being the experiment?” he says, not looking at me.
