Chapter 43 #2
“The human brain,” Marsh begins, “is the most sophisticated computer ever created. But it’s trapped in fragile, failing hardware.
Bodies break down. They get sick, injured, old.
The recursion loop in the body between the heart and the mind is off, the heart sends more signals to the brain than the brain sends back, which creates a signal leak.
Decoherence. Aging. What if we could preserve what matters—consciousness, memory, identity—and transfer it to something more durable? ”
My stride falters. “Transfer it to what?”
“A synthetic platform.” Julia’s voice is almost reverent. “A body that doesn’t age, doesn’t tire, doesn’t fail. An electrical loop that is closed. Imagine soldiers who can’t be killed. Leaders who never die. The end of human mortality itself.”
The words hit me like ice water. “You’re talking about downloading people’s minds into machines.”
“We’re talking about evolution.”
“But that’s playing god.”
Julia smiles. “Well, someone has to play him.”
“Someone has to play him before someone else does,” Marsh says with veneration.
“And then what?” I ask.
We keep walking. More doors, more terrors. A room full of empty pods, human-shaped indentations lined with electrodes. A chamber where something screams behind soundproof glass—I can see its mouth open, see it thrashing, but even I can’t hear a thing.
A house of horrors.
“Then what happens?” I go on, trying to stay focused.
“When you play god and you create robots with human minds while discarding the actual humans? You think that somehow this absolves you, that by creating an artificial being with human consciousness, that you can slip back into the last decade without any guilt?”
Marsh chuckles, as if the idea of guilt could never apply to him. “Nate, you know better than anyone how the system works. We are the ruling class, everything else is the foundation that props us up. The future demands a better foundation.”
“I am not the ruling class. I’m nothing like you.”
“Oh, come on, Nate. You’re Vanguard. You’re a fucking billionaire superhero, the most powerful fucking person in the entire world. You are the epitome of the ruling class, and now you’re the symbol. You always have been.”
I want to kill him. The urge is so strong I can feel it in my hands, my jaw, the coiled tension in my shoulders. But I need information. I need to understand what I’m dealing with.
“What about Paragon?”
“What about him?” Julia asks.
I voice what I’ve always suspected. “Is he one of them? Is he a robot with human consciousness, maybe a soldier you captured behind enemy lines or…”
Marsh laughs—actually laughs, like I’ve said something delightful. “Perceptive as always. That’s what we love about you, Nate.”
“Paragon is fully synthetic,” Julia says, and that both surprises me and it doesn’t.
“No human consciousness. No transferred memories. No messy emotional complications. Pure programming in an artificial body.” Her eyes flick over me, barely hiding her disappointment.
“He’s what enhanced defense could look like without the unpredictability of human psychology. ”
I know she’s trying to get under my skin, but I’m clinging to every ounce of humanity I have at the moment.
“You built a robot and called it a hero.”
“We built a prototype,” Marsh corrects. “A proof of concept. Paragon follows orders without question. He doesn’t form attachments or loyalties outside his programming.
” He pauses, studying me. “But he also can’t do what you do.
Can’t read a room the way you can, can’t improvise, can’t inspire. That’s the trade-off. For now.”
For now. The words hang there.
“You’re trying to get both,” I say slowly. “That’s what all of this is about. The experiments. You want soldiers with human minds but without the humanity that makes them disobey. Then you want to sell immortality to the highest bidder.”
Julia’s smile is thin. “Now you’re catching up. Of course, Mia figured it out before you did.”
My heart lurches at the sound of her name.
“You think we don’t know what your girlfriend really is?” Julia says as we stop outside a thick metal door. There’s a window beside it—reinforced glass, tinted dark from this side. An observation room.
She produces a keycard. “We have a test for you, Nate. Pass it, and we move forward as partners. You remain our hero, our symbol, everything you were meant to be.”
“And if I fail the test?” I say, my voice faltering.
“Paragon is on standby.” Marsh checks his watch, casual, like he’s fucking bored. “He’ll complete the objective. Then we’ll have a very different conversation about your future utility.”
“What objective? What are you—”
Then I smell it.
Seeping through the seams of the door, through the ventilation, through the cracks in this concrete tomb. Blood. Copper and iron, thick enough to taste. Sweat. Antiseptic. And underneath it all—
Mia.
Her scent. That natural musk and coconut vanilla that brings me back to every memory we’ve shared.
But now it’s mixed with blood.
So. Much. Blood.
Something inside me snaps.
I grab the door handle and rip it clean off—not just the handle but a chunk of the steel frame with it, metal shrieking as it tears. The door swings inward, half off its hinges.
The observation room is small, monitors along one wall, a window looking into another room beyond. Through the glass I can see a chair. A figure slumped in it. Dark hair matted with blood.
Mia.
I’m still holding the twisted metal in my fist. I look down at it—steel crumpled like tinfoil—and I squeeze.
The metal groans, compresses, folds in on itself until it’s a dense ball the size of an apple.
I can feel every ridge digging into my palm.
I want it to hurt. I want to feel something other than this.
“Nate—” Marsh starts.
I spin and grab him by the throat. Lift him off his feet. Slam him against the wall hard enough I nearly crack the concrete behind his head.
“Open it!”
His eyes bulge. His hands claw at my wrist. He’s making choking sounds, feet kicking uselessly.
“Open the door to her room,” I say, quieter now. “Or I crush your skull the same way I crushed that handle.”
“Julia—” he rasps. “Open—”
I hear the beep of a keycard, then the pneumatic hiss of the inner lock.
I drop Marsh. He crumples to the floor, gasping, clutching his throat.
The inner door swings open.
The room beyond is small. White walls, white floor, a drain in the center.
Bright lights, no shadows, nowhere to hide.
Medical equipment against one wall—steel trays with terrifying instruments, an IV stand with an empty bag, monitors showing vitals that look all wrong. And in the center of the room…
A metal chair, bolted to the floor.
Mia is in that chair.
Her head hangs forward, dark hair matted with dried blood.
One eye is swollen completely shut, purple-black, the flesh so distended I can barely see her eyelid.
Her lip is split in two places, crusted and cracked.
Her jaw is bruised from chin to ear, the kind of bruises that come from being hit over and over by someone who knows exactly how much damage they can do without killing you.
Blood has dried on her chin, her neck, soaking into what’s left of her shirt.
Her arms are covered in bruises—finger-shaped marks, boot-shaped marks, marks that tell the story of what happened here.
Her wrists are raw and bleeding from the restraints, skin scraped down to muscle because she fought. Of course she fought.
She’s so still. So small. So fucking broken.
The smell is worse in here, too. Blood and fear and something chemical, maybe drugs to keep her alive. It makes my head spin until I’m dizzy.
“Who did this?” I ask, and my voice is quiet and controlled, everything that I’m not right now, the kind of calm that comes before the storm.
“An interrogation specialist,” Julia says, stepping into the doorway behind me. Her voice is calm. Measured. Like she’s discussing quarterly reports. “Very experienced with resistant subjects.”
I close my eyes for a moment. “Where is he?”
“Does it matter?”
I turn to look at her. Whatever she sees in my face makes her take half a step back.
“Where. Is. He?” I seethe, my breathing coming out rough and labored as the rage starts rippling through me again.
“Gone,” she says, straightening her posture. “His work here is done.”
I take a step toward Mia.
“She’s a spy, Nate.”
Julia’s voice cuts through and I look back. She’s composed again, that half-step of fear already buried, though she’s fiddling with something in her fingers, something dark.
I pause, as if I want to listen to her. I pause as if I can’t move.
“A foreign operative sent to compromise you. Everything she told you was a lie. Every moment of intimacy was calculated to extract information. She used your loneliness, your need for connection, your pathetic hope that someone might actually see you as human.” Her lip curls.
“She played you. And you fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.”
“I don’t care.”
“But you should. She was going to kill you if ordered. That was her mission—seduce the asset, gather intelligence, and if necessary, eliminate the threat.” Julia steps closer. “Do you understand? She was going to kill you.”
“And I said I don’t care,” I snap.
“Then you’re more compromised than I thought.”
I manage to take another step toward Mia before I go still again. My body is screaming at me to go to her, to rip those restraints off, to carry her out of this place and never look back, but there’s something holding me back.
“Your mission is simple,” Julia says. “Kill her. Prove your programming holds. Prove your loyalty to Global Dynamix. Pass this test, and we forget the last few weeks ever happened. You go back to being America’s Hero. Everyone’s happy.”
I turn slowly to face her, unable to process her words.
“You want me to kill her?”
“I want you to do what you were designed to do. I mean, it’s not been for lack of trying.”
Everything seems to go still. “And if I refuse?”
“Then Paragon finishes the job while you get to watch.” She shrugs, a small, cold gesture. “And afterward, we’ll discuss whether you’re still useful—or whether you should join our other research subjects.”
I look at Mia. At the blood drying on her skin. At the way her chest barely rises and falls, each breath a fight.
She’s still alive. Barely. But alive.
Put her out of her misery.
The voice—that voice—comes from somewhere inside my skull. Not mine. Cold and mechanical, pressing against my thoughts like fingers digging into my brain.
Complete the mission. Eliminate the threat.
Generating directives.
“The activation codes work faster when you’re emotional,” Julia says, holding up that slim dark thing in her hand.
It’s a remote. “This is what I’ve been finding with you, that your darkness is most easily corrupted when you’re in the thick of it.
I’d hoped we wouldn’t need this. But you’re not making this easy for us. ”
Pain spikes behind my eyes. Sharp, blinding, an ice pick driven straight through my skull.
Kill her.
Kill her now.
She’s the enemy.
She used you.
She lied to you.
She made you weak.
“Do it, Nate, and it will hurt less.” Julia’s voice is soft now, borderline tender. “It’s what you were made for.”
I take a step toward Mia. Julia clicks her device.
Good.
Closer.
Finish it.