Chapter 17 #2
"He's not a criminal," I say quietly, each word measured and deliberate.
My voice doesn't shake. I won't give her that satisfaction.
"He's trying to keep his people alive. Trying to protect them from starvation and sickness and a slow, grinding death in the dark.
Because you're choking them. Because you and the Council decided they're not worth the resources it would take to give them clean air and real food. "
"He is chaos in a carefully balanced system." Mother's voice doesn't rise. It doesn't need to. "And you are the architect of growth, not destruction. We will correct this deviation and reassign you to appropriate work."
"Reassign." Another careful word. "You mean erase me."
"I mean restore you to factory settings.
" She returns to her terminal, pulls up another display.
This one shows a chair, all gleaming metal and neural interface points and restraints that would make Haid's combat gear look gentle.
"Memory suppression, behavioral conditioning, neural pathway reconstruction.
You'll wake up as you were meant to be. Obedient.
Focused. Uncorrupted by inappropriate attachments. "
My hands ball into fists at my sides. "You can't—"
"I can." She meets my eyes over the hologram. "I made you, Ksara. Every cell. Every synaptic connection. You're not my daughter, whatever pleasant fiction you constructed in your head. You're my greatest work." A pause, clinical. "And my intellectual property."
The floor drops out from under me, not literally, though I half-expect the pristine white panels beneath my feet to dissolve into nothing, to send me plummeting into the void that's suddenly opened up in my chest.
Not her daughter.
The words echo in my skull, bouncing off the inside of my head like projectiles, each repetition striking something vital, something I thought was unbreakable.
Not her daughter. Not her daughter. I'd built my entire identity on that foundation, constructed myself around the idea that despite the clinical environment, despite the endless tests and measurements and evaluations, there was love underneath it all.
That she was preparing me for something important because she cared.
Because I mattered to her as more than just... just...
Property.
The word tastes like poison on my tongue, even though I haven't spoken it aloud. Property. Like the equipment in her lab. Like the seedlings in the cultivation chambers. Like any other resource to be optimized, adjusted, recalibrated when performance deviates from acceptable parameters.
"That's not—" I stumble backward, hitting the wall. "You raised me. You called me your daughter. You—"
"I told you what you needed to hear to ensure proper emotional development." Mother's expression doesn't change. "Love is an excellent motivator. You performed beautifully under the illusion of maternal affection."
Illusion.
All of it. Every birthday, every moment I thought she was proud of me, every time I ached for her approval. Just data collection. Just behavioral conditioning.
I'm going to be sick.
"The process is relatively painless," Mother continues, because of course she does, because my existential collapse is just another variable to manage.
"Sedation followed by targeted neural suppression.
You won't remember him. Won't remember Tartarus.
Won't remember this conversation." She tilts her head, considering.
"From your perspective, you'll simply wake up ready to begin the Meridian terraforming project. Clean slate."
"No." The word rips out of me. "I won't—"
"You will." She taps another command. The door behind me opens. Different guards this time, larger, wearing the heavy armor reserved for handling dangerous specimens. "Escort her to prep."
They take their first steps toward me, heavy boots echoing against the polished floor, and something inside me breaks.
Not shatters, that's not the right word.
Not destruction. This is different. This is fundamental.
Something breaks open, like a seed that's been dormant too long finally splitting its shell to let the root push through, like earth cracking apart to make way for new growth.
The sensation radiates from my chest, spreading through my ribcage, down my arms, into my fingertips.
It feels like every suppressed instinct, every dampened ability, every carefully controlled aspect of my bio-kinesis that Mother calibrated and measured and managed is suddenly roaring back to life, unfettered and wild and absolutely done with containment.
Power floods my veins, hot and green and absolutely furious. Every potted plant in Mother's office explodes into violent growth, vines erupting from decorative planters to smash against walls, flowering branches punching through the ceiling, roots buckling the floor.
The guards freeze mid-stride, their heavy boots suddenly silent against the buckling floor, their armored hands hovering uncertainly near their weapons as vines thick as their wrists writhe between them and me, creating a living barrier that pulses with my heartbeat.