Chapter 22 #2
Now I’m in a room. Not this room, not the present, but a room from childhood.
A woman stands at the sink, back turned, hair black as night.
She’s humming. I try to remember the tune, but the Protocol pulls me back to the chair with a jolt.
My heart hammers in double time. My jaw aches.
The world is blue and black and the edges of my sight are fraying.
The techs’ voices echo, distorted through the glass. “Brainwave anomaly.” “Resistance on all channels.” “Never seen readings like this.”
Petrov’s shadow looms behind the glass, face like a storm front.
Another surge. This one is different: instead of diving into a memory, it pulls the memory out.
I feel it drain away—a sinking, cold slide that leaves nothing in its place.
I try to fight back, but there’s no leverage.
I start muttering numbers again, a mantra this time: “Two point seven, two point eight, two point nine—”
A brief clarity: I’m back in the chair, hands white on the armrests, breath so shallow I can see it cloud the air in front of me. One of the techs says, “If we push any higher, she’ll seize.”
Petrov keys the intercom again. “Proceed.”
The next hit is fire. My body goes rigid, vision turns to noise. I see the faces of the dead from the Echo Complex, their eyes replaced by Spheres, their mouths open in a silent scream. I see Kang, in a corridor, calling my name, his hands bloody, then gone.
I want to scream, but there’s no air.
The current drops, then stops. The techs rush in, checking the monitors, talking over each other. I float in the chair, too empty to move. My tongue is dry and swollen. My wrists are bleeding under the electrodes.
Behind the glass, Petrov shakes his head, disgusted. The smallest tech mutters, “She’s still got her own threads. Didn’t break.”
They start to unstrap me. My arms feel like water. The memory of the chair is the only thing that’s real.
Petrov opens the door, stepping into the room with all the warmth of an open grave.
“You’re wasting your time,” I rasp, barely above a whisper. “I don’t have the memories you want.”
He smiles, cruel and small. “But you have something. And I will find it.”
He signals the guards to take me.
As they haul me to my feet, I look for Kang. He’s not there.
But I remember his voice: Don’t let them see you break.
I haven’t. Not yet.
The guards don’t bother with a show of force this time. They return me to my suite on the main block, where the walls are smooth and the air only slightly metallic. They leave the door unlocked, probably because the last round of Protocol fried my legs enough that I’m more likely to crawl than run.
For twenty-seven minutes, I just lie there, face pressed to the white fabric, cataloging the way my muscles twitch at random, the afterburn of whatever they pumped through the electrodes.
My mouth tastes like char, my eyes dry as glass.
But my mind—my mind is a blender stuck on maximum, every thought chopped and flung against the side of my skull in blue-lit fragments.
I remember the lab. I remember the pond.
I remember a woman’s voice, singing, and then—impossibly—Kang, in the corridor, calling my name.
There is something about that moment that pulls at me, like a loose thread.
I try to tug it free, but the effort is too much.
I let the memory float, watching it from a distance.
It’s almost peaceful until the aftershocks start.
First a shiver at the base of the spine, then a full-body seizure that lasts just long enough to make me count out loud.
Four point three, four point four, four point five.
When it passes, I breathe in slow, then faster, then slow again, waiting for the pressure to equalize.
A soft voice on the intercom: “Diana. Report to the main interview chamber. You have a visitor.”
I know that voice. Kang. My skin prickles at the thought.
I manage to sit up, just as the door slides open and he enters, alone. He’s lost the parade rest, and the sidearm is holstered. For a second, I see the version of him from the fight—eyes wild, lips bloody. But then it’s gone, replaced by Authority blankness.
He closes the door behind him, keeping his voice low. “Petrov is escalating. He wants to run the Protocol again, but you can’t take another round.”
I try to laugh, but the sound catches in my throat. “He’ll get nothing out of me. He already failed.”
Kang kneels in front of me, closer than I expect. He’s not wearing gloves, and his hands tremble when he touches my face to check for fever. The touch is clinical, but the way his eyes hold mine is anything but.
“I told him you were more valuable alive. That you could read the Spheres better than anyone.”
“And if I can’t?” My voice is raw, almost gone.
He pauses, then says, “Then I’ll put a bullet through your skull myself, before they melt your brain.”
He means it, and I know he does. It’s almost a comfort.
He stays there for a moment, silent, letting the threat hang like a promise. Then he stands, and his mask cracks just a little. “You have three days to prove your worth. After that—” He lets it go unfinished, but we both know the end.
I watch him leave. For a second, I swear I see regret in the set of his shoulders.
The rest of the day is a loop: try to sleep, fail, remember a new fragment, try to stitch it to the others. The hum of the Spheres is gone, but sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can feel their pattern just under my skin.
That night, I catch movement at the slit window: Kang, alone, hands deep in his coat pockets, staring up at the lights of the admin block. He looks lost, or maybe just cold.
For a while, neither of us moves. Then he looks up, finds me watching, and instead of looking away, he just stands there, letting me see him. It’s a connection—flimsy, stupid, probably dangerous. But it’s the only thing I have.
I don’t know what comes next. I don’t know if I want to.