Here's the thing about following your criminal daughter through the underbelly of an emotionally fascist regime:
You don't expect it to feel like foreplay.
We're ten levels underground. Concrete walls. Rusted pipes. Smells like old electricity and teenage rebellion. She's striding ahead like she owns the place.
I follow like a responsible parent-slash-government traitor.
"Is this the part where you lead me to a torture chamber and monologue about your tragic backstory?" I ask.
Lyra snorts. "Please. I'm not that dramatic."
She pushes open a thick, dented door. It creaks like it has opinions. Inside?
A hidden library.
Books. Real books. On shelves. Color-coded like a Pinterest war zone. Fairy lights dangle from the ceiling. A couch patched with duct tape and dreams. And a projector pointed at a cracked concrete wall playing some kind of ancient rom-com with lots of kissing and yelling.
It's cozy.
Illegal.
And kind of beautiful.
"Welcome to the Feel Hole," she says, deadpan.
I blink. "Excuse me?"
"It's what we call it. Short for 'Emotional Black Hole of Questionable Decisions.' Also the couch sinks weird in the middle. Watch your spine."
She tosses her coat aside, flops onto the couch, grabs a handful of popcorn from a dented bowl like this is the most normal thing in the world.
"So," she says, mouth full, "why aren't you dragging me to a re-education camp right now?"
Good question.
"Because," I say, slowly, "I think I need to understand you before I lose you again."
That shuts her up for two seconds. A personal record.
"You mean before you betray me again," she says, voice sharp.
Right. That.
"I didn't betray you," I say.
She gives me the look. The one I've seen since she was twelve and discovered I replaced her poetry journal with an approved workbook titled Repression for Teens.
"Okay," I amend, "I betrayed everything you stood for. Same difference."
She shrugs, eyes on the screen. "You chose sedation. I chose resistance. You took the blue pill. I took the red one. Classic."
"Except my pill came with dental."
She smirks. Barely. But I see it.
And suddenly I remember being her dad. The real one. Before the regime. Before her mother left and I shut down like a coward.
Before I traded emotions for silence and called it peace.
She leans her head back. Stares at the ceiling.
"I used to think maybe you were pretending," she says. "That you still felt stuff. You were just scared."
"I was," I admit.
She looks at me.
I look at her.
It's a moment.
Then the couch sags dramatically and I nearly fall into her lap.
"Told you," she says, not moving. "It's the Feel Hole. She claims who she wants."
"Charming," I mutter, trying to sit straight. My hip cracks in protest.
"You okay there, old man?"
"I'm thirty-eight."
"In regime years? That's ninety."
I roll my eyes. She smiles. And the projector screen flickers.
The couple on-screen is arguing. Yelling. Then kissing.
"You ever miss this?" she asks.
"What, kissing during arguments?"
"Feeling something that hurts."
I want to lie.
Instead, I say, "Every damn day."
We sit in silence for a second.
And then she reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a small, sleek device.
Looks like a vape. Isn't.
She taps it twice. A soft buzz fills the air.
"Anti-surveillance field," she says. "You're off-grid. For now."
Dangerous. Stupid. Beautiful.
Like her.
"So, what's your plan?" I ask. "Blow up the Chancellor? Set emotions free? Reboot the world with musical theater and feelings?"
She laughs. And it's genuine. Bright. Full of history.
"No," she says. "I'm stealing something. Or someone."
I raise a brow. "Do I get to know what—or who?"
"You."
Beat.
"What?"
She turns. Serious now. Her voice softer.
"I need you, Dad. You're the only one who can walk into the Data Core and access the Emotion Suppression Algorithm. You wrote it."
I exhale.
Right.
That.
Years ago. In a lab. Alone. Broken. I thought I was helping humanity. Ending war. Ending heartbreak.
Instead, I killed the symphony and handed them a silent world.
"Why now?" I ask.
She leans closer. Eyes burning.
"Because they've created an update. The Omega Loop. Once it goes live, it's not just suppression. It's deletion. They'll erase emotion from the source."
My blood runs cold.
"And you're sure?"
"I have a mole. Someone high up. We don't have time. The update launches in seven days."
There it is. The ticking clock.
And I'm the detonator.
"What if I say no?"
She shrugs. "Then I find another way. But it'll be slower. Riskier. And maybe more people die."
No pressure.
I rub my face. My hands shake. It's not the caffeine. It's fear. Old and bitter and stupid.
"You want me to betray everything," I say.
"No," she whispers. "I want you to remember who you were. Who you are."
Another beat.
She stands. Crosses to a shelf. Grabs a book.
It's old. Worn. A little battered.
She hands it to me.
A children's book. One I used to read to her before bedtime.
The Boy Who Felt Too Much.
I open it. My handwriting's inside.
"To Lyra. May you never stop feeling."
God. That hurts.
And I realize—I can't walk away from this.
Not again.
"I'm in," I say.
She grins. And for a second?
She's just my little girl again.
Then an alarm screeches from the hallway.
Red lights flash.
Her smirk dies.
"So," I mutter, "how secure is this Feel Hole?"
She grabs my arm.
"We've got sixty seconds to find out."