No alarms. No screams.
Just silence.
Too clean. Too absolute.
It rings in Kaizen's skull like a false memory trying to overwrite a real one.
He lies still in the chair — the Halo Rig, they called it — metal curled around his head like a crown. No slack. No shift.
Arms limp at his sides. Spine straightened by mechanical tension. A dozen electrodes sink into open ports along his neck.
They don't need the slab anymore.
They think he's broken.
He breathes.
Slow.
Shallow.
Performative.
The kind of breathing that keeps machines happy and scientists lazy.
The kind of breathing that makes predators look away.
His eye twitches every 13 seconds. Exactly.
The muscle memory's artificial now — implanted after his left one was carved out.
Another twitch.
Compliance monitor pings green.
COMPLIANCE: 72%
STIM RESPONSE: NORMAL
COGNITIVE ACTIVITY: NEUTRALIZED
Lies.
All of it.
Observation Bay – Six floors above
Elen watches from behind the glass.
He's been reassigned.
No longer cleaning bloodstains.
Now he observes.
Watches. Records.
Rates the screams.
They put him here because he "showed promise."
Because he didn't puke during vivisection.
Because his notes were "detailed."
Because they don't know.
They don't know he's the reason Subject K's heart still beats on his own terms.
The rig rotates Kaizen slightly to adjust the readout angle. The metal hisses. A soft mist sprays across his temple to cool neural interfaces.
He doesn't flinch.
Doesn't react when they run a low-voltage pulse across his fingers. Doesn't twitch when the projected audio blurts a child's scream in reverse.
"Nothing," one tech mutters in the deck. "Not even a muscle shift."
"He's perfect," says another, logging data with a grin. "Total obedience."
Elen doesn't smile.
His fingers clench behind the clipboard.
They're looking at a storm and calling it still water.
Later, the lab clears.
No one left but him.
He walks slow. One step at a time, clipboard hugged tight, eyes darting to every camera like they'll blink first.
He shouldn't be here alone. But the system glitched again — scheduled cleaning protocol fired at the wrong hour.
He volunteered. Told them he could do both. Observation and sanitation.
No one argued.
Too clean of a record.
Too good of a liar.
He crouches beside the terminal near Kaizen's chair.
Unplugs the scrub port cover.
Fingers trembling now.
He slides in the burner node. It clicks once, then starts humming — same pitch as the goddamn walls always do.
Screen flickers.
Command line unlocks.
> INIT SHADOW COMMS CHANNEL…
> CONNECTION ESTABLISHED.
Compliance: 72%
Too high. Too steady.
He types:
> DROP 10 IF YOU HEAR ME.
Seconds pass.
Sweat beads down his jaw.
Then:
62%
He exhales like he's been holding it since yesterday.
> DROP 5
57%
> Up 3
60%
He almost laughs.
Almost.
Then stops.
The rig shifts slightly. A tiny hiss of pressure.
Kaizen hasn't moved.
But the corner of his eye?
Just a glint.
Just a fraction of a squint.
"Holy shit… you're still in there."
Elen types slower now. Every letter like a breath.
> They said you were flatlined.
> Said they wiped the backup nodes.
> I checked. They're gone. But you're not.
Kaizen doesn't react.
But the screen jitters for a moment. The compliance curve wobbles.
Then realigns.
Perfect.
He's riding it manually. Trickling compliance like a fuckin' drip IV.
Elen stares.
Then whispers — not smart, not safe:
"Kaizen…"
The rig responds.
Not violently.
Precisely.
One twitch in Kaizen's left pinky.
System logs it as:
NEURAL ARTIFACT DETECTED. NON-HARMFUL. LOGGING SUPPRESSED.
His head tilts — barely.
That's not reflex.
That's intention.
The terminal chimes.
AUDIO REGISTERED – UNTAGGED VOCAL SAMPLE
QUERY: "Kaizen" – MATCHING ERROR
ENTRY ERASED
Elen yanks the node out.
Hard.
The screen flickers red for a second.
Gone.
He grabs his gear, bolts for the side wall where the extra saline bags are stored. Forces himself to look busy.
Door opens.
"Everything alright, Elen?"
Vahr again.
Same cup of synthetic citrus tea.
Same shark teeth behind a white smile.
"Yeah." Elen clears his throat. "Node shorted. Logged the spark. Replaced."
Vahr steps forward. Way too close.
He picks up a surgical scalpel off the tray. Twirls it like a baton.
"Clean work."
"Thanks," Elen mutters.
"You're not paid to improvise though, are you?"
Elen's blood freezes.
Just a second.
Then Vahr chuckles, gentle, like a dad who found his kid playing in the toolshed.
"Relax. Not accusing you."
He hands over the scalpel.
"Just a reminder. Don't touch things you don't understand."
And then he's gone.
Elen doesn't move for ten minutes.
Just stands there.
Staring at Kaizen through the reflection in the mirror-glass window.
Kaizen doesn't move either.
But he knows.
They both do.
Later, Back in the rig.
Kaizen waits.
Then, very slowly — so slow the system logs it as background neural twitch —
He opens his remaining eye.
Only for a second.
Looks directly at the camera.
And smiles.
No teeth. Just curve.
Calculated.
Deliberate.