For a long time, the clinic had been considered a miracle.
The newspapers spoke of it as a revolution.
Governments were monitoring her.
Billionaires were interested in it.
Scientists from all over the world dreamed of working there.
And the wealthiest families were prepared to wait years for a single place.
At that time, no one was talking about scandal yet, but did they really exist?
Nobody was talking about the children.
Only the pills and vials were shown.
The immaculate buildings.
The bright corridors.
The gleaming laboratories and that empty, strange atmosphere.
Always a promise.
"A longer life".
A more resilient body.
A better future.
Immortality was no longer an unattainable fantasy.
It just seemed expensive, simply expensive.
At the top of this immense machine was a program whose existence few people actually knew about.
The Perfect Project.
Even among the employees, the name was rarely mentioned.
As if simply mentioning it might awaken something.
Or someone.
Alpha-1 was the most famous at the time.
The most efficient.
The most stable.
The most promising.
Researchers sometimes called her the Queen of the Program.
But none of them asked her what she thought about it.
Because, deep down, his opinion had never mattered.
Alpha-1 was twenty years old that year.
Officially.
Yet, when she was seen crossing the inner gardens of the complex, she still looked like a child, a little girl of eight.
Maybe nine.
Her black hair reached down to her shoulders.
Her face retained a childlike roundness.
Her figure had hardly changed in a decade.
Visitors often gazed at her with fascination.
Some with admiration.
Others with discomfort.
Because something seemed wrong in his gaze.
Her gaze was not that of a child.
It showed the fatigue of an adult.
An old weariness.
Something that shouldn't exist in the eyes of such a young person.
But Alpha-1 wasn't correcting anyone anymore.
At first, she tried.
At first, she would get angry.
At first, she hated being treated like a baby.
Then the years passed.
And that anger had worn off.
Like everything else.
The other Alphas lived in the same area.
A huge enclosed space that the leaders called the Cultivation Gardens.
A ridiculous name that showed the way he viewed his children; they were nothing more than varieties of plants.
Just a prison, a magnificent prison.
The walls remained as pale as they are today.
The ceilings reproduced a false sky.
The seasons no longer needed to change; it was an eternal cold.
We could even hear thunderstorms all day long.
Everything was designed to give the illusion of a normal life; the inside was better than the outside.
A perfect illusion.
Almost convincing.
The Alphas grew up together, but every week, reality came back to hit them.
Only the best remained.
Nobody wanted to get off, end up at the back and be deprived of that "love".
Because everyone knew what happened to the last ones.
Nobody was talking about it.
But everyone knew that.
To survive, the Alphas had distanced themselves from each other.
Even though they formed groups to get rid of the most hated one, they did not forget their objectives.
Les Emotional.
These strange beings who gravitated around them.
Very clumsy, sometimes incomprehensible.
But deeply attached to those they accompanied.
When this child saw the other Alphas receiving encouragement every day.
Congratulations.
Smiles.
Gifts.
Attention.
Such simple, ordinary things, but things she dreamed of the most
Things that became precious when you lived in confinement.
Alpha-1 watched all of this from a distance.
Always like a spectator.
His official emotional partner was his own father.
But on paper it was something else, cool but in your dreams.
He appeared when it was time to take a picture.
When an investor visited the complex.
When a journalist asked questions.
Then it disappeared again.
The rare times he spoke to her, it was always the same thing.
You are Alpha-1.
As if his entire existence could be summed up by a position in a ranking.
As if his efforts were natural.
Normal.
Expected.
As if she didn't deserve this "love"
Just because she was supposed to succeed.
Over time, loneliness had begun to take hold.
Slowly.
Insidiously.
At first, she thought she could ignore it.
Then the years passed.
The other Alphas left, their rooms remained empty.
Their places too.
Each departure took a little more life away from the complex.
Each disappearance took away a voice and a laugh.
A presence.
And Alpha-1 remained.
Always.
Like a forgotten statue in the middle of an emptying garden.
Then one day, she saw him.
Words were circulating in the corridors.
Like rumors.
Sigma-0.
The name was appearing everywhere.
Alpha-1 remained silent.
The boy looked even younger than her.
Six years.
Maybe.
No more than that.
He observed the world with quiet curiosity.
As if he had just arrived in an unfamiliar room and was simply trying to understand.
The other children were already surrounding him.
She saw nothing special, just a child, she who had feared having to fight against a baby for her place, now thinking she had exaggerated.
He answered everything with disconcerting ease.
The researchers seemed fascinated, alpha-01 seemed to disgust them.
And yet...
It wasn't being replaced that struck Alpha-1.
Non.
What really annoyed him...
That was her smile.
A simple and natural smile.
He was the happiest of specimens in this gilded cage; he still had this treasure.
Something that even Alpha-1 had long since lost.
Hope.
The most painful memory she could not erase.