The statement fell like a guillotine blade. "I require you."
Not her energy. Not her despair. Not the byproduct of her suffering. Her.
A new, hollow, arctic dread froze Rossie from the inside out, stopping her tremors cold. Being a 'machine' was horrific; it meant there were lulls between cycles. Being 'fuel' was agonizing; it meant she was consumed piece by piece.
But this... this was annihilation. He no longer wanted the fruit; he wanted to rip the tree out by its roots.
"No," she whispered, the word escaping without permission. It was the reflexive denial of a cornered animal.
Maher tilted his head. He wasn't angry. He looked... amused. As if a lab rat had just voiced its opinion on the procedure.
"Your will is irrelevant in this," he said, his voice returning to its calm, analytical state. But that calm now had a new undercurrent—one of eager anticipation. "You have opened a door. You do not simply get to close it."
He walked back toward the bed. Each step on the thick rug was silent, yet to Rossie, each one landed like a war drum. She huddled back, pulling her knees to her chest, a futile gesture of protection.
"Tell me what you saw," he commanded. He wasn't kneeling anymore. He sat on the edge of the bed, his weight depressing the mattress, sending a vibration of inescapable physical reality toward her.
She shook her head, tears streaming.
"Tell me," he repeated, and this time, there was pressure in his voice. An order. The fireplace crackled loudly in response.
"The Web," she said, her voice breaking. "I saw... threads. Everything connected. Contracts. Debts." She looked at him, her eyes pleading, though she didn't know for what. "I saw my family. A gold thread. It... it connects to you."
"That is the Anchor," Maher said. He nodded, as if she had confirmed a hypothesis. "The foundation of it all. You did not just see it. You comprehended it."
"It was too much," she whispered.
"It is the truth." He leaned a fraction closer. The rain hammered the glass. "And you... you touched me."
Rossie gasped at the admission.
"It was," he continued, his silver eyes dissecting her face, "a novel experience. A normal human consciousness would have shattered. But you... you did not."
He reached out his hand. Not for her forehead.
"You resonated."
He pressed his palm flat against the center of her chest, right over her sternum.
There was no energy transfer. No 'protocol' warmth.
It was just a touch. Cold. Heavy. A claim.
And then, the touch changed.
He wasn't pushing energy into her.
He was pulling.
It wasn't the violent, harvesting siphon he used for her despair. It was a steady, relentless, curious tug. He was pulling at her consciousness, inviting it out of the confines of her body. He wasn't asking; he was summoning.
"No... please... don't..." Rossie grabbed his wrist, her weak fingers trying uselessly to pry him off.
"Stop fighting," he whispered. "You are only hurting yourself."
It was true. Her resistance was creating friction. It felt like her soul was being drawn through a sieve.
"Open," he commanded.
Rossie squeezed her eyes shut. Fear was one thing. This was existential terror. She didn't want to be lost in that cold, ancient vastness.
"Look at me, Rossie."
She couldn't refuse. The command was embedded in the very essence of his power.
She opened her eyes.
Maher was looking at her. And in those silver depths, she no longer saw shock. She no longer saw hunger.
She saw an invitation.
She saw the infinite, cold darkness of his consciousness, but now, it was not indifferent. It was focused on her.
And it was waiting.
He relaxed the pull, replacing it with something far more insidious. A lure. He was showing her what she had seen—the Web. But this time, she wasn't just observing. He was offering her a seat next to him.
See, he seemed to say without speaking. See what we are.
Rossie gasped. She felt that pull again, that unmooring.
"Again," Maher commanded, his voice soft as silk. "Touch me again. But this time... do it on purpose."
She didn't know how. She only knew that this man, this terrible god, had found her. She was no longer a machine in a box.
She was a key that had just been inserted into a lock.
And Maher was going to turn it, whether it shattered the key or not.
She took a shuddering breath. She stopped fighting.
Instantly, the pain ceased.
The sensation returned—that sense of falling inward. She felt her consciousness unspool from her physical form.
She was in that glittering darkness again.
But this time, she was not alone.
A vast, star-cold awareness turned to face her.
Good, it thought, the voice echoing not in her ears, but in her very being. Welcome... to the new protocol.