They walked through the morning market, past stalls selling vegetables and fish and cheap electronics. Vendors shouted their prices, their voices competing with the rumble of early traffic and the distant wail of sirens. The city was still healing from the bombings, Sam could see the scars everywhere, the boarded windows, the fresh concrete, the memorial flowers tied to lampposts where people had died. But life continued. It always did.
She stopped in front of a stall selling goldfish. The fish swam in endless circles in their plastic bags, their orange scales catching the gray morning light. "They're alive?"
"Yeah."
"They're so small. And fragile." She pressed her fingers against the plastic of one of the bags, watching the fish dart away from her touch. "Like me. What are they?"
"They're goldfish."
"I don't know what that is."
"You're looking at them."
[How come she doesn't know what a fish is but she knows what Dill are]
"How come you know what Dills are?"
"I see a lot of them, my caretakers also do pharmacy stuff."
The safehouse was small, a studio apartment above a laundromat in one of the lower districts. It wasn't much. A bed. A table. A window that looked out on a brick wall and a fire escape that had seen better days. But it was clean, and it was quiet, and it was his.
Dill stood in the center of the room, her too-large sandals leaving faint impressions on the worn floorboards. "Is this where I live now?"
"For now."
"For how long?"
Sam set the briefcase on the table. Still didn't open it. "That depends."
"On what?"
He turned to look at her. She was still standing in the center of the room, her hands at her sides, her dark eyes fixed on him with that same unreadable expression. She looked so small. So fragile. A doll that someone had dressed in a gray shift and forgotten on a shelf.
"On a lot of things," he said finally. "Most of which aren't your concern."
She nodded slowly. "I understand."
"Do you?"
"No." Her voice was quiet. "But I've learned that saying I understand makes people stop asking questions."
Sam's smile widened. "Did they teach you that?"
"I was designed to be smart." She paused. "And to explode."
The word hung in the air between them. Explode. Such a simple word. Such a terrible thing to carry inside your body.
Sam crossed to the window and looked out at the brick wall across the alley. "Are you hungry?"
"I'm always hungry. The nutrient paste didn't make me full."
"There's more pastries in the bag."
She moved to the table and began eating with that same methodical precision. Sam watched her reflection in the window glass, the small girl in the too-large sandals, her dark hair messy from the wind, her thin fingers carefully picking apart a danish.
She was a weapon.
A tool.
A thing designed to be used and discarded.
She wasn't supposed to be a person. Wasn't supposed to have preferences or curiosities or a quiet, unsettling wisdom.
But this was different.
This was a child.
The days blurred together.
Sam had been given a task, keep the girl safe, keep her hidden, wait for the order to activate her. It should have been simple. Routine. Just another assignment.
But Badiil-7 was not routine.
She asked questions. Endless questions. About the city, about the people, about the fish in the market and the birds on the fire escape and the stars she'd never seen until now because the laboratory had no windows. She wanted to know why the sky changed colors at sunset. Why the leaves fell from the trees in autumn. Why the man on the corner played music on a guitar case even though no one seemed to be listening.
Sam answered what he could. Deflected what he couldn't. And tried very hard not to think about the briefcase sitting unopened on his table.
He took her to the park on the third day.
It was a small park, more of a green space wedged between apartment buildings, a few benches, a patch of grass, a playground that had seen better days. Children ran and shouted and fell and got back up again, their laughter bright and uncomplicated.
Badiil -7 sat on a bench, her too-large sandals dangling above the ground, watching them with that same analytical intensity she brought to everything.
"They're not afraid," she said.
"Of what?"
"Of anything. They run and they fall and they get back up. They don't worry about what happens if they fall wrong. If they break something. If they-" She stopped. Swallowed. "They just... keep walking."
"That's what children do."
"But I'm a child." She looked down at her hands. "Aren't I?"
Sam was quiet for a moment. "Yeah."
"Then why aren't I like them?"
"You're a weapon. You're supposed to die for our country."
"I know that, that's what they've always told me since I was brought there." She was swinging her legs. "That is my purpose in life."
They sat in silence, watching the children play. The sun moved behind a cloud, casting the park in momentary shadow, then emerged again, brighter than before.
"I want to live freely before I die, death doesn't scare me. I don't want anyone to take away my spirit's freedom in my last moments."
"You're not scared?"
"What other purpose do I serve?"
[She speaks like an adult, they must've trained her]
The bodies arrived on the fourth day.
Sam saw them from the window of the safehouse, a procession of stretchers carried by government agents in hazmat suits, their faces hidden behind tinted visors. The bodies were covered in white sheets, but the blood had soaked through in places, blooming like dark flowers against the sterile fabric.
"What's happening?" Dill was beside him, her small frame pressed against the window, her dark eyes fixed on the scene below.
"Cleanup," Sam said. "From the bombings. They're still finding bodies in the rubble."
"Bodies." She tested the word like she'd tested the croissant, methodically, analytically, searching for meaning in the syllables. "Dead people."
"Yes."
"There are so many." Her voice was quiet. Too quiet. "I didn't know there were so many."
Sam didn't answer.
She watched the stretchers until the last one had disappeared around the corner. Then she turned to him, and her dark eyes, those depthless, unsettling eyes, were different now. Something had shifted behind them. Something that hadn't been there before.
"When I explode," she said slowly, "will I be like them too?"
The question hit him like a physical blow. His smile, that permanent, unshakeable smile, wavered at the edges. "Badiil -"
"That's what I'm for, isn't it? What I was made for." She looked down at her hands again. "I'm a bomb. When they tell me to, I'll explode. And there will be bodies. Like those ones. People who were alive and then weren't."
"Hey-"
"Is that what death is?" She looked up at him, and her eyes were wet now, tears welling but not yet falling. "Is that what happens? You're here, and then you're not, and someone carries you away under a white sheet?"
Sam knelt down. His hands found her shoulders, his grip gentle but steady. "Listen to me."
She looked at him.
"You're not going to explode."
"But the handler said-"
"I don't care what the handler said." His voice was firm now. Harder than it had been. "You're not a bomb. You're a child. And I'm not going to let anyone use you like that."
"You can't stop them." Her voice cracked. "They made me. They put it inside me. I can feel it, sometimes. Every time my heart is beating, I can feel it slowly dig into it."
Sam pulled her into his arms. He'd never held a child before, never comforted anyone except with lies and the promise of payment for services rendered.
But she pressed against him like she'd been waiting for this her whole life, her small hands clutching at his jacket, her tears soaking into the fabric of his shirt.
"I don't want to die," she whispered. "I don't want to be a bomb. I don't want there to be bodies."
"I know." He held her tighter. "I know."