The red emergency lights painted everything in shadows.
The café felt smaller now. Trapped.
Aanya stood still as Meera stepped closer.
There was no hesitation in Meera's movements. No visible anger. No emotion at all.
Just execution.
"You should've accepted restoration," Meera said softly.
Dev remained near the doorway, hands calmly behind his back. Watching.
Observing.
Collecting data.
Aanya's breathing slowed.
She recognized the shift inside herself — the same cold clarity that had surfaced in the burned facility.
This is what they trained you for.
Meera moved first.
Fast.
Too fast for someone untrained.
Aanya barely sidestepped as Meera's strike cut through the air where her neck had been seconds earlier.
Chairs crashed.
A table flipped.
People screamed and scrambled toward the back exit.
The two armed men blocked Aarav as he tried to reach Aanya.
"Don't interfere," one of them warned.
Inside the chaos, the world felt strangely quiet to Aanya.
Her vision sharpened.
She saw patterns.
Angles.
Weight shifts.
Meera attacked again — precise, efficient.
No wasted motion.
Aanya blocked, countered, stepped back.
"You don't have to do this," Aanya said between movements.
"Yes, I do," Meera replied calmly. "Structure prevents collapse."
Aanya felt a flash of memory—
A voice in a white room.
"Emotional appeal is manipulation. Remove response."
Meera wasn't angry.
She was aligned.
That made her more dangerous.
Aanya ducked under a strike and grabbed Meera's wrist, twisting just enough to break balance. Meera recovered instantly.
They were evenly matched.
Across the room, Aarav managed to shove one man aside, but another restrained him.
Dev's voice cut through the noise.
"Enough."
Both girls froze instinctively.
The conditioning.
The command tone.
Aanya felt the reflex inside her — the urge to obey.
For a split second—
She almost did.
Meera straightened immediately.
But Aanya forced herself to move.
She stepped back instead of forward.
The smallest rebellion.
Dev noticed.
Interesting.
"Phase Five resilience," he murmured softly.
Meera's eyes flickered toward Dev, awaiting instruction.
Dev studied Aanya carefully.
"You're unstable," he said.
"No," Aanya replied quietly. "I'm human."
The word hung in the air.
Dev walked closer.
"Human systems collapse under emotional strain. We engineered protection."
"You engineered control."
A subtle tension appeared in Dev's expression.
Outside, distant sirens began to echo.
Someone had called the police.
Dev glanced toward the sound, calculating.
"This isn't the right environment," he said finally.
He looked at Meera.
"Withdraw