“Defenseless women?” I snarled, and he laughed.
“What a joke. We both know that until I gassed you, you could’ve controlled the situation.” He put the word “control” in air quotes. “But once I did—let’s just say, I have questions. And now? You can’t lie to me.”
He tapped a tablet on his knee, and I heard a softchimefrom above, like a lullaby being tortured.
It was the same four notes Sophia had hummed.
“The device is live. And you’ll note, it doesn’t hurt you. Not like your old tech did. I’m not a monster, you see.”
I snorted at that. “Then what are you?”
“The muscle of a very wealthy portion of humanity.” He said it without irony. “And that interface—it doesn’t read thoughts, not exactly, but it picks up neural signatures. Pain. Fear. Pleasure. Recognition. You react, we observe. Over time, we map the contours of your mind. And eventually, we learn how to replicate it. Everything’s a pattern.”
His smile was practiced. Professional.
Like he was teaching a class.
Like I was a specimen.
“So we just need to see how you do what you do. What triggers it. And what it costs you. We’re going to run a few tests,” he said. “Nothing too invasive at first. Just a little emotional stimulation. Mild threats. Controlled variables.”
He rose, setting the tablet down. “And we’ll see here,” he said, tapping it with his finger, “if you try to stop us. Stay there. I’ll be right back.”
I waited, trying to calculate the horrors he would inflict on me—and then I stood, coming closer to the glass so that I could see his tablet’s screen. Data flickered on it—from my mind?—and I was startled anew when he returned with two men wearing the same kind of hospital gown I wore.
He positioned one of them in front of the other, both clearly visible for my benefit.
“You,” he said, tapping the shoulder of the one on my right. “Push out his eyeballs with your thumbs.”
My jaw dropped in horror as his hands rose and he put them over the other man’s eyes.
“Slowly!” The doctor adjusted his command.
The man whose face had a stranger’s hands on it didn’t move. Didn’t register fear or emotion of any kind. As far as I could tell, with thumbs in the way, he didn’t even fucking blink.
“Stop!” I commanded, like I had just rolled up on a bar fight. “Don’t do that!” I shouted, because the alternative was to watch without saying anything and feel complicit for the rest of my life. I banged a hand on the glass. “Make them stop!”
The doctor turned toward me. “No, Sirena. You do it.”
“But—” I protested, my face curdling in horror. “I can’t.” If I couldpushanyone right now, I wouldn’t-the-fuck-be-here!
“I still want you to try,” he said, picking up his tablet. “With your whole chest, as the young people say.”
If I did...there was no guarantee he’d really make them stop.
And I’d be giving him the precise kind of data he needed for whatever horrible purposes he had.
But if I didn’t, one of those poor men was going to walk out of this room blind—and if I waited one more millisecond?—
“Stop!” I cried out from the bottom of my soul.
The man in the lab coat practically made purring noises while looking at his tablet.
“I did it! Make them stop!” I pounded both my fists against the glass, and he looked up, his brown eyes holding a horrible combination of glassy disinterest and sheer malice.
“Say ‘Please stop, Doctor Marek,’” he said, holding up a hand. “And say it nicely enough that I’ll agree.”
I stared, aghast, before I broke instantly. “Please stop, Doctor Marek.” I ran the words together. “Stop, please.”
