“She treated him as human. Not weapon. She trusted him when he had no reason to be trusted. I suspected it was a defect of the Prima Generation, but...”
The third photo loaded.
My face stared back at me.
My hospital ID photo from Boston General taken a few years ago.
“And now Blackout and you, Ms. Bolton.”
The way he used Xavier’s designation made my skin crawl. Like it was his real name. Like he owned it.
“I’m aware of the chip’s damage, and that’s why I sent a team to retrieve Blackout. All I was expecting was a corpse, but he’s kept breathing, and within hours his conditioning started failing.”
Dresner paused, letting the silence fill the rest.
My stomach dropped. “You’re insane.”
“I’m a scientist. I observe. I analyze. I adapt.”
“And now, he deactivated the chip entirely.”
The words hung between us.
I stared at my own photograph on his tablet. At the file with my name, my history, probably every detail of my life reduced to data points and analysis.
“The common denominator isn’t your professions. Not your skills. Journalist, psychiatrist, nurse. All different fields. Not your backgrounds. Varied, no pattern. Not your training. None of you had experience in psychological warfare or deprogramming.”
Dresner swiped back through the files.
He looked at me again, and this time there was something almost like admiration in his expression.
“It’s what you represent.”
My throat was so tight I could barely breathe.
“Authentic human connection. Empathy without agenda. Care without conditioning. Trust freely given, not chemically enforced.”
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t process.
“You’re saying... love?” The word felt absurd in this sterile room, with me strapped to a table.
He set the tablet down on the equipment cart.
“That changes brain chemistry in ways I hadn’t fully accounted for.”
The clinical detachment made me want to scream.
“My conditioning is designed to suppress emotion, memory, autonomy. PSI-317 regulates neurochemistry. The implants monitor and correct deviation. It is a perfect system.”
Dresner paced slowly beside the table.
He stopped, looking down at me.
“But I never fully accounted for the variable of genuine attachment.”
The words fell like stones.
“The accelerated healing was unexpected. Continuous PSI-317 exposure triggers cellular regeneration at approximately threetimes normal human rates. Periodic injections don’t produce this effect, only the implant’s constant micro-dosing. A flaw in the delivery system that became an advantage.” He glanced at the monitors. “Until deactivation, of course. Then he becomes merely human again. Fragile. Mortal.”
