"The protocols. The safeguards. The contingencies if something goes wrong."
"You think something will go wrong?"
"I think trauma is unpredictable. I think your mind has built walls to protect itself. I think breaking those walls down carries risks." I pause. "But the alternative is the Ministry breaking them down for you. And they won't be careful."
He's quiet again. Then, slowly, he reaches out and places his hand on my arm.
The contact is unexpected. I feel the warmth of his palm through my sleeve, the light pressure of his fingers. My first instinct is to pull away. Touch is data. Data requires processing. Processing requires distance.
But I don't pull away.
"Thank you," he says. "For giving me a choice."
"I'm not giving you a choice. I'm giving you an illusion of choice. The outcome is the same either way."
"No." He shakes his head. "It's not. Because you asked. You could have just done it. Strapped me down and taken what you needed. But you asked."
That shocks me. He's right. I could have used force. It would have been easier, faster, more efficient. Standard protocol for asset intelligence extraction.
But something in me rejected that option before I consciously considered it.
"I don't want to hurt you," I say. The words come out before I can stop them. Before I can analyze whether they're strategic or sincere.
Elliot's hand tightens on my arm.
"I know," he says. "That's what scares me."
After Elliot goes back to bed, I spend four hours preparing the extraction protocol. I pull training materials from my Foundry files, modify them for a willing subject, add safeguards that weren't part of the original design.
The result is something that might work. Or might not. I won't know until I try.
At 0600, my phone buzzes. Another message from Jagger.
Abernathy wants to meet, told me to forward it. Wants to see where you’re at with Moore. 0900. His office. Bring your case file.
I type a response:Acknowledged.
Then I add:Webb status?
Still digging. He pulled your Foundry records. Complete file.
My Foundry records. Everything from age eight to graduation at seventeen. Every test, every failure, every success. Every kill I made during training. Every psychological evaluation that concluded I was a perfect specimen: intelligent, adaptable, and completely devoid of the emotional responses that compromise lesser operatives.
Webb is looking for evidence that I've malfunctioned. That my conditioning has degraded. That I'm no longer the weapon they trained me to be.
The Ministry of Enforcement building is the same as yesterday. Same biometric scanner. Same rotating access code. Same receptionist who doesn't look up.
But something has changed. I feel it the moment I step off the elevator. A tension in the air. A shift in the patterns.
There's a man standing outside Abernathy's office. Tall, thin, dressed in the grey uniform of Erasure.
Alfred Webb.
He turns as I approach. His smile is the same one I remember from training: patient, cold, utterly without warmth.
"Reaper," he says. "It's been a while."
"Director Webb."
