Alexei sets the tablet down.
The gesture is significant. The tablet is his tool, his interface with the mission. Setting it down means he is no longer working. Setting it down means this moment is not being recorded.
“I can stretch it,” I say. “The information. I can give it to you in pieces, spread it out over more sessions, make myself valuable for longer.”
His expression flickers. Something that might be amusement, or might be something else entirely.
“You are attempting to negotiate,” he says.
“I’m attempting to survive.”
“By manipulating the duration of your interrogation.”
“By making sure you keep coming back.” I lean forward as much as the restraints allow. The metal bites into my skin, but I ignore it. “I don’t care about Ivan’s timeline. I don’t care about the Baranov organization or the Petrenko organization or any of thebullshit politics that put me in this chair. I care about seeing you tomorrow. That’s it. That’s the only thing I care about.”
He studies me for a long moment. I feel the weight of his assessment, the way he’s measuring my words against my physiological responses, checking for deception.
I’m not lying. I’m not even exaggerating. The dependency he cultivated has bloomed into something complete, a need so total that it has crowded out every other consideration. My father. My family. My name. All of it has been reduced to background noise.
Him. Only him.
He reaches for the broth.
“You should eat,” he says. “Your caloric intake remains below optimal levels.”
The deflection is obvious, a retreat into professional protocol to avoid addressing what I’ve confessed. But he’s picking up the bowl. He’s stepping closer to my chair. He’s going to feed me, tilting the broth to my lips, letting me drink from his hands like the dependent creature I have become.
I should feel shame. I feel only relief.
The broth is warm and salty and perfect. I swallow greedily, feeling the liquid slide down my throat, feeling my body accept the nourishment with pathetic gratitude. His hand is steady now, no tremor, but he’s close enough that I can see the individual threads of his stubble, the faint lines around his eyes.
When the bowl is empty, he sets it aside. He doesn’t move away.
“You asked about my hand,” he says quietly. “About the tremor.”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
“I have been monitoring my own physiological responses since the incident. The data is anomalous. My heart rate elevates when I approach this room. My attention during observation periods has become... focused in ways that do not serve the mission objectives.”
He pauses. His eyes meet mine, and for once there’s something visible behind them, something struggling toward expression.
“I do not understand what is happening,” he says. “My behavior is inconsistent with my programming.”
The confession lands between us like something fragile and explosive. He’s admitting failure. He’s admitting weakness. He’s admitting that I have done something to him that he cannot explain or control.
The Monster has programming. The Monster was built by someone, trained by someone, shaped into the weapon he has become. I have seen the scars on his forearms, the faint white lines that speak to a history of violence received as well as inflicted.
And I have cracked his casing. Somehow, through the wreckage of my own unmaking, I have found the seams in his construction and pried them open.
I want to reach for him. The wanting is so intense that my hands strain against the restraints, muscles screaming with the effort of a movement that the metal will not allow. I want to touch his face the way he touched mine. I want to trace the line of his jaw and tell him that programming can be rewritten.
He sees the motion. He looks at my hands, at the raw skin of my wrists, at the futile straining toward contact.
Something crosses his face that I cannot immediately identify. It might be recognition. It might be understanding. It might be the beginning of an answer to a question I have been asking without words.
“Alexei,” I say. His name has become a prayer in my mouth. “Stay. Please. I have more information. I have things I haven’t told you yet. The Geneva accounts. The Washington senator. The warehouse in Vladivostok where my father stores the things he doesn’t want recorded.”
I’m babbling now, throwing secrets at him like coins, buying minutes and seconds with the currency of betrayal. Each name is a family ally sacrificed. Each location is a piece of my heritage burned.
