Then he started looking at us.
His investigation lasted eighteen months before we caught him. In that time, he'd compiled evidence linking Westpoint Academy to a network of fertility clinics, surrogacy programs, and medical research facilities across three continents. He'd identified shipping patterns, financial transfers, personnel movements.
He'd gotten closer than anyone before or since.
So we destroyed him.
Pulled his soul right out his chest and replaced it with what we wanted him to be.
I pull up the transcripts from his interrogation. My handwriting is on every page. The questions I designed to break him. The chemical compounds I selected to erase his identity. Eighteen hours of systematic destruction, documented in brutal detail.
What sticks out, is the memory of enjoying it. Not the pain itself, but the precision. The satisfaction of watching a mind come apart under carefully applied pressure. He'd screamed until his voice gave out. Begged until the words stopped making sense. And then, finally, silence.
I felt nothing.
That was three years ago. I was exactly what the Foundry designed me to be.
Now I'm sitting in a dead man's office at four in the morning, chasing ghosts that might finally have faces, and the asset I broke is on his way back to me.
I close the files and stare at the dark window.
Something is changing. I can feel it in the way the pieces are starting to connect, in the way the Custodians have been circling since Jace's rebellion, in the way my own carefully constructed certainties keep shifting beneath my feet.
Project Omega. Westpoint Academy. The Pineridge failure. The Bonaccorso allegiance split.
And now Jonah Doe, rising from the grave I put him in.
This is either the break I've been waiting for, or a trap I'm walking into with my eyes open.
Whatever the case, I need to know.
He arrives three days later looking like shit the detention system chewed up and spit out.
I watch the transfer through the security feeds, noting details with detachment. He's thinner than his file photos. Gaunt. His hair is longer, messier, dark strands falling across a face that's full of sharp angles and sunken cheeks. The kind of face that looked soft once, before we got our hands on him.
Innocence. Stripped from him.
He’s a haunted man on two legs.
And I made him that way.
I don’t know if I feel pride at that thought, but either way, hewillremember what he was researching because now I need that information to solve my own little problem.
The guards handle him roughly as they move him through the hall. Standard protocol for high-risk assets, though Jonah Doe doesn't look like he could fight off a strong breeze, let alone trained operatives. They shove him through the door, and he stumbles, catches himself on the wall, leaves a smear of something dark on the white surface. Blood, probably. Old detention centers aren't known for their gentle treatment.
But those eyes. Even through the grainy feed, I can see them moving. Scanning. Assessing. Finding the camera positions, the guards, the distance to the exit. Even sedated and restrained, he's gathering information like a half-dead animal still looking for escapes.
Interesting.
The guards bring him to the evaluation room. White walls with those lights that buzz. Single cold chair. Observation mirror that he'll know is a window. I've conducted hundreds of these sessions. I know exactly how to arrange a space to make someone feel small. The chair is bolted to the floor, positioned so the overhead light hits the subject's face while leaving the interrogator in shadow. The temperature is kept two degrees below comfortable. Small details that add up to a constant, grinding sense of vulnerability.
I let him sit alone for forty-seven minutes. Long enough to breed uncertainty, not long enough to let him settle into defiance. I watch through the mirror as he tests his restraints, examines the room, eventually goes still in a way that suggests either acceptance or the conservation of energy. Smart. Most people exhaust themselves fighting in the first ten minutes.
Then I enter.
He looks up as the door opens. Fear floods his face first, instinctive and raw. His pupils dilate. His breathing speeds up. His hands clench into fists before he forces them to relax. Classic stress response, exactly what I'd expect from someone facing down their worst nightmare.
But underneath the fear, something sharper. Recognition that doesn't quite reach consciousness. His body knows me even if his mind doesn't remember.
