I sit on the expensive couch in the expensive apartment, alone for the first time in three years without guards or cameras or chains, and I laugh.
It's not a good laugh. It's the kind that bubbles up when you're not sure if you're going to survive the next twenty-four hours and you've decided that if you're going to die, you might as well die annoying.
I explore, because that's what I do. What I've always done. Even when the smart move is to sit still and wait, my brain won't let me.
The living room is aggressively neutral. Gray couch. Black coffee table. White walls. It's like someone read a manual on interior design and followed every instruction without understanding any of them. There's art on the walls, but it's the kind of art that says, 'I have money' rather than 'I have taste.' Abstract shapes in muted colors.Boring as fuck.
The library is better. Massive oak shelves, packed with actual books that look actually read. I run my fingers along the spines—philosophy, psychology, military history, a surprising amount of fiction. Some of the covers are cracked, pages worn soft from repeated handling.
So the robot does have a soul. Or at least a reading habit. Same thing, maybe. Perhaps some light military history after a good bout of torture.
I pull out a book at random. Dostoevsky. Crime and Punishment.
Figures.
There's a handwritten note tucked inside the front cover. The handwriting is precise, angular, definitely Jagger's:
"The question is not whether we are guilty, but whether we can bear the weight of our guilt."
Jesus Christ. The man annotates his existential literature. That's either deeply pretentious or deeply sad. Possibly both.
I put the book back and keep exploring.
The kitchen is stocked like someone's preparing for a siege. Enough food for weeks. High-quality everything, but nothing processed, nothing fun. No cookies. No chips. No evidence that anyone who lives here has ever experienced joy.
The bathroom attached to my bedroom is nicer than any place I've lived since college. Marble counters. Rainfall shower. Products lined up in perfect rows, labels facing out.
I pick up a bottle of shampoo and turn the label sideways, just to see what happens.
Nothing happens. Because Jagger Harrison isn't watching me.
Or is he?
I glance around for cameras. Can't find any, which either means there aren't any, or means they're very well hidden. Knowing what I know about The Silent, I'm betting on the latter.
"Hope you're enjoying the show," I say to the empty room. "The next performance will feature me trying to figure out how to work your fancy shower. It's going to be riveting."
No response. Of course.
I take the shower anyway. The water is perfect—hot enough to sting, pressure strong enough to feel like absolution. I stand under the spray until my skin turns pink and my mind goes quiet, and for exactly three minutes, I'm not a broken asset or a captive or a dead man walking.
I'm just a guy taking a shower.
Then the water starts to cool, and reality comes crashing back.
I dry off with towels softer than anything I've touched in years, put on the generic clothes left in the closet. Everything in my size, everything in muted colors, everything exactly what you'd dress a prisoner in if you wanted them to forget they were a prisoner. Then, I finally collapse on the bed.
The mattress is too soft. After three years of detention center bunks, my body doesn't know what to do with comfort.
I lie there and stare at the ceiling and wait for sleep that doesn't come.
The memories surface the longer I lay there.
They come in fragments now. Sharper than before. I'll be staring at the ceiling and suddenly I'm somewhere else. A room with fluorescent lights, the smell of antiseptic, a voice asking questions I can't quite hear. Then it's gone, and I'm back in Jagger’s guest bedroom, sweating through sheets that are probably woven with baby hair.
I get up around three a.m. and wander through the place again.
No photos line the halls. Rolling my eyes and walking to the kitchen, I grab a bottle of water from the fridge and close the door.
