The secure wing occupies the compound’s lowest level. Reinforced walls, steel doors, no exterior access. Functional. Designed for containment.
Julian positions himself at the monitoring station outside the door. His tablet synced to the room’s audio.
Celeste stands beside me.
I open the door.
Alexei hasn’t moved. Same posture as before. Hands on the table, palms down, fingers spread. Making himself as unthreatening as possible, and holding it.
What’s different is Celeste.
His eyes shift to her the instant she enters. The constant tracking I noted last night, the micro-movements, the processing, all of it narrows to a single point. She is the information he came for.
“You’re Celeste Moreau,” he says. “I’ve been waiting.”
“You asked for me,” she says.
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because you were built by the same hands that built me.” His eyes move from her to me. Catalog. Back to her. “He made others. Most of them didn’t survive the process. The ones whodid are still inside the program. You’re the only one who got out. I need to know how.”
I sit. Celeste sits beside me.
“Start with why you left,” I say.
Alexei doesn’t hesitate. “Children.” No inflection. “Konstantin is expanding the program. The blood farms were built for adults. Volunteers initially, then captures. The new directive is to breed subjects for specific blood compatibility profiles. The children would be born into the system.”
He pauses. One beat.
“I’ve recorded a great deal. Every subject. Every blood type. Every breeding compatibility result. Every face. He built me so there would be no files to find, no database to hack. I am his archive. But I could not record that.”
Celeste’s hand tightens on the edge of the table.
“How many farms?” I ask.
“Three. All operational. He has plans for expansion, but three exist.” He pauses. “Locations, guard rotations, subject counts, modification protocols. I have all of it.”
He taps his temple once.
“Here. Everything I’ve ever seen.”
“You could be lying,” Celeste says.
“I could.” He meets her eyes. “You’ll know when you check the locations against whatever intelligence you’ve already built. Either the farms are where I say they are or they aren’t.”
The door opens behind us.
Simone stands in the frame. She’s not supposed to be here. The secure wing requires clearance she doesn’t have, and none of that matters because she’s here and her eyes are locked on the man at the table.
Alexei goes still.
His composure doesn’t crack. It dissolves. The careful control, the pre-selected words, the precise nonthreatening posture, all of it falls away in one breath.
“You brought me blood when I was starving.”
Simone’s voice from the doorway.
