Page 155 of Damsel in Disguise

Not even I do—the head of the Nocturis Vincit under which the entire Synthète project lies.

Tonight, I’m making an exception.

Whatever sits behind this firewall has been kept out for a reason. If the Crown discovers I’ve accessed it without his explicit permission, the consequences won’t be pleasant.

It won’t matter how useful I’ve been to the Dominion or how many years I’ve spent advancing their objectives. Assets are disposable. I’ve spent my entire life watching proof of that principle unfold around me.

Still, if tonight revealed anything, it’s that being the Crown’s biological son grants me privileges that anyone else would possess.

I’m about to find out whether it grants me enough.

My fingers move across the keyboard anyway, entering a sequence of obsolete commands buried beneath decades of system updates.

Legacy pathways. Forgotten backdoors. Administrative architecture is so old that most people within the Dominion probably don’t know it still exists.

Finally, after all the hassle, only one directory materializes across the screen—GARDEN. Such a simple name.

SUBJECT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

My stomach drops as understanding settles heavily beneath my ribs—the folder Garden is never the Project Synthète itself.

It’s merely the front door. The recruitment pipeline. The beginning.

I open the archive. Hundreds of profiles appear.

Some active.

Most terminated.

Every single one is marked as a potential Synthète candidate.

Observation periods range from two to twelve years.

I stare at the screen, unable to look away as the horrifying pattern gradually reveals itself.

The Dominion doesn’t find candidates. It grows them.

One file after another unfolds before me, each profile containing an entire life compressed into data points and psychological analyses.

School records. Medical histories. Social interactions. Family conflicts. Relationship breakdowns. Traumatic events. Every significant moment catalogued with clinical precision.

In some cases, intervention reports accompany the observations.

Suggested environmental pressures. Recommended stressors. Behavioral manipulation opportunities.

These all prove the Dominion wasn’t just watching these people but actively shaping them.

I open another file.

Then another.

Then another.

Every profile follows the same pattern—observe, pressure, destabilize, recruit, and convert.

I bring out the iPad I bought specifically to collect as much evidence as I can and get into action.

Then I see a familiar name—DELILAH CROSSWAVE, D-17. She was basically a nobody like me and my mother was.