I stepped back into the open. At the end of the hall, a sleek, white metallic sphere hovered, a red optic sensor scanning the area. It spotted me instantly. A mechanical voice droned: "Unauthorized personnel detected. Please remain stationary for termination."
"Termination?" I whispered. "They really don't want me back."
"Less talking, more killing!" Jax yelled.
The bot lunged, a retractable blade snapping out from its chassis. I didn't think. I didn't plan. I just moved. I dropped low, the blade whistling inches above my head. I felt a surge of heat in my veins, a sudden, violent clarity. I grabbed the bot's chassis, using its own momentum to flip it. My fist connected with the red sensor—crack.
I didn't stop. I pinned the machine to the floor and drove my elbow into the central processor. Once. Twice. Three times. Sparking wires sprayed across my knuckles, stinging like hornets, but I didn't let go until the machine went limp.
I stood up, breathing hard, my hand trembling. I looked at the crushed metal. I didn't feel proud. I felt terrified. Who was I? What had they turned me into?
"Holy shit," Jax breathed. "You just dismantled a Sentry-7 with your bare hands in six seconds. I'm definitely charging you extra for the repair work on your head."
"Shut up, Jax."
"Right. Sorry. Door's open. Come in, and for the love of everything digital, lock it behind you."
I stepped through the heavy reinforced door into a room that looked like a tech-hoarder's fever dream. Screens everywhere, cables snaking across the floor like black vines, and a single, oversized leather chair in the center that looked like a torture device with a headset.
Jax was there. He wasn't what I expected. He looked barely twenty, with messy dark hair, a pair of oversized glasses held together by tape, and a smirk that suggested he knew a secret I didn't. He was lean, almost scrawny, but his eyes were sharp, darting across a dozen monitors at once.
He didn't look at me. He stayed glued to his screens. "Sit. Plug in. Let's see if we can find out who you were before you became a corporate weapon."
I hesitated, staring at the chair. "What happens if you fail?"
Jax finally looked up. The smirk vanished, replaced by something serious, almost pitying. "If I fail? The timer hits zero. Your neural mods overload. Your brain fries from the inside out. You won't even have time to scream."
I took a deep breath and sat down. The leather was cold. As he lowered the headset onto my temples, I felt the sudden, suffocating proximity of him. He was close—close enough that I could smell old coffee and ozone. His fingers brushed my skin, a light, fleeting touch that sent a jolt through me that had nothing to do with electricity.
He paused for a second, his gaze lingering on my eyes. For a moment, the air between us felt thick, charged with a tension I couldn't name. Then he blinked and pulled back, his voice returning to that sarcastic edge.
"Don't fall in love with me, Kaelen. I'm expensive."
"In your dreams," I muttered, though my heart skipped a beat.
He flipped a switch. A surge of white noise exploded in my skull. I gasped, my body arching in the chair, fingers clawing at the armrests. Images flashed—blood, rain, a man's face screaming, a silver logo of a mountain—then a wall of black.
Jax's voice sounded distant, distorted. "Wait... what is this?"
I tried to speak, but my jaw was locked. I could feel him typing furiously, the clicking of the keys sounding like gunfire.
"Kaelen, stay with me. I'm trying to breach the first layer, but..."
He stopped. The room went silent. I could hear his breathing, heavy and fast.
"What?" I managed to choke out. "What is it?"
Jax leaned in, his face pale in the glow of the monitors. He looked at me as if I were a ghost, or a monster.
"Your mind isn't just locked," he whispered. "It's a fortress. And the person who built it... they didn't want you to remember. They wanted you to forget that you were the one who—"