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Info
A Glance Onto Perfection
Author:penumbralchoir
Word Count: 6.2k
Content Warning: Implication of Suicide
Mekhane broke themself to give us, the mistakes of the mistakes, a chance to become more.
For the second time that week, Dr. Richards stepped into the interview room without ceremony, a folder of paperwork tucked under his left arm. His footsteps clicked sharply against the linoleum, competing with the ever-present hum of the fluorescent lights overhead.
At the steel table, the room’s other occupant didn’t move. Both wrists were bolted to the tabletop by reinforced manacles. Green, faintly glowing eyes tracked Richards’ approach, unblinking.
Without a greeting, Richards dropped the folder down onto the table, dragged out the chair with
a screech of metal legs and sat.
For a moment, they just stared at each other, a silent contest of will. Then Richards cleared his throat, pulled a recorder from his coat, and placed it between them. He pressed the red button and a small green light began to blink.
“This is Doctor Ed Richards, Senior Researcher at Site-37. Second attempt at initial interview with Person of Interest 10187 detained on March 22nd, 1987.”
He glanced at the folder, adjusted a page, and looked back up.
“PoI-10187, state your name for the record.”
Silence.
The teen’s gaze flicked from the recorder to Richards, unblinking.
“PoI-10187,” he repeated, more curtly this time, “state your name for the record.”
Nothing.
Richards exhaled through his nose, flipped through the folder, and pulled a manila sheet with a photo clipped to it. He slid the sheet across the table with two fingers.
“According to this” he said, tapping the paper, “your name is Samantha Williams. Correct?”
A pause, longer than before.
The teen’s expression didn’t change, but their lips parted slightly, as if testing a word before speaking.
“…No.” they said at last, their voice carrying a faint buzzing.
Richards arched an eyebrow.
“So it speaks. I should have been more specific. I meant before this,”
He gestured vaguely to the teenager’s body. Arms, spine, throat. Cybernetic augmentations visible beneath reinforced plating, webbed with faintly glowing circuitry.
Something in the teen’s posture shifted, barely perceptible. Their jaw tensed slightly.
“My name isn’t that,” they said softly. “It hasn’t been Sam for a long time.”
Richards jotted a note with quick, precise strokes.
“Then what is it?”
“Ace,” they said. “That’s who I am now.”
Richards’ smirk didn’t reach his eyes.
“Of course it is. Not for poker, I take it?”
Ace didn’t reply. One mechanical eye adjusted with a faint click.
“Did your little cult cut out your sense of humor along with everything else that made you human, Samantha?”
No movement. No break in their gaze. Somewhere deep in the restraints, metal began to strain, the sound faint but growing.
“You’re going to tell us everything you know about your little gear-worshipping cell,” Richards went on. “Who built you. Where they’re hiding. All of it.”
He flipped to another photo, this one of a smiling family, and laid it on the table.
“Or we send you back to your parents. I’m sure they’d love to see what’s left of you.”
Ace’s breathing hitched. Their hands began to tremble, the groan of bending steel growing louder.
“Touch a nerve?” Richards said. “Cooperate and maybe we'll let you keep the parts you haven’t ruined yet.”
When Ace still didn’t respond, Richards leaned in, voice dropping to a hiss.
“We’ll find your little cult no matter where they scurry. Radical transhumanists. Threats to the Veil. The Founda-”
The punch landed before he could blink. Steel into flesh with a wet, ugly crunch. Richards reeled, hand flying to his nose, eyes wide.
The table went over in one violent motion as Ace surged forward, snapping the manacles like brittle wire. Richards stumbled back, shouting as a clawed hand grazed his coat.
He slammed his palm against the wall’s emergency panel.
“Guards! Now!”
The door burst open. Two black-clad security officers grappled Ace back into control.
Richards stood breathing hard, a smear of blood across his upper lip. His glare was ice.
“You’ve done it now, freak.”
⚙︎
Dr. Michelle opened the door to the interview room, a soft squeak coming from the hinges.
“Hello, Ace… Ace, is that correct?” she asked gently, stepping inside and closing the door behind her with a quiet click.
She paused as her eyes adjusted to the room, and to the person seated at the table.
An iron bar had been placed in between Ace’s wrists, preventing them from taking any sort of aggressive action like they had done just a few days prior. As an additional preventive measure, two chains led from their ankles and were attached to the bar.
Michelle inhaled sharply but tried to stifle the involuntary reflex. She’d been briefed on Ace beforehand, of course, but reading a report was one thing. Seeing a teenager bound in shackles was another.
Ace didn’t look up from the table as she entered. Their glowing green eyes remained fixed on the steel tabletop in front of them. An unreadable expression along with a faint mechanical whir as one optic lens slowly refocused.
Michelle took a tentative step forward, concern flickering in her expression.
“I’m not here to interrogate you.” Michelle said softly. “I just want to talk, if that’s alright?”
Ace didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
The faint green glow from their eyes made their expression harder to read.
Michelle took another step forward, slower this time, and carefully pulled the chair out from the table. She sat, setting a small notepad and capped pen in front of her, but didn’t open either.
For a long moment, she just sat there. No clipboard, no ticking timer. Just the sound of fluorescent hum and quiet breathing.
“I don’t have questions today,” she said. “We can just… sit. If that’s what you’d prefer.”
No response. Ace’s eyes didn’t shift. Their fingers remained still, unmoving against the tabletop.
Michelle folded her hands gently on her lap. A few minutes passed. Then more.
She glanced down at her notes once, then back up, as if deciding whether to say anything else. Eventually, she did.
“I read what happened with Dr. Richards,” she said. “And for what it’s worth… I’m sorry for what he said.”
Ace’s eyes flickered to Michelle’s face at the mention of Richards before refocusing on the table.
“We wouldn’t send you back to your parents,” Michelle added quietly. “That won’t happen, I’ll keep you safe.”
Michelle bit her lip as she thought about what to say next.
“Even if you don’t believe me, I do want to help you. It’s kind of my job to help people.”
The half-hearted attempt at humour fell flat against Ace’s stoney expression. After a little while longer, Michelle eventually got up from her seat and made her way to the door.
She turned back to face Ace before leaving.
“I’ll be here tomorrow. Same time. If you feel like talking.”
The only response was the faint whirring of mechanical augments.
⚙︎
“I have good news, Ace.”
Michelle’s voice was soft. It was just past the fifteen-minute mark, and just like the day before and the day before that, Ace had yet to speak.
“Dr. Richards has been officially removed from your case,” she said, pausing deliberately. “He’s been reprimanded for his conduct during your last interview.
Ace’s eyes didn’t flicker. No movement. But Michelle didn’t miss the faint twitch in their lip. So small it could’ve been a tic, but it wasn’t there before.
She pressed gently forward.
“He won’t be speaking to you again. Or making threats. Not while I’m still here.”
More silence.
Michelle didn’t fill it. Not this time.
She sat quietly across from Ace, uncapped her pen, and began scribbling absentminded circles in the corner of her notepad.
“They told me that Dr. Richards said you had psychological issues,” she said, almost conversationally, “That you were… combative. Uncooperative.”
She smiled a little to herself.
“Honestly? You’re not even the most stubborn teenager I’ve met. Just the most heavily armored.”
Still no reaction. But she could feel something in the air shift, just a bit. Like Ace was listening, even if it wasn’t obvious that they were.
“And I get it. You don’t owe me anything. Especially not after what you’ve been through.”
Michelle stopped scribbling on the notepad and looked at Ace.
“But I do want to know what you have been through, Ace. I want to know about you, who you are, and what brought you here. And I can only learn that if you tell me.”
Ace finally removed the gaze from the table and looked Michelle in her eyes, studying her. A pregnant moment elapsed before Ace finally spoke.
“…what is this?” they asked.
Michelle blinked. The first words she’d heard from them, and it wasn’t what she expected.
“It’s a conversation,” she answered, gently.
Ace didn’t look convinced. They stared at her for a long beat.
Then:
“Is this like in the movies?” they asked. “The bad cop failed, so they sent in the good one?”
Michelle let the question hang in the air a moment longer than she had to.
Not because she was caught off guard, though she was, but because rushing the answer would be the wrong move. She studied Ace’s face. They weren’t sneering or mocking. It wasn’t sarcasm.
It was a genuine question.
A test. One of trust.
“No,” she said finally. “This isn’t a trick. I’m not here to play roles. I’m here to listen.”
She paused.
“And I won’t lie and say I don’t work for the Foundation. I do. But that doesn’t mean I want to hurt you. I don’t.”
Ace tilted their head slightly, not quite in disbelief, but the expression of someone who’d similar words before and how hollow they rang.
“You’re not a project, not a thing. You’re a person with a past and feelings that I would like to get to know better.”
Ace narrowed their eyes. There was no smile, no thank-you. Just a quiet, flickering look of… something. A small breath escaped their mouth.
“Most people don’t think I am.”
Michelle’s throat tightened, but she kept her voice steady.
“Then they’re wrong.”
Ace looked away, jaw clenching. Their hands twitched slightly, against the metal rod in between them.
Michelle didn’t push. She waited.
“You said you wanted to know who I am,” Ace muttered finally.
Michelle nodded.
“Only if you are comfortable telling me.”
Ace looked down at their lap, before their vision shifted to their bound hands. They curled them into balls, the metal joints bending underneath carbon-steel skin.
“I used to be a mistake called Sam.” They spat out the name. “Everything since then has been correcting that mistake.”
Michelle didn’t respond, she just listened.
“All my life, I felt that there was something wrong with me. An issue that couldn’t be fixed, an unsolvable problem.”
Ace stopped looking at their hands and turned up towards Michelle.
“Have you ever felt like you were in the wrong skin?”
Something in Michelle’s eyes dimmed as she responded.
“No, but I knew someone who felt the same way.”
“Then, they must have known what it was like. To feel wrong, to feel like everyone else in the world is normal and you’re the… freak.”
Ace turned back towards their curled hands, shaking in their lap despite preventive measures to forsake that very thing.
“They would have known what it was like to, more than anything in the world, want to be normal. That you would do anything in the world to be normal.”
Ace let out a single sob, a small buzz following it. They didn’t say anything more.
Michelle watched Ace, her mouth opening briefly, before closing.
With nothing left to say, Michelle decided to leave Ace alone and walked out the room.
⚙︎
The next day started as the past three had, with silence. Michelle and Ace sat in an uncomfortable absence, with neither knowing how to continue where the previous day had ended.
Eventually, it was Ace who broke the silence this time around.
“…now what?” they asked, hesitant.
Michelle blinked once, then smiled gently.
“We could continue where you left off…” she offered. “Or if it’s too much, we could just… talk.”
“About what?” Ace asked, sounding genuinely confused.
Michelle’s smile turned a little sad at this.
“Well, I still don’t know much about you, and you don’t know much about me. So, how about we play a game?”
Ace’s eyes clicked as the lens underneath refocused onto Michelle.
“A game?”
“Yes, a game,” Michelle repeated, “We take turns asking each other questions and we are allowed one skip each. When we both use our skips, the game ends.”
Ace looked to the side and bit their lip, contemplating.
“…Alright.” They said, “You go first.”
Michelle nodded.
“Okay… easy one. Favorite color?”
Ace stared blankly for a second.
“You’re serious.”
“Dead serious.”
A pause.
“…Gunmetal.”
Michelle blinked, then laughed quietly.
“Really?”
“I don’t see the point in pastels,” Ace muttered, shifting slightly in their seat. “They never looked right.”
The rest of that statement was left unsaid.
Ace hesitated only slightly, before asking their first question.
“Why are you still here?” Ace asked. No hidden tone, just honest curiosity. “With people like him?”
Michelle tilted her head slightly, considering the shift.
“Because I want to be.”
“No,” Ace said, clarifying. “Why are you here?” They gestured vaguely at the concrete walls, the metal restraints. “Working for them?”
Michelle took a moment before answering.
“Because it means I can help people,” she said. “People who wouldn’t get help otherwise.”
Ace looked at her again. Something subtle in their expression flickered.
Michelle cleared her throat.
“Okay, my turn. What is your favorite drink?” She asked.
“Seriously? Is this middle school?”
Michelle’s small smile grew a little wider at this response.
“No, it's just a simple game” she replied, “But are you using your skip on this?”
Ace just looked down at their lap, a faint blush on their cheeks.
“…No, I’ll answer. It’s iced coffee.” Ace mumbled their answer under their breath.
Michelle leaned forward slightly.
“What was that?”
Ace repeated themselves, louder this time.
“It’s iced coffee, black. No sugar.”
“What’s so embarrassing about that?”
Ace paused, their blush growing along their face.
“It’s just…my dad…” they struggled to answer. “I just was never allowed to have it, that’s all.”
Michelle leaned back slightly. Questions on the tip of her tongue, but it wasn’t her turn.
“Who was that you mentioned yesterday? The one you said was l-like me?” Ace asked.
The smile dropped from Michelle’s face momentarily.
“That…that’s…I’m afraid I’m going to have to skip that question.”
Ace looked into Michelle’s eyes before nodding slightly.
“Fine. Your turn.”
“Okay. What’s something you miss?”
Ace was silent for a long time.
“…Silence,” they said eventually. “Not the awkward kind. The real kind. Before the whirring. Before the hum. Before I could hear my body thinking.”
Michelle’s throat tightened again.
“I used to lie in the woods outside my parents’ house. Just… lay there. Pretend I was something else.”
“What did you pretend to be?”
“Not broken.”
Michelle didn’t respond for a while, before asking her most burning question. She glanced at her notepad but didn’t look at it. Not really.
“Can I ask you something a little more personal?”
Ace gave a slow nod.
“Who was the first person to call you Ace?”
Ace blinked. The lights behind their mechanical pupils dimmed. It was clear that was the kind of question they hadn’t prepared for.
They leaned back slightly in the chair, metal restraints clinking softly, and looked past Michelle for a moment, recalling a long distant memory.
“It was after I left home,” they said slowly. “I didn’t have a name. Not one I wanted. Not one that fit.”
Michelle waited. No pen. No interruption.
“I stumbled into a city two towns over. Slept in alleys. Lived off caffeine and spite. But eventually, I found them.”
“Them?”
Ace nodded.
“My new family. The Reforged…and their leader.”
Michelle paused before continuing.
“Who?”
Ace’s eyes refocused back onto Michelle.
“Skip.”
⚙︎
Michelle placed the two cups of iced coffee, down on the counter of the Site-37 break room. She reached up to the cabinet, pulled down the canister, and began scooping, methodically, three heaping spoonfuls into one of the cups.
As she scooped sugar into her coffee, a series of footsteps echoed behind her.
A familiar sound. Measured. Sharp.
A dry, forced cough followed.
Michelle turned, already knowing who it was.
“Good morning, Dr. Richards,” she said, polite and practiced.
Richards offered a tight smile. The bruising along the bridge of his nose had faded, but not completely. A faint discoloration could be seen underneath the bandaging, like it didn't know when to quit.
“No need for the formality, Michelle,” he said. “We’re both professionals here.”
Michelle stifled her immediate reply, instead turned back towards stirring her coffee.
“Indeed, we are, Dr. Richards.”
Richards stepped closer to Michelle, causing her to turn to face him.
“Speaking of professional…” he started, a slight edge to his voice. “You haven’t been following proper procedure.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.” Michelle said.
“I think you do, Michelle.” Richards replied, stepping closer again. “Why haven’t you been recording your sessions with PoI-10187?”
Michelle didn’t blink.
“Because they aren’t interviews. They’re to help them. To build trust.”
“Even then, that still requires proper documentation.” Richards stated, “Not hand-picked notes that so conveniently paint her as a tragic figure.”
Michelle’s jaw tensed. Not visibly, but enough.
“Those notes are accurate reflections of progress,” she said, quieter now. Not defensive. Just certain.
Richards gave a thin, humorless chuckle.
“Progress toward what? Releasing her? Solving her… issues?"
He got closer still, with Michelle taking an involuntary step back.
“All you’ve succeeded in doing is getting soft. With an enemy combatant who still has information we need.”
Michelle held her ground, one hand still wrapped around her coffee.
“What you’re suggesting would undo everything we’ve worked toward.”
“What you’ve worked toward,” Richards corrected, arms crossed tightly. “You’re not the only one with clearance here. And you’re certainly not the only one watching her progress.”
Michelle’s smile didn’t return, but her eyes narrowed just slightly.
“Then you’ve read the logs. You’ve seen what they’ve shared. What they’ve been through.”
“I’ve seen the propaganda she’s fed you,” Richards replied, his voice dripping with disdain. “And I’ve seen what she did to me. What she could do to others.”
Michelle exhaled through her nose. Calm. Controlled.
“You provoked them.”
“I followed protocol.”
A beat of silence.
Then Richards finally took a step back, a tactical retreat.
“Here’s the truth, Doctor Michelle,” he said, almost softly. “You’re not the first idealist we’ve had on staff. And you won’t be the last to get burned. This job is about control, not connection. Don’t forget that.”
Michelle’s fingers tightened slightly around her cup.
“Don’t confuse kindness for naivety,” she said. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”
Richards smiled. Thin. Empty.
“Good,” he said, turning to leave. “Then you’ll understand when the higher ups start asking for meaningful results.”
The break room door hissed shut behind him.
Michelle just stood there, silently for a moment. Looking down at the cups on the counter.
⚙︎
The iced coffee was set down in front of Ace. They stared at it, unmoving.
Michelle winced.
“I thought you might like something other than what the guards give you.”
Ace lifted their bound hands slightly, the bar between them clinking softly.
“O-oh, right, sorry." Michelle apologized, reaching into her coat pocket for the key.
Ace waved their hands.
“It’s fine, thank you.” Ace said.
Michelle bit her lip, chewing on the thoughts racing in her head for a moment. Her eyes flicked between Ace and the untouched drink, her expression tightening with a mixture of emotions.
“Yesterday, you skipped the question about your leader?” Michelle asked, tentatively.
Ace’s eyes stayed on the coffee, the faint green glow of their irises catching on the condensation along the plastic cup.
“I did,” they said finally. “And?”
Michelle kept her voice level.
“And… I’d like to understand why.”
Ace tilted their head slightly, a subtle movement that could’ve been curiosity… or caution.
“Because it’s not something I talk about with strangers.”
Michelle nodded slowly.
“Fair enough. But we’re not strangers anymore.”
“Aren’t we?” Ace’s gaze flicked up, the lights in their eyes brightening momentarily. “You work for them.”
Michelle took in a measured breath.
“I do. That’s true. But I also work with you. That means something to me.”
Ace didn’t respond, continuing to stare at the coffee. The slight jingle of chains could be heard as they shifted their feet beneath the table.
“You’ve told me about the Reforged. How they welcomed you in. But I still don’t know who leads them.”
Ace’s hands tightened suddenly, firmly pressed together in a ball.
“You’re looking for a name.”
“No,” Michelle said quickly. “I’m looking for context. Understanding. The person who brought you in, who saw you for who you are… I want to know what kind of person they are.”
Ace leaned back in the chair, eyes narrowing in thought.
“You mean what kind of threat they are.”
Michelle’s stomach sank upon hearing the edge in their tone.
“That’s not-”
“That’s exactly what this is.” Ace’s voice was still calm, but venom coiled beneath it. “You smile, you nod, you keep me talking so you can write it down later.”
Michelle set her pen down. Slowly pushed it aside.
“I’m not here to trick you, Ace.”
“You’re here because they told you to be,” Ace countered. “Doesn’t matter if you play nice. Doesn’t matter if you bring me coffee.”
They slammed the table. Coffee spilled. Ace rose, the chains clinking against the floor, eyes locked on Michelle’s startled face.
“In the end-” Their voice was harsh, laced with a cold anger. “You still answer to them.”
Michelle stayed seated, the coffee slowly spreading across the table between them.
The bitter smell filled the air, sharp and cold.
Ace glared at Michelle before continuing.
"How could I think…" they started before pausing. "No, you're all the same in the end."
Ace didn’t sit back down. Their breathing was steady, but there was a stiffness in their posture. As if like a wall that had been rebuilt in an instant.
Michelle forced herself not to look away.
“Ace-”
“No, we’re done here.”
The words were quiet, but they hit harder than the table slam. Ace sat again, deliberately turning their head to one side. Not looking at her. Not acknowledging her.
Michelle’s mouth opened as if to speak, but nothing came out. She reached for a napkin, mopping at the coffee more for something to do than out of any hope of salvaging it.
The minutes passed by.
There would be no further discussion.
The scrape of her chair on the floor felt too loud as Michelle stood.
At the door, she hesitated, just long enough to glance back. Ace hadn’t moved. Their gaze was locked on the far wall, green eyes faint in the fluorescent light.
Michelle turned away, her hand tightening on the door handle.
For the first time since she’d started with Ace, Michelle wasn’t sure if she’d been helping them at all.
The door closed behind her with a hollow click.
⚙︎
After a week of progress, all of it had been destroyed in a single moment.
The long silences had returned, Ace as still and unyielding as a statue.
Michelle, on the other hand, fidgeted beneath the weight of it. Every small shift of her chair, every turn of her pen, sounded too loud in the quiet.
She’d tried, in the days since. Small talk, harmless questions, even letting the silence stretch until it hurt, but none of it had gone anywhere. Not after the breach of trust.
Ace’s gaze was fixed on the table. Not in thought. Not in boredom. Just fixed.
As if she didn’t exist.
Michelle glanced at her notepad, then shut it. The sound of the cover closing seemed to echo.
“I know you don’t believe me right now,” she said quietly. “But I am sorry.”
Silence.
“I..I am really sorry, Ace. I wasn’t trying to get information.”
Silence again.
“It’s just… I wanted to know more about your family.”
Ace’s hands shifted just slightly against the restraint bar. Not a flinch. Not showing interest. Just movement.
Michelle looked down at her notepad once again, before taking a deep breath.
“Would you like to know about my family?” She asked, looking for something, anything at all.
Michelle looked down at her hands, starting to shake a little, before continuing.
“You know when you mentioned how you… feel about yourself. Being stuck in the wrong skin. And I mentioned how I knew someone… who felt the same way?”
Michelle’s voice caught slightly before she pressed on.
“That was my brother. His name was Daniel.”
Ace’s eyes didn’t lift, but Michelle saw the smallest shift in their shoulders.
“He was the bravest person I’ve ever known. He told me once that being alive felt like being in the wrong shape. That he was born… wrong.”
A small, humorless smile tugged at her mouth.
“Our parents didn’t understand. They didn’t want to. I tried, I think I tried, but it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t help him when he needed it most.”
A tear slipped down her cheek before she wiped it away.
“He never got to tell me his true self. I never got that opportunity. I don’t want to fail with you, Ace.”
The hum of the lights suddenly seemed louder than before.
“I want to know about the Reforged. Not because I’ll tell the Foundation. I want to know…”
She hesitated. Then:
“I want to know if you’re safe with them. If they love you like they say they do.”
For a moment, nothing. Then, one finger tapped against the steel bar.
Michelle almost missed it. Almost.
She didn’t let the hope show on her face.
“They found me when I had nothing,” Ace said finally, voice flat. “And they didn’t look at me like I was broken.”
Michelle’s breath caught. She stayed still, afraid that any sudden movement might shut the door again.
“They said the world calls people like us mistakes because it’s easier than admitting the design’s flawed,” Ace continued. “That flesh was never perfect. That the Children of Yaldabaoth were just remnants of a failed idea.”
The faint buzzing behind their words deepened as their voice grew stronger.
“Mekhane broke themself to give us, the mistakes of the mistakes, a chance to become more. More us. More perfect. So we would not wane. So we would not die simply because others can’t admit they were wrong.”
Michelle let the silence settle. It wasn’t the strained, brittle silence of the past week, this one felt alive, charged with something heavy.
She realized, with a small jolt, that Ace’s eyes were finally on her. Not guarded. Not defiant. Just watching.
“The Reforged believe,” Ace said slowly, “that the body you’re born with is just the prototype. Flawed by the start.”
Their gaze didn’t waver.
“You keep the parts that work. You fix the ones that don’t. And when you’re done, you’re not just a better person, you’re the person you were always supposed to be.”
Michelle’s pen lay untouched beside her notepad. She didn’t dare break the moment by writing.
“And they taught you that?”
“Yes.”
⚙︎
As Michelle left the interview room, the reinforced door sealing shut behind her, a deep boom rolled down the corridor like distant thunder.
She froze mid-step.
A second, sharper crack split the air, if it was concrete or metal, she couldn’t tell, followed by the instant flicker of the overhead lights.
Then the red glow came.
The alarm blared to life, high-pitched and unrelenting, its pulse matched by the strobing emergency lights. Shadows jumped on the walls in time with each flash.
Michelle’s heartbeat slammed in her chest.
Shouts cut through the noise, clipped orders barked down the hall, the heavy thud-thud-thud of boots pounding against tile.
A faint, electric tang stung the back of her throat. Ozone. Faint at first, but getting stronger.
“Dr. Michelle!”
She turned. A guard in black tactical gear was waving her over, his mask half-lit in the pulsing red.
“You need to clear the hallway!”
Her voice came out more hollow than she expected.
“What's going on?”
“Some kind of breach in the west wing.”
The west wing.
Michelle blinked. That made no sense. The west wing was where the actual anomalies were stored, high-priority items, dangerous entities. Ace wasn’t housed anywhere near there.
Unless…
Another boom shook the floor, closer this time. Somewhere above, a door slammed against the wall.
The radio on the guard’s vest hissed, then crackled with panicked chatter:
“Sector 3 compromised! Repeat, they’re inside! Multiple contacts, mechanical-”
Static swallowed the rest.
Michelle’s breath hitched.
Mechanical.
Michelle’s pulse spiked. She took one step toward the guard, then another boom rattled the glass in the wall panels. The sound was wrong, heavy and grinding, like steel being bent past its breaking point.
Down the hall, more shouting. The clatter of rifles being raised.
She looked toward the west wing. Where she had just come from, the interview room door now looking impossibly imposing.
But, as she turned towards where Ace was still being kept, thunderous footsteps could be heard.
They weren’t boots.
Too heavy. Too even.
Each step landed with a metallic clank and the whine of servos winding up.
Michelle’s stomach dropped.
Figures burst into view at the far end of the corridor, tall, angular silhouettes lit in strobes of red. In the split-second flashes, she saw glints of chrome, plating where flesh should be, eyes lit in cold artificial light.
The guards opened fire. The sharp crack-crack-crack of rifles filled the hall. Muzzle flashes lit jagged glimpses of the intruders, limbs jointed like machinery, plating covered in the same charcoal-gray skin as Ace’s own augments.
The Reforged.
Michelle stepped back as one of the figures surged forward, faster than she thought something that size could move. A guard went down, his weapon falling noisily onto the tiles. Another mechanical figure bent down, lifted him with one arm, and threw him against the wall with a bone-cracking thud.
One of the augmented silhouettes let out a distorted scream as what could have been oil or blood burst from where bullets had hit their unprotected eyes. They went down with a heavy screech of metal on concrete. Still, this did not stall the Reforged’s advance. If anything, it emboldened them as they surged towards the guards with renewed vigor.
Soon, the only people left standing were the Reforged and Michelle.
One of the Reforged's eyes suddenly locked onto Michelle, noticing her crisp, white labcoat.
A voice rang out.
“You. You know where our wayward soul is, don’t you?”
Michelle froze.
The voice didn’t echo, it vibrated in her sternum, a low, resonant buzz layered under the words, like it was coming through a dozen speakers at once.
One of the figures stepped forward, head cocked at a too-precise angle. The strobing lights caught on the beveled edges of their armor, on the strange artistry of their mechanical form. They were tall, taller than any human had any right to be, but their movements were deliberate, almost gentle, as they closed the space between them.
Michelle’s voice cracked against the pounding of her heart.
“If I did… what would you do?”
The figure’s head tilted the other way.
“We would bring them home.”
A pair of glowing eyes flared brighter, the same green as Ace’s. Michelle felt her pulse spike.
“They are not yours to keep, flesh-doctor. They were never yours.”
Michelle’s throat was dry. She could smell the cooling bodies of the guards beneath her feet, the heat from the motors of the Reforged. And in that moment she realized, no matter what Richards or the higher-ups had told her, if she stepped aside now, Ace was gone.
And she wanted that.
Michelle turned her head, just enough to glance at the reinforced door she’d left minutes ago.
“Down this hall. Third door on the right.”
The Reforged’s head dipped and they moved past her without so much as brushing her shoulder.
As they advanced, she followed, half-running to keep up, heart hammering as the hallway swallowed them.
The door to the interview room buckled before they even touched it, metal shrieking in protest as it folded inward. In the strobed light, Michelle saw Ace lift their head. The faint glow in their eyes brightened at the sight of the intruders.
“Family.” one of the Reforged intoned.
Chains hit the floor with a clatter.
Ace stepped forward, rubbing at their wrists, gaze flicking between Michelle and the leader of the Reforged.
For a heartbeat, Michelle thought Ace would just leave without a word. But they didn’t.
They stopped beside her, leaning in just enough to be heard over the alarms.
“Thank you, I knew you would do the right thing.”
Then they were gone, slipping into the formation of their people, the mechanical footfalls already receding down the hall.
Ace’s voice echoed from outside the room.
“Before we go, there’s a man named Richards I need to find.”
Michelle stood in the doorway, the red lights strobing over her face, trying not to think about what Richards would say. Or how much of this the cameras had caught.
Because what was important in all this, what that she had done the right thing.
⚙︎
The chair was deliberately uncomfortable. Straight-backed, too rigid to lean into. Michelle sat with her hands folded in her lap, knuckles pale from the strain of keeping them still.
The man across from her was not Richards, as Richards wasn't able to be located after the attack. His crisp suit, neutral expression, and the way he kept his notes angled so she couldn’t see them told her everything she needed to know.
“Dr. Michelle, for the record, state your name and position.”
She did. Her voice sounded smaller than she intended.
“And you confirm that, during Incident-1987-0402, you gave directions to hostile anomalous entities in order to facilitate the removal of an active Person of Interest from Site-37?”
Michelle’s throat tightened.
“I confirm I gave directions. I don’t confirm your choice of words.”
A pen scratched across the page.
“Dr. Michelle, the security footage shows you speaking to the mechanical intruders before they proceeded to POI-10187’s holding area. Shortly thereafter, the subject was extracted. Guards are dead, containment was breached in multiple sectors, and valuable intelligence was lost.”
Michelle held his gaze.
“And a seventeen-year-old, who was never going to be safe here, is alive.”
The man didn’t blink.
“That 'seventeen-year-old' is exactly the reason you are here, now. Your comment has been duly noted.”
She almost laughed at that, but it came out as a sharp breath through her nose.
“You’re relieved of all active counseling duties effective immediately,” he went on, as if reading from a script. “Pending further review, you are reassigned to archival duties in sublevel storage. No contact with detainees or anomalous persons of interest.”
Michelle’s fingers tightened around her knee beneath the table.
“Is that punishment supposed to make me regret what I did?”
The man paused mid-note, looked at her for just a fraction longer than necessary.
“No. It’s supposed to make sure you never have the opportunity to do it again.”
The meeting ended there. No handshake. No eye contact as he left.
Michelle stayed seated until the door clicked shut, staring at the blank wall ahead of her. The words no opportunity echoed in her head. She knew the Foundation believed them.
And she also knew they were wrong.
⚙︎
Michelle’s new office was smaller than most supply closets. No windows. One desk, one chair, a wall of filing cabinets. The air smelled faintly of paper and dust, with the constant low hum of the overhead light.
She’d been at the archives for three days before she noticed the envelope.
It wasn’t on her desk. It wasn’t in her in-tray. It was tucked halfway down a long-forgotten file folder labeled PROJECTS – DEFUNCT (1972–1981), a place no one had touched in years.
Her name was scrawled across the front in a handwriting she didn’t recognize, careful, deliberate block letters.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
⚙︎
Michelle-
You will most likely be punished for your help. For that, I am sorry. As recompense, I shall tell you the name of the person who rescued me.
Their name is Chimere and they are a visionary.
One day, you will see a world where people like me don’t need cages or permission to exist.
Chimere shall lead us into a new age, one where, despite our differences, I do hope we can be friends. Real friends this time.
Until then, wait. If you want to help, stay out of our way.
We shall not go gentle. We shall forge our own ending, despite what the Foundation may desire.
-A.