The facility was underground.

  Of course it was.

  Parliament loved their underground shit—labs and prisons and torture chambers dressed up as "research centers"—and this one was exactly twelve blocks north, hidden under what used to be a shopping mall, back when people bought things in person instead of having them delivered by drones that tracked your purchase history and flagged you for sedition if you bought too much rope.

  Kaison led me through the ruins.

  Broken escalators. Shattered glass. Mannequins with their heads torn off, and I thought: Metaphor. We're all just headless mannequins pretending to be alive.

  "Down here." His voice echoed weird in the empty space.

  He'd been quiet since the pier. Since I'd seen his memory. Since we both felt the sync pulling tighter, merging thoughts and sensations until I couldn't tell if the nausea in my gut was mine or his.

  Probably both.

  Shared suffering. Partnership goals.

  The entrance was hidden behind a collapsed Starbucks—ironic, Mom would've laughed—and Kaison placed his palm on what looked like solid concrete.

  It opened.

  Just. Slid back like stage curtains, revealing an elevator that was too clean, too new, too wrong for a world that was falling apart.

  "After you," he said.

  Polite. Formal. Like we were going to dinner and not descending into Parliament's bowels to let them study us like lab rats while we merged into one consciousness.

  I stepped inside.

  He followed.

  The doors closed.

  And suddenly we were too close—small space, his shoulder against mine, both of us trying not to breathe too hard—and the sync screamed.

  My vision doubled.

  I saw through his eyes—saw me, saw Rory standing there with her jaw tight and her hands shaking, saw the way my tattoo was glowing brighter now, pulsing in rhythm with his chains—and felt his thought, crystal clear:

  She's terrified. I'm terrifying her. I should—

  "You're not terrifying me," I said.

  Out loud.

  Fuck.

  His eyes widened. "You heard—"

  "Your thoughts. Yes." I pressed my palm against the elevator wall, needed something solid. "That's—that's new."

  "It's accelerating." His chains uncoiled. Agitated. "The proximity is making it worse. We need to—"

  The elevator stopped.

  Doors opened.

  And hell's lobby greeted us with fluorescent lights and linoleum floors and that smell—antiseptic and fear and something chemical that made my eyes water.

  Director Yun stood waiting.

  "On time." She checked her tablet. "Impressive. I calculated a forty-three percent chance you'd run."

  "I considered it," I said.

  "I know. Kaison's vitals spiked when you looked at the emergency stop button." She gestured down the hallway. "This way. We've prepared a containment suite. You'll complete the sync under observation."

  "How long?"

  "The sync? Four to six hours. Full integration takes approximately—"

  "No." I stopped walking. "How long have you known? About me. About what my mother hid."

  Yun smiled.

  Thin.

  Cold.

  "Since you were born, Rory. We've been watching you your entire life."

  The world tilted.

  Again.

  Always tilting, never steady, and I thought: When was I ever free? When was I ever NOT their experiment?

  Kaison's hand found mine.

  Squeezed.

  Anchor. You're real. This is real.

  His thought. Mine. Both.

  "The tattoo," Yun continued, walking. "We let your mother ink it. Watched her encode the activation sequence. Interesting design, by the way—Evelyn always did have flair for the dramatic. Roses for her garden. Thorns for Parliament. Very poetic."

  "You let her—"

  "Of course. How else would we monitor the tech's development?" Yun stopped at a door. Heavy. Reinforced. "Your mother thought she was so clever. Running. Hiding you. But we always knew exactly where you were. We just had to wait for you to—how did she put it in her notes?—bloom."

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  She pressed her palm to the scanner.

  The door opened.

  Inside: white room. Medical equipment. Restraints on the bed—no no no not restraints not again—and Kaison's fear spiked so hard I felt it like a physical blow.

  "I won't—" he started.

  "You will." Yun's voice was ice. "Or she dies. And you die. And four years of research dies with you. Your choice, Vael."

  His chains coiled tight. Trembling.

  I could feel his calculation: Probability of successful escape: 12%. Probability Rory survives if we run: 3%. Probability of—

  "Stop," I said.

  To him. To me. To both of us.

  I walked into the room.

  Sat on the bed.

  Looked at the restraints and thought: Mom. If you can hear me. If there's anything left of you in this code you hid in my DNA. Please. Please let this be worth it.

  "Lie down," Yun said.

  I did.

  Kaison stood in the doorway. Frozen. Code flickering in his eyes so fast I couldn't track it, and I felt his thoughts—panic, error error error, memory of the white room bleeding into now, fifteen-year-old him screaming while they cut—

  "Kaison." My voice. Steady. Surprised me. "It's okay."

  "It's not—"

  "I know." I held out my hand. "But I need you here. Not—not outside. Not watching through glass. Here."

  He moved.

  Crossed the room.

  Took my hand.

  And the sync roared.

  Yun started attaching sensors—my temples, my wrists, over my heart—and each one felt like violation, like being unmade piece by piece, and Kaison's grip tightened until I thought my bones might crack.

  "This will hurt," Yun said.

  Clinical.

  Factual.

  "When the Heartstring fully activates, your neural pathways will reorganize. Kaison's code will integrate with your organic systems. You'll feel—"

  "Everything," Kaison finished. "She'll feel everything."

  "Yes." Yun pulled out a syringe. Clear liquid. "This will keep you conscious during the merge. We need real-time data. Can't have you passing out."

  She injected it into my arm.

  Cold. Spreading through my veins like ice water.

  "Begin synchronization," Yun said to someone I couldn't see. "Full neural interface. Monitor both subjects for rejection. If either one flatlines—"

  "Terminate the sync," someone answered. Male voice. Unfamiliar.

  "No." Another voice. Female. "Harvest the data first. Then terminate."

  I tried to sit up.

  The restraints engaged.

  No.

  No no no—

  "Kaison—"

  "I'm here." His other hand cupped my face. "I'm right here. I won't leave. I won't—"

  The machine turned on.

  Pain.

  Fuck—pain—like the elevator times a thousand, like every nerve was being stripped bare and rewired, and I was screaming, couldn't stop screaming, and Kaison was screaming too—inside, where they couldn't hear—and our screams tangled together until I didn't know whose agony was whose.

  The tattoo burned.

  Peeling itself off my skin. Reforming. The roses blooming into code, into silver filaments that reached for Kaison's chains, and when they touched—

  Oh.

  Oh god.

  I felt him.

  ALL of him.

  Every memory. Every kill. Every moment of pain they'd carved into him when they built him. The white room. The surgeries. The tests. The first time he'd killed someone and felt nothing and hated himself for feeling nothing.

  And he felt me.

  My childhood. My mother's garden. The day Parliament came. The smell of smoke. Mom screaming. Hiding in the vents. Three years on the run. Every moment of fear and loneliness and rage.

  We poured into each other.

  Drowning.

  Becoming.

  And somewhere in the flood, I found it—

  The box labeled Error. Do Not Open.

  But now it wasn't his box.

  It was ours.

  I opened it.

  [MEMORY: Shared]

  White room. But different. Two tables now. Side by side.

  Mom on one. Young. Pregnant with me. Restraints cutting into her wrists.

  And on the other—

  A boy. Fifteen. Platinum hair. Gray eyes that hadn't learned to hide emotion yet.

  Kaison.

  Before.

  "This won't work," Mom was saying. "The genetic lock requires—"

  "Your cooperation," Yun interrupted. Younger. Less gray. Same cold smile. "Which you'll provide. Or we start removing fingers."

  Mom looked at the boy.

  At Kaison.

  And something passed between them. Understanding. Sorrow.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered.

  To him.

  Not to Yun.

  "For what?" Kaison asked.

  "For what I'm about to do." Mom turned to Yun. "I'll encode the Heartstring. But not how you want. Not for Parliament."

  "Evelyn—"

  "I'll make it for them." She gestured between herself and Kaison. "My child. And yours. The first Warden with a chance at something real. Something human."

  Yun considered this.

  Nodded.

  "Acceptable. Proceed."

  And Mom smiled.

  Sad. Resigned. Victorious.

  "It'll take twenty-five years to activate," she said. "Are you patient enough to wait?"

  "For perfect synchronization between human and AI?" Yun pulled out her tablet. "I'll wait forever."

  [END MEMORY]

  I gasped.

  Back in the white room. The now-room. Restraints cutting into my wrists, Kaison's hand still on my face, both of us shaking.

  "She knew," I whispered. "She knew you. She built this for—"

  "Us," Kaison finished. "She built it for us."

  The sync completed.

  And suddenly—

  Silence.

  Not absence of sound. But. Peace. The screaming stopped. The pain receded. And in its place:

  Us.

  I felt his heartbeat like it was mine because it was mine now, felt his thoughts sliding next to my thoughts, felt the boundaries dissolving until Rory-and-Kaison became something new, something that didn't have a name yet.

  "Extraordinary," Yun breathed.

  She was staring at the monitors. At the data flooding the screens.

  "Perfect synchronization. Zero rejection. Neural pathways completely integrated. This is—" She looked at us. "This is what Evelyn promised. What we've been waiting for."

  I tried to speak.

  My voice came out layered. Double. Ours.

  "What. Happens. Now."

  Yun smiled.

  And pulled out a scalpel.

  "Now?" she said. "Now we see what you can do."