Chapter Six: What They Turn Us Into
1030 Words
They returned Liora to me as evidence.
Not alive proof, not dead proof—data.
I first saw her name on a screen.
SUBJECT RECLASSIFICATION: LIORA
PROGRAM ASSIGNMENT: ADAPTIVE MEDIATION UNIT
STATUS: FUNCTIONAL
Functional.
As if love, defiance, humor, and stubborn humanity could be reduced to a setting that either worked or didn’t.
I stared at the screen long enough for the technician to clear his throat. “You’ll be interacting with her again,” he said carefully. “Under supervision.”
My hands curled into fists.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because,” he replied, not unkindly, “you destabilize less when you think you’re not alone.”
They had learned something from me.
That should have terrified me more than it did.
They brought her in during a controlled demonstration. A room full of observers. Representatives from outside institutions—military analysts, corporate consultants, policy architects. People who designed systems and never lived inside them.
Liora walked in calmly.
Too calmly.
Her posture was perfect. Her gaze steady. Her expression neutral in a way that felt rehearsed. She wore the same uniform as before, but it sat on her differently now, like a costume she had learned to inhabit.
I felt it immediately.
She was still herself.
But not entirely.
“Subject 14,” Dr. Vantier said, “you will complete a cooperative task. Subject Liora will facilitate emotional regulation.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “You turned her into a buffer.”
He didn’t deny it.
They placed us opposite each other. Between us: a complex structure designed to respond to conflicting inputs. Chaos, in theory. Instability.
Liora met my eyes.
There was recognition there. Relief. And something else—containment.
“I’m here,” she said softly.
The system hummed.
My power responded instinctively, reaching outward—
—and stopped.
Not blocked. Redirected.
The structure stabilized instantly.
The observers leaned forward, impressed.
I felt sick.
“What did you do to her?” I demanded.
“She volunteered,” the woman in tailored clothes said smoothly. “After we explained the alternatives.”
I looked at Liora.
She didn’t look away.
“They told me you would burn yourself out,” she said quietly. “That you’d take others with you. I thought… if I could soften the edges—”
“You let them inside you,” I whispered.
Her jaw tightened. “I let them keep you alive.”
That was how the system won.
Not by force.
By offering love as leverage.
The demonstration was declared a success. Notes were taken. Models adjusted. I was dismissed with a warning disguised as praise.
Back in isolation that night, the orphanage felt louder than ever. Not in sound—in intention. Every corridor pulsed with purpose. Every light flicker felt like surveillance sharpening its focus.
They had solved me, they thought.
They hadn’t.
Because while Liora had learned to regulate me, I had learned something else.
The system could not eliminate connection.
It could only reroute it.
The next phase began with internal division.
They didn’t announce it. They didn’t need to. Incentives did the work for them.
Some subjects were given privileges—extended recreation, better food, less monitoring. Others were restricted. Patterns emerged quickly. Compliance became visible. Resistance became isolating.
A group formed quietly among the “stable” ones. Aron was part of it.
“You’re making things worse,” he told me one evening, voice low, urgent. “They’re watching you. Every deviation tightens restrictions for everyone.”
“That’s not my fault,” I said.
“It is if you won’t adapt.”
Adapt.
The word tasted like surrender.
Meanwhile, the “unstable” ones—those who glitched systems, felt too much, bonded too deeply—were grouped together under the guise of support.
We called ourselves nothing.
Naming would have made us legible.
The failure came during a scheduled systems stress test.
I wasn’t supposed to intervene.
That was the rule.
They were testing a new subject—a girl whose ability manifested as temporal distortion, slight delays in perception. She was young. Too young. The system pushed her too hard.
I felt it before anyone else noticed: the overload, the misfire, the moment her power folded inward.
I reached out.
I stopped it.
The room froze—not physically, but procedurally. Commands stalled. Sensors failed to agree. For three seconds, the system had no dominant narrative.
Then it snapped back.
The girl collapsed.
They took her away.
She didn’t die.
She was reclassified.
Non-viable.
That night, the consequences arrived.
Restrictions. Lockdowns. One subject removed permanently from our wing—not because of me, officially, but because “correlated instability must be reduced.”
Someone paid for my interference.
Not the system.
One of us.
I sat on my bed, shaking, Liora beside me. She didn’t regulate me this time. She just sat there, human again, eyes wet.
“This is what they want,” she said. “For you to stop.”
“I can’t,” I whispered. “If I do, they win anyway.”
She took my hand, and for the first time since her return, the system didn’t smooth the response.
A flicker. A hesitation.
Hope, sharp and dangerous.
“They’re exporting the model,” she said suddenly.
“What?”
“St. Lucien isn’t just a facility anymore. It’s a prototype. They’re replicating it. Smaller versions. Mobile units. Programs embedded in schools, clinics, detention centers.”
The world outside hadn’t been ignoring us.
It had been learning.
I closed my eyes.
This wasn’t about escape anymore.
It was about interruption at scale.
I understood then what I was becoming.
Not a weapon.
Not a symbol.
A flaw.
Something the system could not fully correct without rewriting itself.
And systems hate rewriting more than they hate rebellion.
Somewhere beneath the orphanage, data shifted. Models recalculated. Risk assessments updated.
They were preparing for containment.
I was preparing for contagion.
Because if instability could spread—
If refusal could be learned—
Then maybe, just maybe, St. Lucien would not be the future.
It would be the warning.
- Writer
