Chapter Fourty Six
522 Words
Xavier’s POV
The door sealed shut with a metallic hiss.
No escape.
Mr. Miller stood between Xavier and the only way out, his expression unreadable — too calm for someone who’d just caught a student in a restricted lab.
Xavier straightened, jaw tight. “You’ve been watching her.”
Mr. Miller didn’t move for a long moment. Then he gave a quiet, humorless chuckle. “So you really did see it.”
“I saw everything,” Xavier snapped. “The files. The footage. You’re tracking her like she’s—”
“—unstable,” Mr. Miller finished softly.
The single word hit like a slap.
Xavier took a step forward. “You can’t call her that.”
“Can’t I?” Mr. Miller turned toward one of the glowing screens, tapping a key. Mila’s neural data reappeared, a web of light shifting and pulsing like a living thing.
“Do you even understand what this means, Xavier? What happens when a human mind begins to rebuild itself incorrectly?”
“She’s not a project,” Xavier said, voice low. “She’s your daughter.”
Mr. Miller’s hand froze on the keyboard.
For the first time, something flickered in his expression — guilt, pain, something dangerously close to grief. But it vanished just as fast.
“You think I don’t know that?” he murmured. “You think I wanted this?”
He turned then, his voice sharper, colder.
“Do you have any idea what she could become if this continues unchecked?”
Xavier frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“She wasn’t supposed to wake up,” Mr. Miller said. “Project Mnemosyne was shut down for a reason. But her brain… it’s rebuilding what we tried to erase.”
He stepped closer, eyes glinting in the dim light. “If she remembers everything — if her mind connects the wrong memories — she won’t survive it.”
For a second, Xavier couldn’t breathe. “So your solution is to spy on her?”
“My solution,” Mr. Miller said calmly, “is to keep her alive.”
The room felt colder. Xavier could feel his pulse hammering in his ears.
“You hurt her once,” he said. “You won’t do it again.”
Mr. Miller gave a faint, tired smile. “You think you can protect her? You don’t even know what she is.”
Xavier’s fists clenched. “She’s Mila. That’s enough.”
They stared at each other — a silent standoff between two kinds of danger.
Then Mr. Miller stepped aside, the scanner light flashing green again.
“Leave,” he said quietly. “And if you care about her, you’ll stay away.”
Xavier hesitated, eyes burning. “You’re afraid of her,” he said finally.
Mr. Miller’s voice was barely above a whisper.
> “No, Xavier. I’m afraid for her.”
*****
As Xavier walked out of the lab, the heavy door closing behind him, one thought stayed lodged in his mind:
If Mila wasn’t supposed to remember…
What exactly had they tried so hard to make her forget?
- Writer
