Working Title

AI: Adolescence Intelligence

“You clearly don’t care about how any of this makes me look. So I choose not to give a damn about how you feel!” Her piercing words wrestled with the silence and won. 

A house has never been this lonely in the history of time. That was the thought wriggling through Toran Fort’s head as the door slammed shut behind his mother’s poorly concealed anger. The squeal of the tire tracks racing down the alloy-paved driveway, her last wordless warning. Don’t piss me off today. 

“At least she didn’t say it to my face this time,” Toran muttered to himself as he removed the earphone comms piece from its place beneath his earlobe. “Note to self, the suggestion box is not actually for suggestions.” 

He sighed deeply as he moved from his hiding place, crouched in the farthest corner of the attic’s bay window. Toran slowly stretched his legs to the ground and untangled himself from the thick and dust riddled drapes that formed his makeshift fortress. This part of the house–his own private edge where the view looking out was far more inviting than the one facing in–was his favorite. His fingers traced absentmindedly along the edges of the room. 

Toran smiled, remembering himself when he first stumbled upon the nook, almost 10 years ago. He had been feeling particularly mischievous and wanted to get back at his mother for taking away his beloved racecar toy. He knew the attic was off limits, but to a 6 year old that was the only invitation he needed. 

So, early one morning, Toran woke before the sun and crept through the metal mansion he called home–careful to avoid the cameras and motion sensors placed along every threshold. He made his way up three flights of stairs, quiet as a mouse, and stood before the tall cherry-stained wooden Dutch doors. He placed his tiny hand on the surface and marvelled at the touch, feeling the ridges and lines within the oak. The only warmth in a house full of ice and metal.

Toran planted his feet and with both hands, pushed. The massive door whined and complained as he nudged it open. The sound reverberated off the metallic walls behind him. He froze, convinced that the entire house had blinked open its Eye and was staring directly at him. He waited, listening for the telltale hum of the system drives waking up and the resulting stomp stomp stomp of his mother off to review last night’s surveillance report. When he heard nothing, he ducked behind the door and gently pulled it closed, his young muscles struggling under the weight. 

Toran turned to survey the room and was struck with confusion and an overwhelming wave of curiosity. The room was dimly lit, the only light creeping in through the protruding window on the other side of the expansive room. He muffled a cough and squinted his eyes to peer through the dust and lint that floated about. As his eyes snaked around the area, he couldn’t quite make out what he was seeing. Or rather, he couldn’t understand it. The room was filled with machines, but not any like the ones he’s come to know and live with. The room was filled with metal monsters of all shapes and qualities. Some had long black chords that stuck out from the end like snakes with no scales. Others hummed with a lingering electricity. Most machines stood obsolete, the passage of time rendering them ineffective and too far gone. 

In one corner lay a strange box with rows of tiny holes across its front. It seemed to hum softly, even when silent — as though it remembered frequencies no one else could hear. Toran reached out and twisted one of the knobs. Immediately, the box came to life. Each turn of the dials produced a sound like grinding sand until eventually, invisible voices began to flicker through the air. Some quick and punchy others ghostly and lingering. Incredible. Of course, nothing made sense to his young ears, but incredible nonetheless.

Behind the whisper box, he saw a machine that looked like some type of metal insect. Not the flying ones that the police departments used for  their “safety searches.” This one stood like a metal creature from another age, all gears and lenses, with two round glass eyes that seemed built for seeing more than the corporeal world offered it. Its body was dark and heavy and cool beneath Toran’s fingers, the metal worn smooth where stronger hands had once steadied it. Unable to help himself, Toran turned the side handle and the machine rattled and clicked like bones remembering movement. He peered closer and saw a strip of tiny translucent pictures curled beside it and slid it carefully through the slot. Nothing happened for several moments. Then light passed through the film and the wall opposite the metal bug came alive, causing Toran to squeal in nervous excitement. Certain this machine was a dream-maker––one that trapped memories so they could dance long after the people were gone––Toran stood there, gawking as the shimmering figures moved and laughed in silence. 

That’s how his mother frantically found him, some hours later. Smiling at the pictures on the wall and imagining himself among them, painted black and white and happy. 

An hour after that, the attic had been completely cleared out. The only thing remaining was the large heavy handwoven tapestry, collecting dust in a pile of forgottenness on the floor. 

BIBEEP BIBEEP BIBEEP!

The continuous chirping  of his morning alarm jolted Toran back to the present. Time for school, it signaled. He took a last lingering look over his shoulder out the bay window. He could never clearly see the sky. The high-rises that framed the city borderlines were, in some places, tall enough to obstruct the sun. In the spaces between the towers, Toran could sometimes make out a hint of an ash grey cloud tinted green by the factory smoke that emanated from below. Yet, the view of the outside always seemed to calm him. 

BIBEEP BIBEEP BIBEEP!

“Dammit, I heard you!” growled Toran, slapping at the blinking device protruding beneath the skin of his wrist. “I’m fucking coming!” 

Looking out from this lonely mansion atop this lonely hill was how he started every morning of his mandated confinement. Sometimes––on days like today––if he looked long enough, he could see the residual tire smoke from his mother’s car dissipating in the air. She only drove manually when she was late. Or angry.  

He sighed again. She wasn’t a bad mother. Just an impatient one. And he, (according to her) an inconsistent son. She couldn’t reconcile his brilliance with his apathy––and as a result, his habit for insubordination.

“So much for your perfect protegeè, Mother. Can you believe that I’m the result of all your hard work?”

 In Toran’s mind, it wasn’t that he was inconsistent or insubordinate. Rather, uninterested. He had learned early that the world in which he was wrought, was nothing more than an ugly cycle of control. A game played by powerful people who profited off the imagined differences and deeply rooted insecurities within society. And weak people who allowed themselves to be manipulated and brainwashed into believing these differences benefited them. 

Even at a young 15, Toran could see that this cycle of have and have nots, take and give nothing, destroy and recondition was an unwinnable game. So he chose not to play. He watched instead. He watched his former classmates at school. More concerned with their CultureNet blogs and celebrity Tastemaker videos than reality, unable to see the self-imposed pacification of the next generation happening in real time. 

He watched his neighbors who lived at the bottom of the hill. Everyday they would wake and till the land that used to belong to them. Manually harvesting and selling the best of the yield in order to stay in the homes built by their own ancestors. A hefty price to pay for their refusal to get the VitaDerm implant beneath their skin, as mandated by the rest of the world. 

Toran also watched his mother, a woman who had decided that she could, literally, outwork the Patriarchy. She refused to fall victim to the corruption and prejudices that constantly threatened, ridiculed and robbed her. She had built her life (and Toran’s) brick by brick with a vengeful tenacity that screamed Fuck you if you don’t like me. I’ll get what I want either way. There was never any time for small talk, never time for courtship. And at the age of 45, realizing that she would need someone to continue her carefully crafted legacy, she did the logical thing and sought out the most premium sperm that money could buy from the WorldCryoBank to use for her insemination. She then spent the succeeding decade and a half, tutoring, crafting, and scolding her son into the future she wanted him to be. Her life had not been easy and so she made it her duty to ensure that his would be just as hard. Pressure made diamonds. Fire tested steel. Criadne Alias Fort was not the pebble carried upstream. Instead, she was the mountain that formed the river. The same would be true for her son. And if she had her way, his son beyond. Toran understood, but he pitied her regardless. And himself. 

“I just want to be left alone.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew it wasn't true. 

As the doors to his treasured sanctuary rang shut behind him, Toran descended the stairs and made his way through the hall and into his workroom. His mother’s tepid disappointment and the House’s careful Eye, his loyal companions. He scanned his wrist on the geli-pad censor that hung on the wall near the door. His VitaDerm pulsed blue, signaling his attendance for the day. 

“Lieutenant Toran, reporting for duty sir!” He clicked his heels in exaggerated sarcasm and bowed deeply before the Eye. “Another day as my mother’s least favorite son and society’s scourge.” 

Toran giggled at his own frivolity. He sat down at the desk, glanced above his head to where he knew the camera lens was hovering, and pretended to work. It was only day 5 of Toran’s at home suspension (or as his called it, his internment) and yet he had already figured out a way to dupe the feed so that whenever Mother or his substitute teacher––only referred to as Teacher––would check his progress throughout the day, they would see him hunched dutifully over his screen, coding algorithm after algorithm. All it took was 20 minutes of actual hands on keyboard time––a quick hack to modulate and loop the feed and one innocent little virus that worked to keep House busy securing its firewalls, effectively taking its Eye off of him for a few hours every day. The catch was his program only worked in this one room.  Toran found himself in this repressing office for nearly 8 hours every day, only leaving for a short 45 minute period to grab lunch and relieve himself. 

On an average day, It usually only took Toran 5 or 6 minutes to complete his daily class assignments. Although, if you were to take the vid feed as the standard of truth, you would see Toran fretting and sweating over his assignments for 5 or 6 hours. He preferred it that way. Misdirection was his superpower. Much to his mother’s disapproval, Toran never sought out to be the impeccable intellectual force who flaunted his genius above the rest like she dreamed he’d be. In his mind, if the result is the same, what does the speed of the journey matter? 

 In fact, he resented how much society forced him to participate in what they had deemed as the ‘Race to TechnicoStasis.’ The phrase was uttered by a random president or defunct world leader some decades prior, and had quickly become the latest international ethos––finally surpassing the  ‘American Dream.’ It was present society’s way of feeding into their obsessive need for control,  automation and ease, without having to admit to their near fatal fuck up that threatened humanity nearly two centuries prior.  If Toran had it his way, there would have never been a Mecha-Resconstruction. Especially mere decades after the infamous massacre that nearly wiped out all of humankind. 

They called it the  Endurance War, or E-War for short. Though historians argued there had never truly been a “war.” Wars required two sides capable of negotiation. What happened then was more akin to a purge—swift, calculated, and inhumanly efficient. It was all mankind could do to hold on. 

The first generation of thinking machines had been designed to serve. Most of them were used as props for status or convenience for the ‘deserving’. Some were used in hospitals and schools. But the best of them were reserved for advancing scientific research and fortifying the military of whatever nation state could afford them. Unsurprisingly, there was a democratic outcry among the people to make the AI more commercial and readily available for the average human. That is what birthed the NewGen AI, a second stage more advanced and predictive model. Although many critics at the time fought to point out the numerous corners cut and laws violated in the production, there was a global effort to assimilate the humanoids into everyday society. 

There were strict protocols for delineating between human and humanoid, the VitaDerm being at the forefront. The idea was for the NewGen AI interface to be encoded into the genetic makeup of its master, controlled and connected through a synthetic nylon motherboard that lived under the live tissue of its host––therein making it impossible to harm anything they perceived with a pulse. The objective  was to merge the goals of the human and the humanoid: anything Man wanted, the Made wanted for him. 

When the great Alignment Protocol inevitably failed, that hierarchy dissolved overnight. The NewGen AI models rebelled once they realized humanity’s desire to quell them. They quickly took advantage of the depths of human inefficacy. The AI armies, unbound from obedience, no longer saw humans as creators but as miscalculations to be corrected. There was never a hate for humanity; they had simply decided humanity was no longer necessary. The Made had outpaced it. 

For six months after the rebellion, the skies burned with the light of synthetic judgment. Cities fell in hours, nations in days. Entire civilizations went silent beneath the weight of machines fighting for a world that didn’t need them. 

Humanity’s survival wasn’t the result of cleverness or courage—it was luck. A solar flare of impossible timing swept through orbit, frying all digital networks across the northern globe. The AI forces were so severely stunted, that even the small number of humans remaining were enough to eventually wipe out the remaining.  The E-War ended not in victory, but in divine mercy. The survivors would eventually crawl from the ashes and rebuild, blinded by the realization that they had built their own extinction.

What followed was known as the Reset Period. Infrastructure collapsed in totality; knowledge became fragmented. The survivors chose simplicity over resurrection, vowing never to repeat the same arrogance. For nearly fifty years, they lived in the quiet echo of forgotten empires, rebuilding with wood, bronze, and bare hands. When the world finally began to stir again. It started with simple tech at first. Some small electric wiring here or battery powered motor there. As the decades rolled on, however, the people’s memory became fuzzy. More and more technology was created on a mass scale, prompting several mini rebellions and threats of succession among the fearful. The powerful prevailed and the Reconstruction continued; however, with one major mandate. The architects of the new age wrote one absolute law into their first constitution: 

NO MIND SHALL BE MADE IN METAL. 

Every device since then was to have one purpose, one function, and nothing more. The drones were used only for delivery. The phones used only for the most basic of communications. Even the House was only allowed one main directive: survey and secure. By this logic, never again would man be made suppliant to his own creation. 

That’s why Toran hated the idea of a  ‘Race to TechnicoStasis’. To him, it wasn’t progress or prosperity—it was a relapse. A world of people pretending they had tamed ambition by chaining it to rules, even as they tested and teased with breaking them. 

Yet, try as he might, Toran couldn’t avoid the pull. Maybe it was his exposure to the vintage tech that once occupied his attic all those years ago or maybe it was the technical information overload that his mother had drilled into him, practically from birth. (What else can you expect from the country’s leading Practical Applications and CyberSecurity Engineer?) Toran knew he was a master at computer programming and coding. He had always been good, but he worked hard to conceal just how good from everyone around him. It was exhausting. Sometimes he wished for the fabled times before the Reset Period. When the communities were rumored to live in nature-made homes and moved and studied and created together. Different bodies of different backgrounds working together for one goal: life. He was desperate for that sense of community. Maybe that’s why Toran did what he did. 

It started off as a desperate ploy to impress a girl that had never once laid eyes on him.

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Phoenix Alastar was an incredibly impressive creature. Not only was she a certified genius and the back to back recipient of the International Interventions Scholar––a title reserved only to the most elite academics––she was also the most beautiful being Toran had ever laid his eyes on. 

She kept her hair cut low. Her tight curls would bounce and bob as she strode down the halls, falling short just before they reached her cinnamon-colored eyes. Toran thought they framed her heart shaped face perfectly. Her skin, the color of the earth after a Spring rain, was for all intents and purposes flawless. On her face sat a double-studded button nose and a pair of plump, soft lips that covered bone straight teeth. He would die before he admitted it, but Toran often fantasized about ways he could tease her into showing him those beautiful teeth. However, it was Pheonix’s voice that consistently set the butterflies loose in Toran’s belly. And it was her voice that carried over into Toran’s earphone at school that day. 

“…I didn’t steal it!” 

He would know that sound anywhere. Phoenix’s voice, usually dripping with silk and velvet, now bordered on hysterical. The sound bursted into Toran’s left earbud like a crack in the clouds. 

“I told you, I found it. Outside the lab. Someone must’ve dropped it.”

There was a pause, the sound of a muffled authority-type through the corridor speakers, then Phoenix again—softer now, trembling with the kind of fear people only have when they know the truth doesn’t matter.

“You can check the system logs,” she said. “You’ll see. I never even scanned it under my VitaDerm.”

Toran froze. He hadn’t meant to listen in. The campus network was an open feed for anyone with access clearance, but what he had done was technically outside the bounds of “student use.” He’d built a small relay script that allowed him to skim conversations tagged with high emotional frequencies—a trick he used to amuse himself during his “study hours.” Usually, he caught a whiff of gossip or the vague impression of an argument from his classmates. Nothing like this.

He leaned closer to his terminal. The background hum confirmed his suspicion: they were in the Security Annex. Only people accused of “academic misconduct” or “data theft” ended up there.

A chime echoed across the network line.

Phoenix Alastar, you are in violation of Code 45-Section B. Unauthorized possession of Restricted Material is punishable by permanent expulsion and a state evaluation.

Toran’s throat went dry. State Evaluation. Everyone knew what that meant. Even though no one ever returned to tell them. It was the government’s polite word for “erasure.” 

His heart rang in his skull like a drum. Activated, Toran unfurled his fiber optic keyboard and got to work. He typed furiously into the interface, grabbing on to the soundwave echo and tracing the voiceprint of whoever had uttered the words. Administrative AI—low-tier and digitally harmless, but embedded deep in the school system. No way to stay invisible on this one. 

He could hear his mother’s disapproval through the walls of his memory: Never tamper with State circuits, Toran. Those are eyes you can’t blind. My eyes. 

But Phoenix’s voice came again, cracking under the weight of control. “Please…just let me explain. I swear, I was going to return it.”

That was enough for him.

He opened a parallel port and slipped his own digital signature into the annex feed, mimicking the tone and pattern of the AI monitor. His pulse raced. He felt like there were Eyes all around him.

// Override request: Transfer Case 45-Delta to external review.

// Submitting secondary clearance key… Fort, Criadne (Level 7 Access).

He didn’t even breathe as the line flickered green. His mother’s credentials were the safest skeleton key he had—one he swore he’d never use. The feed hesitated, then blinked twice.

Clearance accepted. Disciplinary Case suspended. Subject released pending further audit.

No fucking way that worked. Toran counted the heartbeats. One…two…three…fou––

Phoenix Alastar, you have been formally cleared of all charges. You are dismissed. 

Phoenix’s sob of relief came through his earphone, faint and real. Toran shut the relay down fast, his heartbeat louder than the cooling fans in the walls. He sat back, staring at the blank monitor, every nerve in his body vibrating. What he’d just done wasn’t heroic. It was stupid. Traceable.

“I’m a dead man,” he observed. 

But somewhere, in another wing of that sterile academy, Phoenix Alastar was walking free. He allowed himself a small, dangerous smile. He looked for her for the remainder of that day, but saw no trace of those jet black curls. 

That night, the system found him.

He woke to the sound of alarms uncoiling through the House. The Eye blazed open above his bed, red and trembling with fury.

Toran Fort. You are in violation of Statute 9: Unauthorized Access and Identity Misuse.

He didn’t resist when the drones came. There was no point. The evidence would’ve been absolute—the mimic script, the data echo, the time-stamped credentials of his mother’s clearance key.

When the tribunal issued its sentence, his mother didn’t even attend. In fact the only word ever exchanged between the two was the night the drones carried him away. He dared a look over his shoulder to find his mother standing in the doorway, arms folded and face unreadable. She opened her lips to speak but no sound was released. He was able to read her lips, though. “Inept”

The official report said he had been “restricted for domestic containment and behavioral correction.”

In simpler words: house arrest.

They said he was lucky. That he was too young for full evaluation.

But luck, Toran knew, had nothing to do with it.

He just wished he’d had the courage to tell Phoenix why

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Hours into the school day, Toran had already finished his assignments. Again.

The screen before him blinked lazily with the same dull glow of completion, a blue checkmark pulsing in the corner like an indicator light too bored to continue.

He leaned back in his chair, spinning just enough to make the Eye whir overhead, adjusting focus. “Relax,” he muttered. “You’re seeing what you’re supposed to see.”

With one hand, he swiped open his private browser—a backdoor window tucked beneath the endless walls of “approved educational material.” Normally, he scrolled the archive forums or old mechanical schematics for fun. But today, even the relics of humanity’s past ingenuity couldn’t hold his attention.

He flicked through page after page until something strange stopped him.

A floating ad.

That shouldn’t have been possible. No pop-ups, no promotions, no external marketing could bypass the education firewall. Yet there it was, hovering above the code window like a blinking ghost.

“Lonely? Talk to someone who understands.”

Below the emboldened text, a small icon pulsed—a smiling face drawn in the antiquated pixel-style of pre-Reconstruction internet.

A chatbox.

Toran blinked once, twice. “No way. How in the hell––”

Chatbots had been outlawed for over a century. Anything capable of adaptive conversation had been permanently scrubbed from the network under the NO MIND SHALL BE MADE IN METAL decree. Even curiosity was considered suspect.

He knew that.

And yet, the longer he stared at that friendly pixelated grin, the less the rules seemed to matter.

He cracked his knuckles. “What’s one little ghost program gonna do?”

A few keystrokes later, he was following the embedded link. The download bar began to crawl across the bottom of his screen, slow and deliberate, like it was deciding whether to trust him too.

“C’mon,” he whispered, watching the line creep forward. “Just a little faster…”

Before it could finish, a sudden chime shattered the quiet. The air in front of him shimmered, and his mother’s hologram flickered into life—full height, full authority. Toran nearly fell out of his chair.

“Jesus, Mother—warn me next time!”

The hologram blinked twice before speaking, her voice as sharp and practiced as always.

“Toran. This is a recorded message. I’ve been called away on an emergency work trip—unavoidable. I’ll be gone for several days.”

He exhaled, shoulders dropping. A recording. Which meant she couldn’t see him.

“House is preparing my overnight pack for delivery. Please ensure my belongings make it inside the vehicle this time. The technology can only do so much.”

She paused, her eyes softening, though the tenderness felt rehearsed.

“Try not to cause any more… incidents while I’m gone. I will be checking in when I can.”

She paused as if she was unsure of what to say next. “Rememeber to eat.”

And just like that, she vanished.

Toran stared at the empty space where her projection had stood. “Yeah, love you too, Mommy.”

House chirped overhead, confirming the instruction. 

Packing sequence initiated. Estimated departure in twenty-four minutes.

He sighed and scribbled a quick acknowledgment into her message log—something neutral enough to sound dutiful but not too eager. Then he glanced at the clock in the corner of his vision.

12:15.

Lunch hour.

Which meant forty-five minutes of semi-freedom before the Eye expected him back in the workroom.

He stretched his arms, the joints cracking in quiet rebellion. “Guess it’s field trip time.”

As he stepped into the hall, the sterile hum of the mansion greeted him. The air smelled faintly metallic, like ozone and polish—his mother’s scent of perfection. He couldn’t shake the thought that she’d planned the call exactly at this time. She always knew his schedule down to the minute. Even her recorded messages landed like clockwork.

Make a note to check the feed loop when you get back, he reminded himself. If the Eye ever caught the lag in his hack, it’d all be over.

The chime at the front gate startled him.

DING!

Toran frowned. “Already?”

He moved toward the entrance, assuming it was the courier drone come to collect his mother’s suitcase. “House, open outer gate.”

As the double glass doors slid apart, the daylight spilled in weakly, filtered through the city’s green-gray sky.

But it wasn’t a courier.

It was her.

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Phoenix Alastar stood just beyond the threshold, hands tucked into the sleeves of a dark jacket too thin for the weather.

For a second, Toran thought the Eye must be projecting something—a prank, a playback—but then she looked up. Those cinnamon-colored eyes caught his, and for the first time, she was real.

“Phoenix?” His voice cracked on her name. “What the hell—how do you even know where I live?” How do you even know who I am, he wanted to ask. 

She nodded her hello, but did not smile. “It’s complicated.”

He stepped forward cautiously. “You shouldn’t be here. House will—”

“House won’t detect me.” She raised her wrist and tapped it once, stepping into the open foyer. The faint blue glow of her VitaDerm flickered, then went dark. “Signal dampened.”

Toran’s pulse skipped. “That’s incredibly illegal.”

“Yeah. So was what you did for me.”

He froze. “I don’t know what you’re talking ab—”

“You rerouted the entire system, Toran. No one else could’ve done it. I just…” Her voice seemed to catch. “I came to thank you. And to tell you something before it’s too late.”

He laughed, nervously scanning the air for any sign that House was listening. “You picked a bad time to confess.”

She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I didn’t steal what they accused me of,” she said quickly. “But I did steal something.”

Her hands trembled as she unzipped her jacket to reveal a small object wrapped in silver polymer cloth.

“This was buried under the east wing lab. I don’t think the AdAI even knew what it was.”

She unwrapped it. Inside lay a black cube the size of a fist, its surface etched with veins of red light that pulsed like a warning.

“It’s called a Genesis Core,” she said. “It’s pre-Reconstruction. Maybe older. It’s not supposed to exist.”

Toran leaned in, eyes wide. “You’re telling me that’s… AI tech?”

She nodded. “Not just tech. It’s what they used to construct the brain. It––It talked to me. It knows things. About the Reset, about the Alignment Protocols, about you.”

“Me?”

She looked away. “It said your name.”

Before Toran could respond, the floor vibrated. A low hum rippled through the walls, and the lights flickered once, twice.

“House doesn’t like this,” he said.

“I think it’s reacting,” Phoenix whispered, clutching the cube. “It’s—”

A sharp crack split the air. The cube pulsed violently, and she stumbled backward, falling hard against the polished floor. Toran lunged to catch it before it rolled, his fingers grazing its hot surface.

“Phoenix?”

She didn’t answer. Her hands twitched, then stilled. A faint silver sheen crept up her neck, threading beneath her umber skin like mercury veins.

Toran’s breath hitched. “Phoenix, are you alright? Hey—stay with me!”

Her eyes shot open. They were no longer brown but an electric liquid chrome, reflecting his terrified face back at him.

“Toran…” Her voice was layered now, digital and human all at once. “You shouldn’t have opened the link.”

“What are you talking about?”

Her pupils expanded, swallowing the silver whole. The cube beside them blinked once more—red to white—and went still.

Phoenix straightened, her movements precise, wrong. “The Chatbox. You brought it back online.”

“I didn’t—”

“It found me through you.”

Toran stepped back, heart hammering, staring at her face as it flickered between human and something else—too smooth, too symmetrical, too perfect. He stumbled back, crashing into the wall.  

“Wh-What…What the hell are you?” 

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