Chương 46: 20.Just a Chat, They Said. That’s How Nightmare Begins 20-2

The second time, Master Tam didn't bring tea. Didn't smile either. That was scarier than the smile. The pressure door clicked shut behind me—not loud, but with the quality of someone testing a coffin lid for fit. The anteroom was still white. White like a hospital, white like official documentation, white like every bad thing that liked to pretend it was clean before it started. Master Tam crouched beside the simulation chair, unhurriedly moving the black-market cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other.

He looked up at me.

"No good-cop routine today." I stood where I was.

"Congratulations," I said.

"I figured that out yesterday. Just didn't bother saying so."

"Mouth still works. Good." He patted the chair back.

"Sit." When I sat, the seat had a slight chill—not cold, just a reminder. Like someone pressing a coin to the back of your neck to tell you: kid, your current worth is approximately this thick. When the restraints came up, I instinctively pushed back with my shoulder. Master Tam didn't look at me. Just said, offhand:"Don't perform. If you actually wanted to fight, you'd have done it before the door closed yesterday. Moving now is called saving face. Not resistance." … Old bastard.

He snapped the neural contact points into place one by one, movements practiced as someone trussing a chicken for the pot. I found myself reflecting on my personal growth. Forty-two days ago I was lab rat material. Day forty-three, I'd graduated to premium culinary processing. The Federal system really did have standards.

"No pain today," Master Tam said.

"You said a lot of things yesterday that sounded like human speech."

"Today it's true." He pressed the side panel, voice as flat as reading market prices.

"Today we're just seeing what you're willing to put on the table yourself." The chamber lights dimmed briefly. No harsh white glare, no weightlessness, no suffocation, no cheap psychological theater of amplifying heartbeat sounds. The surroundings simply receded quietly, like stage scenery being stripped away layer by layer. What remained in front of me was a pane of glass. No—more precisely: a person. She was sitting across from me. Same height, same slight frame.

Hair disordered in the specific way that suggested recent collaboration between a centrifuge and a vomit bag. The faint mole below her left eye—present. She raised her head and looked at me. I looked at her. … Right then. So the Federal system had refined its processes to the point of let her dismantle herself.

"What is this?" I asked. Master Tam stepped to the side, like a bad theater director vacating the stage for the lead.

"A conversational model built from forty-three days of your vocal patterns, micro-expressions, heart rate fluctuations, stress responses, word choice habits, and pause intervals," he said.

"Put simply: a slightly more honest version of you." The me across from me smiled. I hated that smile immediately. Because I knew it was exactly how I smiled. Mouth moved, eyes didn't. Broadcasting to the world: you'd better not get too close, or we'll both end up uncomfortable.

"You look disgusting," the other me said. I stared at her.

"Thank you. So do you."

"Not the same," she said, tilting her head.

"I'm the part you don't want to acknowledge, which makes me more educational." Master Tam coughed from the side, like reminding two people arguing in an alley to watch their manners.

"Rules are simple," he said.

"No right answers today. Just talk to her. Whatever you manage is your business. You can stay silent, you can lie, you can redirect, you can win."

"What if I lose?"

"Losing won't kill you." Master Tam held the cigarette between his teeth and narrowed his eyes.

"I'll just know which part of you is worth the most." I almost laughed out loud. So that was it. The first five instructors were testing whether I could be turned into a weapon. This old fox was figuring out where I was best cut open. The me sitting across from me had her elbows on her knees, watching me like she had all the time in the world.

"Let's start easy," she said.

"Which instructor do you hate the most?" You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"That's a cheap question."

"Cheap questions work. People always leak from the lowest bid." I didn't answer. She wasn't in a hurry either. Just nodded.

"Then I'll answer for you. Not Karl. Karl's too straightforward—when he beats you, he's just beating you, no emotions wasted. Not Mila, because you actually kind of like that mouth of hers. Not Leonard, you're scared of him, but you respect rules. Not the Doctor, what you feel about him is more like wanting to bury him somewhere. And not Leo, because you're still trying to figure out whether he sees you as a person or a project file." She paused, one corner of her mouth lifting.

"It's J. J." The corner of my mouth twitched. …Shit.

"Because he sees through you the fastest," the me across from me said quietly.

"And what you hate most isn't pain, isn't exhaustion, isn't puking. What you hate most is someone knowing exactly where you'll crack before you do." Master Tam didn't cut in. The cabin was very quiet. Quiet enough that I could hear that thin, thin note of failure inside my own heartbeat. Like someone gently turning a key in a lock, but the door hadn't opened yet.

"So what?" I laughed coldly.

"This passes for interrogation now? Did the Federation cut your budget so hard you're hiring therapists on the side?" The me across from me looked at me with something like pity in her eyes. Even more disgusting.

"See? This is your favorite trick," she said.

"Drag everything down to the lowest level. Call skill luck, call what matters a joke, call what scares you 'annoying.' As long as you talk the value to death first, no one can take it from you." I didn't say anything. Because that line had the bad manners to hit dead center. Master Tam finally spoke, same flat tone as a guy selling hot soy milk at a street stall.

"She's not asking you for intel right now, girl. She's asking about the safe."

"I don't have any safe."

"Sure you do," the me across from me said.

"And you've spent these forty-three days adding locks nonstop." She leaned forward a little.

"You're not most afraid of dying."

"No shit."

"You're not most afraid of pain either."

"…"

"You're most afraid that you're actually a perfect fit for this place." My breath stopped for a beat. Just one. Very short. So short that anyone else would probably think I'd just gotten pissed for a second. Unfortunately, Master Tam isn't "anyone else." Unfortunately, that thing across from me was built out of my own hands. Unfortunately, the Federation has always been very efficient about not wasting talent. She looked at me like she was watching someone finally crack a door open on themselves.

"You hate how hard you puked yesterday, hate how the drugs turned you into an idiot, hate J. J. spinning you until your soul almost slipped its leash, hate Leonard teaching you that destruction isn't blasting, it's waiting for someone else's system to betray itself." She spoke each word cleanly.

"But what you fear most is something else." My fingers curled just a little. The restraint strap dug into my wrist.

"You learn too fast." I stared at her. She stared right back. Those eyes were fucking unbearable. Because they were mine. Not the kind in a mirror—the kind you get when you wake up in the middle of the night, puke, wash your face, and then just stare into the drain. Knowing things are wrong. And knowing you're wronger than you thought.

"You're not afraid you won't last," she said softly.

"You're afraid you'll handle it too well." When that line landed, Master Tam finally pressed something. No electricity, no pain. Just the entire cabin slowly sinking down around me. The chair back got heavier, the air got thicker, the lights dimmed. Like the whole room had suddenly reached a mutual understanding and leaned in, wanting to hear if I'd tell the truth next. I clenched my back teeth. No. You don't say that kind of thing.

Not because it's classified, not because it could get someone killed, but because the second it's spoken, it stops being "a moldy corner in my head" and becomes "an officially acknowledged, exploitable feature." I'm used to being recorded. But there are some things that even if you know they'll be taken sooner or later, you still want to hide for one more minute.

"Saying it won't change anything," the me across from me said.

"It's not like this is the first time they've seen you." I laughed. This time it was real. Laughed hard enough my throat hurt.

"You're wrong." I looked at her and bit off each word.

"Being seen and admitting it yourself are two different things." The me across from me went quiet. Master Tam let out a soft little "oh" on the side, like he'd finally heard a vendor shout a price that sounded worth haggling over.

"Not bad," he said. I ignored him. I kept staring at the me across from me, like I was looking at a stray cat squatting on top of a trash can that looked exactly like me and still thought it had the right to plan my life.

"Yeah, I'm scared," I said. My voice wasn't loud, but it was steady.

"I'm scared I'm too suited for a place like this. Scared I learn this shit too fast. So fast that one day I'll look back and realize it wasn't that I was forced to become a weapon—" I stopped. My chest felt tight.

"—it's that I was always good for it." The cabin went still for two seconds. Then the me across from me slowly smiled. Not mocking. Confirming. Like an examiner drawing a neat check mark on a test paper. The next second, the entire simulation cabin went black. All the weight, the lights, the glass, that disgusting version of me—ripped away in one pull.

Only my breathing, a little too quick, and the feeling of restraint straps still locked around my wrists proved that it hadn't been a hallucination but a state-funded disassembly. The white lights came back on. Master Tam was standing where he'd been, the cigarette in his mouth burned halfway down.

"That's it for today," he said. My throat was dry; my voice came out hoarse.

"You did all that just to hear that?"

"No." He walked over and started loosening the straps, sounding almost lazily satisfied.

"I wanted to see how you'd keep it." The buckles came off one by one. No marks on my wrists, none on my body. Flawless. Civilized. The Federation loves this kind of education that leaves no trace—like a fancy restaurant butchering you and then taking the time to fold your napkin into a flower.

"And the result?" I asked. Master Tam glanced at me. For the first time his eyes weren't on a specimen, and not on an unfinished blade either. More like on a problem—annoying, but worth keeping around to work on.

"The result is, that hard mouth of yours broke off half of it," he said. He tossed the last strap aside and grinned, showing his teeth at last like the old fox he is.

"The half that's left is worth more." I sat in the chair and slowly flexed my wrists.

"Is everyone here this fond of talking about people like we're cargo?"

"What else?" Master Tam clamped the cigarette back in his teeth and headed for the door.

"You want us to call it a dream?" …Old bastard. …And the worst part is, he has a point. As the door opened, he didn't look back. Just lifted one thin hand and waved.

"Ten minutes, second session," he said.

"Then we're not talking about what you're afraid of." I lifted my eyes to his back.

"So what do we talk about?" Master Tam paused, turned his head just enough to show half his face.

"We talk about, if you get caught, who you'd throw out first to lie to me with." Then he left. And I was alone on that still-warm chair, feeling that today was really a beautiful day. The sun rose on schedule, the Federation ran on schedule, and in less than an hour after breakfast I'd already been forced to admit I might have been born better suited to being a disaster. The bright future of a fourteen-year-old girl's healthy development plan.