The meeting room was white. Of course it was white. Everything in this facility was white—the walls, the tables, the masks, the souls of the people who worked here. White like bleached bone. White like the absence of everything.
Superior-1 sat at the head of the table, his grey mask catching the sterile light. Superior-2 flanked his right, Superior-3 his left. The others filled the remaining seats—a gathering of grey masks, of cold voices, of people who had spent decades perfecting the art of looking at horror without flinching.
The screens on the walls showed data. Casualty reports. Resource allocations. The usual detritus of running a global empire of suffering.
But everyone's attention was on the center of the table, where a holographic display showed a single image: Wolfen Welfric's face, captured by a drone moments before it was destroyed.
"The anomalies have proven more resilient than anticipated," Superior-4 said, her modulated voice flat. "Our forces engaged them at three separate locations. The results were... mixed."
Superior-2 turned to Superior-1. His mask hid his expression, but his voice carried something that might have been curiosity. Or challenge.
"Superior-1. How much of your strength did you actually use against the Prime clone?"
The room went still.
Superior-1 didn't move. Didn't react. When he spoke, his voice was calm, measured, utterly unreadable.
"The question is irrelevant."
"Relevant or not, I'd like an answer." Superior-2 leaned forward. "You fought her for nearly ten minutes. She walked away. You walked away. And now we're having this meeting instead of debriefing her capture."
Superior-1's mask turned slowly toward him. The movement was deliberate, almost predatory.
"Are you questioning my effectiveness, Superior-2?"
"I'm questioning your motives."
The tension in the room spiked. No one moved. No one breathed.
Then Superior-1 laughed—a low, dry sound that held no humor.
"You want to know how strong I am?" He stood, slowly, his presence filling the space. "Strong enough that the question itself is an insult. Strong enough that if I'd wanted her dead, she would be dead. Strong enough that I could kill everyone in this room before any of you could raise a hand."
He looked at each of them in turn, letting the words settle.
"But strength isn't the point. Control is. And I controlled that situation perfectly. She's alive. She's learning. She's growing. And when the time is right, she'll be exactly where we need her to be."
Superior-2 said nothing. Neither did anyone else.
The moment stretched, thin as a knife's edge.
Then a soft chime broke the silence.
All eyes turned to the corner of the room, where 328 stood against the wall, her white mask pristine, her posture the perfect picture of obedient attention. She glanced at the tablet in her hands—a small, brief movement—then looked up.
"A message," she said, her modulated voice calm. "Prime Architect 10 is en route. ETA twelve hours. She's coming to assist with... the anomaly situation."
The room absorbed this. Prime Architect 9. One of the dark grey masks. A step below Absolute, but still far above anyone in this room.
Superior-1 nodded slowly. "Good. We can use the help."
The door slid open.
Everyone turned.
Jenny Damber stood in the threshold, still wearing the white clothes they'd given her. But they weren't white anymore. Not entirely. Blood—fresh, still wet—painted her front in long, careless strokes. It dripped from her chin, her fingers, the hem of her tunic. It pooled at her feet, spreading slowly across the pristine floor.
She was smiling.
"Sorry I'm late," she said, her voice light, almost apologetic. "I got... hungry."
No one moved. No one spoke. The grey masks stared at her, and behind those expressionless surfaces, something that might have been fear was stirring.
Jenny stepped into the room, leaving bloody footprints behind her. She walked to the table, looked at the spread of food laid out for the meeting—neat plates of nutrient-dense fare, arranged with Architect precision.
She picked up a piece of bread. Examined it. Sniffed it.
Then she set it down and reached into her pocket.
What she pulled out was small. Irregular. It took a moment for the grey masks to recognize it.
A finger.
She placed it on the table beside the bread. Then another. Then a third. She arranged them carefully, almost artistically, creating a small pattern on the white surface.
"These were from the ones in the dining hall," she explained, her tone conversational. "They were so afraid. It made the meat taste better, honestly. Have you ever noticed that? Fear has a flavor. It's... tangy. A little sweet."
She picked up one of the fingers and bit into it, crunching through bone and nail with evident enjoyment.
The grey masks watched. No one moved to stop her. No one spoke.
Superior-1, to his credit, didn't flinch. Didn't look away. Just observed with the same clinical detachment he applied to everything.
Jenny finished the finger, licked her own fingers clean, and looked at him.
"So," she said, her smile widening. "When do I get to go play with Wolfen?"
Superior-1 met her gaze for a long, measured moment.
"Tomorrow," he said.
Jenny's eyes lit up—literally lit up, a feral gleam that made several of the grey masks shift in their seats.
"Tomorrow," she repeated, savoring the word. "Good. I've waited decades. I can wait one more day."
She looked around the room, at the frozen masks, the untouched food, the evidence of her meal still arranged neatly on the table.
"Don't let me interrupt," she said sweetly. "I'll just... wait outside."
She turned and walked out, leaving bloody footprints and the lingering smell of copper and something else. Something darker.
The door slid shut behind her.
For a long moment, no one in the room moved. Then, slowly, every grey mask turned to look at the table. At the three small fingers, arranged in a pattern that might have been a smile.
Superior-2's voice, when it came, was barely a whisper:
"What the hell is she?"
Superior-1 looked at the closed door. At the blood. At the space where the monster had stood.
"Wolfen's past," he said quietly. "And maybe his future."
No one touched the food. No one spoke. The meeting was over, even if no one had called it.
And somewhere in the white corridors, Jenny Damber was humming a little song, counting the hours until she could see her baby boy again.