The chamber smells like ozone after a lightning, like someone microwaved a thunderstorm. The hatch seals behind me with a soft clunk that feels way too much like a coffin lid.
Mara's voice is right in my ear, low and even. "Breathe with me, kid. In four, out six."
"One," I answer, because numbers still feel safe.
I reach.
The pin meets me halfway.
It doesn't burn or shock; it just slides home like the last puzzle piece you didn't know was missing. The hum climbs my arm, settles behind my ribs, and suddenly my skeleton feels like it's been waiting its whole life to sing in this key.
"Eyes on me, Ryo," Mara says.
I try. The red is prettier.
Everything tilts, not the room, me. Then I'm not in the room anymore.
I'm standing in a place that isn't a place. Black cloth pulled drum-tight, stitched with glowing scars. Everything here has direction. Every want is a line with an arrowhead. There's a crowd of intents breathing together, huge and slow, like whales under the floor of the world.
Something mountain-sized leans in to look.
—vector?—
The word lands like a hand on my shoulder.
I think about rainy mornings, the bus was late, the way my mom used to hum off-key while doing dishes, the smell of apple shampoo. That's the arrow I shoot back.
The mountain tastes it and decides:
—kin—
I shove the word away so hard my real lungs stutter.
A thinner voice, sharp and curious, pokes at the pin through whatever wall is between here and there.
—threshold—
"Nope," I croak. My voice sounds like gravel in this place. "Not your toy."
The mountain doesn't argue. It just files me under interesting.
Back in the real room, Mara is still counting. "Three… four…"
I yank myself home.
I gasp like I've been underwater. The pin isn't in my hand anymore; it's living under my sternum, warm and smug. My ribs feel weirdly crowded, like someone parked a second heart in there and it's already making itself comfortable.
Kwan's voice cracks over the mic, half-hysterical, half-in-love. "Cortical sync is… holy crap, don't anybody shoot him, please."
"Nobody's shooting anybody," Mara says, calm as winter. "Ryo, talk."
"It moved in," I say. Words feel heavy now, like I have to pay for each one. "Not an implant. An organ."
Kwan makes a noise like Christmas came early.
The floor gets hot under my bare feet, not temperature, pressure. The map in my head lights up again, thicker this time. I can see the next heartbeat of everyone in the room before it happens.
Below us, the lab is still sulking about almost becoming a throat.
"Center yourself," Mara says.
"My name," I answer.
"Keep it close."
The red thing purrs like a cat that just found the sunbeam.
Elevator dings. Polite, official, terrifying.
"Company," Mara mutters. "Positions."
Three guys in fancy gray suits walk in like they own the air. Visors shiny, badges screaming authority. The leader opens his mouth and paperwork falls out.
"Lieutenant Ito, by order of—"
The red under my ribs tightens like someone pulled a drawstring.
A hairline crack appears in the ceiling. Nobody looks up except me. It's not a crack in concrete; it's a crack in the idea that this room is allowed to stay closed.
"—the subject is remanded—"
Mara tilts her head, tiny, dangerous. "Take one more step and you inherit our mess."
The leader keeps talking like physics owes him money.
I'm done listening.
"No," I say. Not loud. Just final.
The crack closes with a soft pop, like the world changed its mind.
The leader blinks, suddenly unsure which foot is next. Sato's rifle is exactly where it needs to be without having moved. Rey's finger is already on a button he wasn't supposed to know existed. Kwan is crying happy-scientist tears.
The leader finds his voice again, thinner now. "This is escalation—"
"Then stop walking," Mara says, sweet as poison.
He takes the step anyway.
And the room… hiccups.
Not earthquake. More like someone nudged reality half an inch left. The leader's foot lands wrong. Sato's stance widens exactly enough. Rey hits the override he definitely shouldn't have. Kwan blinks and the moment rewrites itself around all of them.
Nothing dramatic happens.
Everything changes anyway.
The leader is suddenly standing in a spot the floor hates. He doesn't know why his balance feels off, but he does.
"What the hell did you just do?" he asks me, actually me this time.
"Less than I could," I say.
The red settles, satisfied.
Then the air changes again, softer, worse.
Something steps out of nowhere. Not big like the harrower. Small. Neat. Beautiful in the way a scalpel is beautiful. It moves like it's praying, plates folding open like petals made of absence. Where eyes should be there's just deeper dark, pointed right at me.
It kneels.
Not to the room.
To whatever's living in my chest now.
Kwan whimpers like a kid who just met God and God was metal.
Mara's voice is quiet, fierce. "If it thinks you're royalty, be the kind that burns the throne."
The hunger stretches, claws out.
I raise my hand, not pointing, just naming.
"Go home."
The thing tilts its head, offers me the empty place where a face would go, and the red inside it flares like it's happy to match mine.
—threshold— it whispers again, proud of the label.
I push the word Go through the new organ like turning a key in a lock I'm not sure I want.
It bows deeper, graceful, heartbreaking, and then folds itself into a line so thin it hurts to watch, and slips away like smoke through a keyhole.
Gone.
The silence is huge.
The leader finds his voice first. "Central will have all our heads."
"Central wasn't here," Mara says. "He was."
She says he like it's a shield.
The suits suddenly remember they have somewhere else to be and leave without another word.
When the door closes, the room finally breathes.
Mara walks right up to the chamber glass and looks at me like she's adding up damages.
"How much did that cost you?" she asks.
I reach for the kitchen laugh, the off-key humming, apple shampoo.
It's farther now. Four steps instead of three.
"Some," I say. "Not all."
She nods like that's a deal she can live with. "Good. Then we're on my clock now."
"What clock?"
"The one where you tell me what you need to stay you, and I make sure the universe waits its turn."
The pedestal behind me creaks. The air above it bends like bad reception.
Something looks back at me from the wrong side of the glass.
It's me, almost. Same face, same tired eyes, same everything, except the red under its sternum is already on fire and smiling like we finally agree on something.
"Ryo," it says in my voice, warm and terrible, "keep your name."
Then it reaches through the glass like the glass was always optional.
I don't move.
Because part of me wants to take its hand.