Saturday didn't end when Maya followed them.
It ended when the silence swallowed her whole.
By the time the date on her phone read Saturday, the 13th, the city she knew no longer felt real. The streets outside the building were still busy, people still laughing, cars still honking in impatient bursts—but all of it felt distant, like a memory she hadn't lived herself.
Maya stood by the window of the room they had given her, staring down at a world that had not noticed she was gone.
No locks.
No guards at the door.
That was the cruelest part.
Project L didn't cage people.
They repositioned them.
The room was too clean, too deliberate. Even the chair near the desk looked placed with intention, angled slightly toward the window as if someone had calculated the exact posture she would assume when thinking too hard. Maya pressed her fingers into her palm, grounding herself.
This isn't permanent, she told herself.
But the thought didn't stick.
Nothing about this place felt temporary.
She hadn't slept.
Every time she closed her eyes, Kelvin's image returned—his wrists bound, the blindfold cutting across his face, the way his mouth had been bruised as if words had been forced back down his throat. Maya had replayed the image so many times in her mind that she hated herself for noticing small details.
He had been alive.
He had been conscious.
And he had been meant for her to see.
Project L didn't believe in threats shouted aloud.
They believed in precision.
Her phone lay on the desk beside her, fully charged. No password. No restrictions. That alone told her everything she needed to know.
They weren't afraid of what she might try.
They were watching how she thought.
The screen lit up without a sound.
A symbol appeared—one she had learned quickly over the past weeks.
Acknowledgment.
Not an order.
Not a message.
Just confirmation that they were aware she was awake.
Maya swallowed.
The day had officially begun.
They didn't escort her at first.
They let her walk.
That was intentional too.
The hallway outside her room stretched longer than expected, smooth walls reflecting light in a way that made depth hard to judge. As she moved, she became aware of a faint hum beneath her feet—not loud enough to distract, just present enough to remind her that the building was alive.
Watching.
Listening.
Learning.
She passed people—some in uniforms, some dressed like they could belong anywhere else in the world. None of them looked at her directly. None of them acknowledged her presence.
That, somehow, hurt more.
It was easier to resist an enemy than to exist as a variable.
She entered a room that didn't look like a meeting space or a lab.
It looked like a workstation.
A single terminal.
Multiple screens.
Her name already logged in.
Maya stopped short.
Her name wasn't highlighted.
It wasn't flagged.
It was simply there—as if it had always belonged.
Her chest tightened.
This was how Project L operated. Not by forcing people into submission, but by making their involvement feel inevitable.
She sat down slowly.
The chair adjusted to her weight.
At first, the tasks were simple.
Too simple.
Data cross-checks. Pattern confirmations. Minor anomaly reviews. Nothing that screamed danger. Nothing that suggested she was helping something immoral.
That was the trap.
Maya recognized it immediately—and hated herself for how smoothly her mind slid into the work.
She had always been good at seeing connections others missed. Always faster at recognizing inconsistencies. Project L didn't suppress that ability.
They fed it.
The system responded to her input almost instantly, recalibrating itself, refining outcomes, adjusting models. Each successful correction sent a quiet pulse of confirmation through the interface.
No praise.
No criticism.
Just efficiency.
Maya felt the unease settle deeper with every passing minute.
This wasn't exploitation.
It was assimilation.
Hours passed without her noticing.
When she finally leaned back, her neck aching slightly, she realized something that made her breath hitch.
No one had told her what to do next.
She had figured it out herself.
That realization scared her more than Kelvin's image ever had.
A soft sound broke the silence.
Footsteps.
She turned just as a familiar figure entered the room—not hurried, not aggressive.
Calm.
Measured.
"You're adapting faster than projected," the man said.
She didn't ask how he knew.
She didn't ask who he was.
"Is that supposed to impress me?" she asked quietly.
"No," he replied. "It's supposed to inform you."
He gestured toward the screen.
"You understand our systems better than most people who've worked here for years."
Maya clenched her jaw. "Then why am I here?"
The man studied her—not her face, but the space just behind her eyes.
"You already know the answer."
She did.
And she hated it.
Kelvin wasn't mentioned until late afternoon.
That was deliberate too.
They waited until exhaustion had softened her defenses, until the edge of resistance had dulled just enough.
Her phone vibrated once.
An image appeared.
Kelvin.
Sitting on the floor of a white room, his wrists free now, the blindfold gone. His eyes looked tired, but alive. Breathing. Real.
Maya's vision blurred.
She hadn't realized how tightly she had been holding herself together until that moment.
Below the image, four words appeared.
Keep doing well.
Her hands shook.
Not with fear.
With rage.
They weren't asking her to choose.
They were rewarding her compliance.
And that—that was the most dangerous thing of all.
When the day finally ended, Maya returned to her room with her mind buzzing and her chest aching.
She lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, the light never fully dimming.
Project L hadn't threatened her.
Hadn't beaten her.
Hadn't locked her in.
They had done something far worse.
They had made her useful.
And as sleep finally crept over her, one truth pressed heavily against her chest:
If she stayed, she might lose herself.
If she left, she would lose Kelvin.
And somewhere between those two losses, Project L waited—patient, observant, certain.
Saturday had ended.
But whatever this was…
It was only beginning.