"Well," Vessa murmured, studying the datapad balanced on her knee. "Let's see."

  We were back in the medical room by the waygate where I'd first arrived on Voidhold Two, where she had wiped away my tears and given me a mask. Now we sat across a small round table, and between us lay what looked like part of a functionary. Its casing had been replaced with curved, mirror-bright metal that reflected my face. I kept my eyes lowered, focusing on my clasped hands.

  "The council needs my assessment before deciding your fate," Vessa said, examining me with eager interest. "I've never had the chance to study someone from Zero before. Your responses could teach us so much about isolation's effects on human development."

  "Are you going to ask me about why I was on the bridge?" I asked.

  She held up her hand. "My role isn't to judge what happened. I'm here to evaluate your mental state and provide that information to the council."

  "What will they do to me?"

  "You've left us with two options, Shade." Vessa's strange milky-blue eyes fixed on mine. "We can imprison you here for attempted mass murder through sabotage. Many believe this is our only choice. Or..." She leaned forward. "We can begin an intensive rehabilitation program to address the damage Zero has inflicted on you. This is the path I recommend."

  Her smile was oddly gentle. "I know this must all seem very harsh, but Two has survived because we face our problems directly. We need to understand what kind of threat you represent." Her smile faded. "Shall we begin?"

  I nodded mutely.

  "Good." She rested her hand on the functionary part between us on the table. "You should consider yourself lucky. On Two we now use the Coda to perform our assessments."

  "The Coda?" I considered the part in front of me. It reminded me of Redd's upper torso, but with tape covering its ports.

  "Yes." Her eyes lit up as she touched the device's surface. "It's my life's work, one of Two's greatest achievements. Every reading helps us understand ourselves better, helps us grow as a community. The data we gather here could help so many others who've been shaped by isolation."

  She touched something on her side of the device. A display flickered to life, projecting ghostly lines onto the reflective surface, forming the outline of a human head.

  "Place your face within the frame."

  I forced myself to look into the warped mirror, seeing my pallid reflection marked with fresh bruises and cuts from Pine's attack.

  "Every citizen of Two has worked hard to contribute to its baseline," Vessa continued. "Thousands of responses, all helping us understand what makes us truly human." She adjusted something, and a hum rose from the machine. "The Coda doesn't just record answers. It analyzes how we think, how we process, how we feel. It tracks every micro-expression, every flicker of response. It helps us identify deviations."

  I stared at my reflection, mesmerized. After years hidden behind my veil, watching my own face move felt alien and compelling.

  I'm watching you through the ceiling eye. Cedar said in my ear. That nasty botch job on the table is blaring data packets but won't respond to anything I hurl at it. An eighth of a functionary mind, wrapped in a pretty casing.

  "Now," Vessa said. "Let's begin your assessment. I will present you with a series of statements. All you need to do is read them out. Try to speak naturally. The Coda will know if you don't. Do you understand?"

  "Yes," I said.

  She smiled. "Good. Let's start with something simple."

  The hum changed pitch slightly, and text appeared on the screen, my reflection still visible beneath the words.

  Statement one: I prefer to make decisions alone rather than seek outside guidance.

  My throat felt dry. On Zero, seeking functionary guidance was fundamental to existence. But here on Two, perhaps not.

  "Take your time," Vessa said, her stylus poised over her datapad. "But do try to give your first, natural response."

  I watched my face, trying to keep it still.

  "I..." My voice came out threadlike. In the screen, my eyes darted sideways, a movement the terminal noted with a blip of light. I swallowed and tried again. "I prefer to make decisions alone rather than seek guidance."

  The words felt wrong on my unveiled lips. The terminal's hum altered subtly.

  That statement makes no sense, said Cedar. Who talks like that? This whole exercise is absurd.

  "Read the next one," Vessa said, scribbling a note.

  The words on the screen changed: When something is wrong, I know immediately without being told.

  I didn't how I felt about this statement, or how I was supposed to respond. "When something is wrong," I read as naturally as I could, "I know immediately without being told."

  The hum deepened. I stared at my face on the screen, thinking that couldn't possibly be me. Yes, those were my eyes, but the rest of me...no, surely that was just an image. A representation of what this broken functionary part thought was me.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Continue," Vessa murmured.

  The next statement appeared: I sometimes feel watched even when I am alone.

  I spoke the words, and I could not help putting truth into them. I had been watched since birth, my every move noted by a functionary or a family member.

  "Interesting." Vessa made a slew of notes on her datapad.

  The next statement appeared: I trust my own judgment.

  "I trust my own judgment," I read. My voice wavered on the last word.

  In the screen. In my reflection, color rose in my cheeks. The terminal's hum changed pitch again, and a small light pulsed red at its base.

  "That's an unexpected response," Vessa said, making another note. "Continue."

  The words shifted: Sometimes I hear meanings in mechanical sounds that others don't notice.

  The statement hit me like a slap. I flashed back to Zero's halls, to the symphony of whirrs and clicks that filled our empty spaces, Oren's delicate movements, the functionaries' secret language that I heard even in my sleep. Each sound had carried meaning.

  "Read it please," Vessa said, her gentle tone unchanged but her eyes sharp. The lights around my reflection were moving faster now, almost like they were searching for something.

  "Sometimes I hear meanings in mechanical sounds that others don't notice," I read. My voice cracked on 'meanings' and the terminal's hum rose sharply. A cluster of lights flashed.

  "That was an unusual vocal pattern." Vessa's fingers flew across her datapad, her professional detachment giving way to intense focus. "The implications here are fascinating. Read it again, and this time, try not to self-monitor. Let your natural responses emerge."

  I took a deep breath. "Sometimes I hear meanings in—"

  "Stop." Vessa stood abruptly, her chair scraping back. "Your micro-expression indicators are going through the roof. The Coda is showing significant deviations from baseline human responses." She circled behind me, and her hands fell onto my shoulders. "Again. And this time, stop trying to mask your reactions."

  Shade, Cedar whispered. The terminal's processing just spiked. It thinks it has identified something. Probably nothing to worry about.

  "Read it," Vessa murmured. "Read it naturally."

  I tried again, but now my voice shook badly. On the screen, I watched my visage betray me. Eyes growing wide, mouth gaping, sweat beading at my temples.

  That wasn't me, I didn't look like that...did I?

  And yet, the face was familiar.

  Shade, said Cedar. Calm down. Your blood is rushing so fast it's like a waterfall.

  I took a deep breath. "Sometimes I hear meanings in mechanical sounds that others don't notice." As I spoke the words in full, a shiver rushed over me.

  The terminal's lights were racing now, and its hum had become almost frantic.

  Vessa's fingers dug into my shoulders. "You are a very interesting girl. Let's try a different statement."

  New words materialized on the screen: I carry secrets that could harm others.

  "There," Vessa said, abruptly letting go and settling back into her seat. "Try that one."

  Secrets? I held no secrets...or did I?

  Cedar the navigator, quietly present in my ear.

  Commander Sentix, was he a secret?

  What about about Voidhold One and the truth of the voidholds?

  "I carry secrets that could harm others," I read, fighting to keep my voice steady. In the reflection, fear flickered across my face, and the terminal's lights began pulsing rapidly.

  "Again," Vessa demanded. "Look yourself in the eyes when you say it."

  I stared at my reflection, at the way my eyes, wide like a trapped child, at how my mouth worked to form the words, trying not to scream.

  Then it hit me.

  Commander Sentix in the White Room, frozen in his poses of torment. His face had looked like this, the same desperate unvoiced scream.

  "I said read it," Vessa snapped. "Unless you'd prefer we try more direct methods of assessment?"

  The terminal's hum rose to a painful pitch. Around my reflection, the lights had become almost desperate.

  "I carry secrets," I started again, watching my mouth shape each word. "That could harm others."

  Vessa frowned. "Good," she said slowly. And now the last."

  I question my own autonomy.

  I considered the words on the screen, but my mind was reeling. All my life, I'd seen Commander Sentix as something separate. A cautionary tale, a rigid monster in the White Room. But staring at my reflection now, seeing that same desperate need to speak trapped behind obedient silence, I understood.

  I wasn't so different.

  The terminal's lights pulsed faster, matching my thundering heart. I too had been shaped and contained. Given protocols instead of stasis fields, veils instead of frozen poses. Made to stand and watch while others decided what I was, what I could be.

  "Shade." Vessa's voice cut through my thoughts. "The statement. Read it."

  "I question my own autonomy." I spoke the words clearly. The lights of the display fluttered and dimmed.

  "Repeat that," Vessa commanded. "Be more natural in your delivery."

  Sounded pretty natural to me. Cedar almost sounded smug.

  "I question my own autonomy," I said, coolly staring at my reflection. A tiny smile lifted the right corner of my mouth.

  "That's enough," Vessa said, laying her datapad on the table with a hard smack. "I have completed my assessment."

  "What are your conclusions?" I asked.

  My words startled her, giving her an expression that reminded me of Rashala. My lopsided smile grew.

  "Your behavioral patterns show deep machine conditioning," she said, her earlier scientific curiosity curdling into frustration. "The way you seek guidance, your comfort with protocols, your inability to maintain proper human affect... it's as if you've developed entirely outside normal human parameters." She ran her hands through her hair. "How can we help you if you won't even try to show genuine human responses?"

  She stood and leaned over the Coda to glare at me. I tried to force my odd smile to fade, but that just irritated her even more.

  "It's fascinating really, how Zero has shaped you into something that barely registers as human. But we can fix that. Your rehabilitation will need to be comprehensive. We'll start by breaking down these embedded functionary-seeking behaviors. After all, you can't be truly human until we strip away everything they made you--"

  A soft swish cut through her words as the door opened behind me. Vessa looked up, and something flickered across her face. Surprise? Annoyance?

  "You're early," she said sharply.

  I turned to look and saw Aster in the doorway, watching us with those dark, intelligent eyes beneath raised brows.

  "Regular maintenance," he said casually, tapping his neck implant. "As scheduled."

  "Wait outside," said Vessa. "I'm documenting critical findings."

  When he had sidled back out into the corridor, she turned to me. "Let's move you to a more suitable place. Over here." She gestured to a medical couch across the room.

  I rose on unsteady legs and made my way there, conscious of her eyes tracking every movement. Once I was seated, she walked to a cabinet and retrieved what looked like a slender bracelet.

  "For now, Shade, you'll need to be secured." She approached with that same clinical smile. "The council will want my complete assessment, but I think we both know where this is heading."

  The bracelet snapped around my right wrist with a soft hiss and began pulsing with a faint blue glow, like the stasis tubes in the White Room. A numbness spread up my arm. I couldn't lift it off the couch.

  "I have everything I need," Vessa said, lifting her datapad. "Time to write my recommendations. Don't worry, we'll fix whatever Zero did to you."