Gene replayed the footage again, the tenth time in ten minutes. Officially, she was supposed to flag the moment Subject Eight deviated, pinpoint the instant Igor's responses veered from the expected script. But that wasn't why she was still here.
Something in her, guilt, maybe, or some quiet, frantic voice hoping she'd missed a crucial frame, kept pulling her back.
Each time she hit play, a stubborn part of her wished the footage might somehow unravel differently, that the pixels might re-align into a softer version of events, where Maisie didn't step forward like that, reckless, brave, doomed.
Where Jack wasn't up there on the podium, voice viscous with static and power, twisting fear into policy. Where the crowd stayed quiet. Where things didn't tilt so violently off course.
Where Igor didn't start to… shift.
Not break. No. What happened to him wasn't as simple as a fracture. It was quieter than that. Stranger. A hesitation where there should have been certainty. A blink too long. A pause that didn't belong.
It didn't show up in charts or logs. But Gene felt it in her bones.
But it always did. Inevitably, sickeningly, the scene played out the same way, culminating in that final, irreversible image: the glint of the syringe, the bared curve of Maisie's neck, and the moment everything passed the point of no return.
The speakers on Gene's desk rattled with every pulse of sound, their cheap plastic casing no match for the fury pouring through them. On-screen, the footage glitched and stuttered, low resolution, oversaturated, a chaotic window into the moment everything started to unravel.
Static warped the image, but the energy bled through anyway: a crowd, loud and wild, packed shoulder to shoulder, their roar vibrating through the walls like some ancient beast waking. And then came Jack's voice, twisted by distortion, too loud, too sharp, cracking through the feed like a whip.
"Are you tired?" he thundered, his tone coiled with venom and theater, every word dripping with the kind of fury meant to light dry kindling. "Tired of the upper crust bleeding you dry, humans?! Draining your labor, hoarding their luxuries while you starve in the wreckage they left behind?! Are you ready to take back what's rightfully yours?!"
Gene sank back into her creaking office chair, the synthetic mesh cool against her spine, but it did nothing to soothe the heat blooming in her chest. The footage ended, but the afterimage burned on.
It had been weeks since the rally, though time had lost all meaning, days stretching like rubber bands, snapping back with every grim report.
Weeks since Maisie had collapsed in the grass like a broken doll, her fire extinguished mid-sentence. Weeks since Igor had been dragged off by four armored Angels, limbs slack and drugged, eyes still wide with some last flicker of self.
That version of him, the one who looked scared but aware, whose stare had cut through the crowd like he knew he didn't belong there, still haunted her. She'd seen him again since, at the estate.
Same face. Same body. But none of the awareness. The Igor who stood beside Maisie now was different. Rigid. Blank. Every movement was robotic, like the man had been emptied and stitched back together wrong. Whatever part of him had resisted, whatever tiny spark had survived… it was gone.
And that terrified her more than anything Jack had ever said.
She'd seen him again not long ago, during a quiet, sanctioned check-in on Maisie at the Lennox estate. On paper, it was routine, an internal wellness review to ensure the girl wasn't exhibiting signs of trauma or ideological drift.
But Gene hadn't gone for the paperwork. She'd gone because guilt had begun to seep into her veins like rot.
She found Maisie resting, still pale, still insisting she was fine, her smile just a little too forced. Gene didn't press. She'd only nodded, made light conversation, and reassured the household staff that all was well. But then she saw him.
Igor.
He'd appeared at the end of the hall, tall, silent, composed in a way that sent a chill down her spine. The house around him was all curated warmth and dusty tradition, but he didn't belong to it. Not anymore.
His movements were smooth and exact, as if someone had written them frame by frame. None of the quiet, defensive hesitations he used to carry remained. Gone was the reluctant glance, the tension in his jaw, the stiffness that betrayed someone on the edge of flight.
Now, he was still. Watchful. Mechanical.
Maisie hadn't noticed. She was too busy pretending to be okay. But Gene had. She'd caught his eyes, briefly, and felt nothing looking back.
Jack had told her. Not in detail, just enough to make her stomach turn. A controlled asset, he'd called him. Cleaned. Calibrated. Designed to obey.
She hadn't asked what they did to get him there. She couldn't. The process, the violation, the things they must have scraped out of his mind to make him this quiet, it was the kind of horror that, if she truly understood it, might never let her go.
None of them deserved this. Not Maisie, with her open heart and relentless belief that things could still be good. Not Igor, who had already survived more than anyone should and now bore the brunt of yet another silent war. Not even the others, each one caught in the web, each one clinging to their slivers of hope, unaware of how thoroughly the game had been rigged against them.
But Maisie… she was the one Gene kept circling back to. That girl had no business being in the middle of any of this. She was too bright for it, too hopeful.
She was the kind of person this world should have protected, not punished. And yet, here she was, wounded, watching someone she trusted unravel before her eyes.
It felt wrong in a way that stuck deep under the skin. The kind of wrong that made it hard to breathe.
Gene swallowed against the pressure building in her chest. She didn't know how to fix it. But she knew this much: someone had to try.
Gene hit pause, freezing the grainy footage right there, Maisie caught like a statue in the storm of chaos. Mid-turn, arms lifted instinctively, a fragile shield against the oncoming White Angels.
Even through the flicker and static, her eyes burned with something fierce. Fear, raw, primal, but beneath it, a spark that refused to die.
That flicker was more than panic. It was defiance. Pure, stubborn courage. Not foolish recklessness, but the kind of bravery born from knowing what mattered most, and being willing to risk everything for it.
In that frozen frame, Maisie wasn't just scared. She was a warrior standing her ground, a heartbeat of hope fighting back against the tide of destruction.
Maisie leaned in, her voice barely more than a whisper over the background noise. "I didn't know it was like this," she said, astonished, nervous, fragile.
Gene closed her eyes, the sound echoing through her mind like a shockwave stronger than any image. It wasn't just noise; it was a visceral imprint seared deep into her memory from hearing it live.
She could almost smell that stale back room at HQ, the forgotten storage space cluttered with dead equipment and blinking drives humming secrets no one was supposed to hear.
A place interns like her weren't meant to linger, much less eavesdrop on high-level transmissions. But there she was, an invisible fly on the wall, as Maisie's voice cut through the static. That crack, that tremor in Maisie's tone, held a weight Gene hadn't heard in years. Vulnerability, peeling back the polished mask Maisie wore for the world.
It yanked Gene back to a different time, late nights in their cramped dorm in their youth at the boarding school, whispered secrets shared on sleepless beds, reckless hopes tossed into the darkness until dawn.
But this voice was different, more serious, darker, and it left Gene haunted, wondering what had shattered the girl she once knew.
She had clung so desperately to the belief that their actions were rooted in something righteous, something noble.
The White Angels, with their fervent pronouncements, had painted a vivid picture of liberation: a just and equitable redistribution of wealth, the eradication of inequality, the end of slavery, and long-awaited retribution for generations of systemic oppression.
And perhaps, back in the fevered, idealistic beginnings, before the lines between justice and cruelty blurred, before the methods devolved into ruthless barbarity, there had been a kernel of truth to their utopian promise.
A flicker of genuine hope. But now, standing amidst the wreckage of their so-called revolution, witnessing the devastating consequences inflicted upon Maisie, upon Igor, and upon countless others who were meant to be rescued and redeemed, the brutal reality crashed down upon her with crushing force.
The sheer, undeniable weight of their hypocrisy and violence pressed hard behind her ribs, stealing her breath and threatening to suffocate the last vestiges of her naive faith. The promised liberation had become a suffocating cage, and the angels had revealed themselves to be demons in disguise.
Gene pressed play once more, a knot tightening in his stomach despite having witnessed the scene countless times before. The grainy pixels flickered to life, painting a grim tableau on the screen.
The silence of the room, solemn and oppressive, was shattered by the booming resonance of Jack's amplified voice, each syllable a hammer blow preceding the inevitable tragedy.
Then, the agonizing sight unfolded: Maisie, her limbs suddenly betraying her, crumpling to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, the insidious drug claiming its victim. The image burned itself into Gene's memory, a constant, unwelcome reminder of the events he so desperately wanted to forget, yet felt compelled to relive.
The guilt tasted acrid and bitter on her tongue.
Despite outward appearances, she remained an integral part of their operation, a fact she clung to with a mixture of trepidation and grim satisfaction.
She continued the elaborate charade, playing the role of a loyal, almost insignificant cog in the vast and complex machine they had built. To the casual observer, she was just another face in the crowd, another drone dutifully performing her assigned tasks.
But the truth, carefully concealed beneath layers of practiced obedience, was far more intricate. She was, in reality, a silent observer, a meticulous documentarian, and a subtle facilitator, wielding influence in ways that were perhaps small on the surface but, in their cumulative effect, wielded a surprising power.
She gathered information, meticulously recording details that might seem trivial now but could prove invaluable later. She smoothed over rough edges, offering solutions and creating pathways within the system, all while maintaining the illusion of devoted servitude.
Each time she forced herself to confront that horrific footage, a subtle but undeniable fracture occurred within her. The carefully constructed facade of indifference, meticulously built and fiercely maintained, suffered another hairline crack.
It was a slow, insidious erosion, like water relentlessly dripping on stone, gradually wearing away the barrier she had erected to protect herself. Beneath that mask of apathy lay a raw, aching nerve, exposed and vulnerable.
With every viewing, she felt the facade thinning, the nerve drawing closer to the surface. She feared a tipping point, a moment when the protective shell would completely disintegrate, leaving her utterly exposed.
Soon, she worried, this carefully cultivated armor would crumble entirely, leaving behind nothing but jagged fragments of the person she once was, scattered remnants of a self she could no longer recognize.
The footage wasn't just showing her horrors; it was dismantling her, piece by agonizing piece.
The weight of the decision settled on Gene's chest like a cold, heavy stone.
The window of opportunity was closing fast; she had to choose, and soon. This fragile illusion of safety, this desperate pretense that everything was normal for Maisie's sake, was cracking under the strain. Pretending wouldn't protect Maisie forever, not in this crumbling reality where threats lurked in every shadow.
Maintaining the facade was becoming impossible. Jack's questions, though seemingly innocent, were chipping away at her carefully constructed lies. He probed about their past, their unusual resources, and the haunted look in Maisie's eyes. His curiosity, though not malicious, was a fuse burning steadily toward the truth she desperately concealed.
Igor was a constant, unnerving presence, less a walker of halls than a haunter of them. Gaunt and spectral, his eyes seemed to pierce through you rather than focus on you.
He shuffled along like a specter tethered to a place he only half-recognized, a chilling reminder of lives broken within those walls, a ghost merely grasping at who he once was. His very presence offered a terrifying glimpse into a potential future Gene desperately hoped to avert for Maisie, a stark symptom of the decay spreading around them.
The choice before her was neither simple nor clean, but a brutal calculation of risks, a decision between two terrifying unknowns. Yet, inaction was no longer an option.
Any further delay, any waiting for an undeniable catastrophe, would mean that the next White Angel strike might leave nothing of them to save. No person to heal, no memory to cherish, only an empty void where Gene and Maisie had once been. She had to act before they were simply erased.