The first thing she remembered was the sound of her own screaming—and the fact that her mother never flinched.
AERIS VALE, age four, lay strapped to a steel table in a room too white to feel real. Her arms were pinned, legs locked, and a thick, humming helmet covered half her skull. Tubes coiled down her neck like vines. Electrodes pulsed rhythmically, feeding sparks into the soft matter of her brain. Her body trembled, but her mind… her mind was changing.
Training, her mother called it.
The lab was quiet, except for the beeping machines and the voice of Dr. Celina Vale—her mother, her captor, her god.
"Subject 13-V is stable. Neural pathways responding. Emotional suppression ratio at 84%. Push it higher."
A shadow moved behind the glass. Observers. Investors. Ghosts with pens and hunger in their eyes. No one saw a child. Only a prototype.
"Do you know what fear is, Aeris?" Celina asked softly, her heels echoing on tile. "It's the part of your brain that makes you weak. I'm cutting it out of you. One voltage pulse at a time."
The screaming stopped.
Aeris blinked. Her lips parted. Her heartbeat slowed.
Celina smiled.
"Good girl."
In the observation chamber, a boy sat on the floor behind a glass wall, watching her.
He was older—seven, maybe eight. Dirty-blond hair. Wide eyes, too tired for his age. His arms were thin, skin bruised and tracked with needles. Another test subject.
But unlike the others, he didn't scream anymore either.
He just watched the girl with silver eyes—the one who never cried.
Years passed.
Aeris stopped speaking. She learned to read medical data before she could tie her shoes. She could recite every compound in a neuro-serum and build machines in her sleep. Celina's "lessons" got harsher. Colder. The screaming children around her stopped surviving.
Only she remained.
Because Aeris learned to obey.
And then she learned to lie.
Age 13.
The helmet went on one last time.
Celina approached with a new serum—a shimmering black vial, labeled X-Null. Final trial. Permanent suppression.
"After this, you'll be perfect," she whispered, stroking Aeris's hair. "No fear. No hesitation. Just brilliance."
Aeris smiled.
Not because she was happy.
Because she'd finally solved the problem.
That night, the lab caught fire.
The guards found Celina's body on the floor—scalpel through the throat. The security tapes were wiped. The backup servers melted. Vaults exploded from the inside.
And Aeris Vale was gone.
The world was told it was a freak accident. A gas leak. A tragedy. ValeCorp, now leaderless, would recover under emergency trustees.
But Aeris didn't vanish.
She adapted.
She evolved.
She became exactly what her mother wanted—no fear, no mercy.
And the only emotion she ever let live in her chest was this:
Vengeance.
Thirteen years later
Aeris stood at the top of the world. CEO of the reborn ValeCorp. Global markets bent to her will. Underworld cartels whispered her name in fear. Presidents owed her their seats. Cities bowed without knowing her face.
She was silence. She was control.
And somewhere in the shadows of her empire… a man with golden eyes watched and waited.
Waiting for her to remember.
Waiting to kneel.
Waiting to belong to her.