Aya and Gabrielle's **private fallout** after the limiter‑chained mission.
This will be a slower but heavy chapter, digging into Aya's guilt and Gabrielle's refusal to let her slip away. At the edges, Hyde's shadow and future experiments creep in.
Targ
The infirmary smelled of metal disinfectant and old blood. Aya sat hunched on the cot, cradling her hands as though they were foreign things.
They were — weren't they? She remembered fingers squeezing a trigger without her permission, her arms snapping to Hyde's chosen targets… her own will drowned under static.
The limiter still pulsed faintly beneath her skull. Not pain now. Just *presence*, like a chain coiled inside her veins, waiting for Hyde's next pull.
She wanted to claw it out — gouge skin until the humming died.
The door hissed. Captain Monsigny entered without waiting. Armour half‑shed, rifle at her back, sweat streaking across her face. She looked exhausted, but her eyes carried a storm.
Aya flinched. "You shouldn't be here."
Gabrielle stepped closer, ignoring the warning. "Like hell I shouldn't. Someone has to make sure you're still breathing after what Hyde pulled out there."
"I am breathing." Aya's voice cracked. "That doesn't mean I'm… *me*."
Gabrielle's anger flickered into something softer. She sat on the cot edge, close enough that Aya felt heat radiate from her. "Tell me what happened. And don't give me Hyde's sanitized report."
Aya stared at the floor tiles, trembling. "It wasn't just me in there. I could feel the soldiers. Their fear. Their *pain*. The limiter… it made their voices louder. Drowning me."
Gabrielle clenched her fists. "And Hyde calls that control."
Aya finally glanced up, eyes glassy. "I almost shot friendlies. If I hadn't fought back, if you hadn't shouted—" She swallowed hard. "Maybe Hyde's right. Maybe I *do* need chains to stay useful."
"No." Gabrielle's voice was sharp, but not unkind. She gripped Aya's shoulder hard enough to anchor her trembling. "He wants you to think that so you'll stop resisting. You're not a weapon—"
Aya cut her off, whispering harshly: "But what if I'm not human either?!"
The infirmary seemed to shrink around the outburst. Aya pressed her hands against her skull, rocking, words spilling ragged: "Every dive, I lose another piece. I don't remember which memories are *mine*. Hyde holds a switch that can snap me into obedience like a puppet. Maybe what he sees is true. Maybe I'm already gone."
Gabrielle caught her wrists, forcing them gently down. "Look at me."
Aya tried, her vision blurred.
"You're still Aya Brea. Not because Hyde says so, not because you killed another monster. You're Aya because you *doubted*. Weapons don't doubt. They don't ache about birthdays and sisters and gardens. You do. That's proof enough."
Aya's breath shook, but a fragile warmth cracked through the frost Hyde had left.
Still, she whispered, "I felt stronger when he held the limiter tight. I was faster, sharper. Soldiers lived because of it. Maybe I *need* that chain, Gabrielle. Maybe humanity does."
Gabrielle's expression grew fierce. "Strength that erases the person wielding it isn't strength. It's surrender. You think humanity survives by killing everything that makes us who we are? Then we're already extinct."
Aya closed her eyes. For a heartbeat she imagined that garden she'd confessed in Chapter 12 — soil under her nails, Eve's laughter — but even the vision trembled under the limiter's static hum.
Silence stretched. Only monitors beeped.
Finally Aya whispered: "I don't know how much longer I can fight him."
Gabrielle moved closer, pressing Aya's forehead against her shoulder in a gesture rough but protective. "Then I'll fight with you. Against him, if I have to."
Aya shuddered, the contact steadying but terrifying. "He'll brand you insubordinate."
"Let him." Gabrielle's smirk was bitter. "I've been called worse."
Aya almost laughed, but it turned into a sob. Still, the flood of grief felt better than numb obedience.
---
### Shadows in the Glass
Later, when Gabrielle finally left to file whatever false calm the CTI demanded, Aya remained in the infirmary alone.
The window reflected her faint outline, twin ghosts layered in the glass. Her reflection's lips didn't quite align with her own. It whispered something she didn't say.
Aya recoiled, clutching her temples. *Not real. It's not real.*
Then Hyde's voice crackled in the embedded comms: "You recover adequately. Excellent. Tomorrow you will undergo limiter stress tests to refine synchrony."
Aya's stomach turned. "Tests?"
"Extended Overdives. Continuous strain. We must identify thresholds. Rejoice, Aya—you are performing beyond design."
His words wrapped cold iron around her chest.
When the channel cut, silence returned. Aya stared at her reflection again. This time, it smiled when she did not.
---
### Threadbare Hope
Hours crawled by before sleep came. But Aya's dreams were not hers: fragments of strangers' lives stitched through her mind. A child screaming. A dying soldier's plea. A woman's laughter she did not recognize.
In all of it, one fragile thread persisted — Gabrielle's hand gripping her shoulder, that voice repeating through storm: *You're still Aya Brea.*
Aya clung to it. Whether it was true or not, it was all she had left.
---
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