The air around Sophia tightened.
It was not a field she could see, not energy she could feel in any familiar way yet her body responded instantly. Muscles locked. Balance vanished. Her feet left the floor as if gravity itself had been reassigned.
She did not struggle.
Obedience trained, reinforced, conditioned through years of professional hero protocol held her still even as her instincts screamed.
Dr. F raised one hand.
Not sharply. Not dramatically.
A metallic chair slid across the chamber floor, summoned by silent command. Its surface was smooth, sterile, slightly warm—human-compatible. It did not stop in front of him.
It stopped beneath her.
The invisible pull released.
Sophia's body dropped cleanly into the chair. The landing was controlled, precise, humiliatingly gentle. Before she could adjust her posture, red chains materialized—thin, glowing restraints snapping around her wrists, her ankles, her thighs.
They tightened with exact pressure. Enough to immobilize. Not enough to injure.
She straightened her spine immediately.
Not because it helped.
Because it mattered.
Dr. F observed this without comment.
"Much better," he said calmly. "My neck would hurt if I interrogated you while you were floating like an exhibit. This way, I can ask questions properly."
He remained standing.
Hands folded behind his back. Posture immaculate. Like a professor lecturing a class that could not leave.
Sophia lifted her chin slightly, jaw tight. Her breathing was uneven, but controlled. Every inhale burned Mechatopia's air still fought her biology but she refused to let it show.
Dr. F's eyes moved, not over her body, but through it.
Micro-expressions.
Pulse variations at the throat.
Moisture accumulation at the lower eyelids.
There, he noted internally.
So faint it would escape even augmented vision.
She was crying.
Not now.
Before.
During suspension. During capture. When no one was watching—or when she believed no one cared to.
He could still see the evidence: a microscopic tear droplet drifting in the chamber's atmosphere, refracting light as it evaporated.
Interesting, he thought. She broke in private.
Sophia met his gaze.
Her eyes were steady. Hard. The kind of eyes that had stared down monsters and walked away. The kind that believed survival was not victory but duty.
She's reinforcing identity, Dr. F assessed. Hero. S-rank. Symbol.
He tilted his head slightly.
"She's going to protest," he thought. "Not verbally. Internally. She'll resist by maintaining self-image."
His conclusion came effortlessly.
Then we start with the body.
Not violence.
Context.
He stepped closer but not close enough to invade her personal space. He respected boundaries the way surgeons respected incision lines.
"I'll explain the conditions," he said conversationally. "So you understand what this interaction actually is."
Sophia's fingers twitched against the chains. She said nothing.
Dr. F smiled faintly.
"I have children," he said.
The word landed wrong.
Sophia's brow tightened just barely.
"They're not like you," he continued, voice even. "They don't belong to your universe. Or mine. I made them here, in Mechatopia. Jagged claws. Razor teeth. Curious minds."
He gestured casually toward the wall to her right.
"They live in the next room."
Sophia swallowed.
"They eat candy," Dr. F went on. "It's the only thing they find… comforting."
He paused.
"And today," he said softly, "you are the candy."
Her chest tightened involuntarily.
Focus, she told herself. Threats. Psychological manipulation. He wants reaction.
Her training surfaced automatically ISA protocols unfolding in her mind like a shield.
Do not engage emotionally. Maintain internal narrative. You are already dead. Mission continues until biological cessation.
But something else intruded.
Children.
Not metaphorical. Not symbolic.
Created things.
Feeding.
She forced the image away.
Dr. F watched the effort register in her pupils.
"Second condition," he said.
His tone did not change.
"Six heroes before you. Some male. Some female. All professionals. All confident."
Sophia's jaw clenched.
"One became candy," he said simply. "They took him apart slowly not because they were hungry, but because they were curious."
Her breath hitched despite herself.
"One was suspended," Dr. F continued, voice still calm, "stripped of everything that identified him as heroic. My children used him as a target. They enjoyed learning accuracy."
Sophia closed her eyes for half a second.
Don't visualize. Don't visualize.
"One," Dr. F said, "was given a device."
He lifted a small object from his pocket not activating it, merely letting it exist.
"A controller," he explained. "It mapped his motor cortex. Every movement he made… was no longer his decision."
Sophia's fingers curled reflexively.
"He fought it," Dr. F said. "Until the device made him stop."
He placed the object back into his pocket.
"Eventually," he finished, "his body completed a task his mind refused to accept."
Silence filled the chamber.
Sophia's thoughts spiraled—not into panic, but into collision.
They're dead. Accept it. You knew the risk.
But her imagination betrayed her anyway images flickering, half-formed, invasive.
Candy.
Hands not obeying.
Being reduced to function.
Her reputation.
Her rank.
The people who believed in her.
I can't let him break that.
She lifted her gaze again.
"You talk too much," she said hoarsely. "If you were as untouchable as you think, you'd already be done."
Dr. F smiled.
Not wider.
Deeper.
"Ah," he said softly. "There it is."
He stepped closer now just enough for her to feel his presence.
"Defiance," he continued. "Very human. Very heroic."
He leaned in slightly.
"And very useful."
Sophia felt it then not fear, not pain.
The terrible understanding that he wasn't threatening her to extract information.
He was mapping her.
Testing where she bent.
Where she didn't.
And how long it would take before obedience stopped being a choice.
Her spine remained straight.
But inside, something trembled.
And Dr. F saw it.