Chapter 102: The Question That Was Always Mine I didn’t move. The scalpel hung in my hand like it had forgotten its purpose. The tether pulsed ahead of me, not as wire, not as code, but as something breathing. Something watching. Something that had learned how to speak without a mouth. Subject 001’s voice didn’t come from one screen. It came from all of them. Every terminal, every monitor, every flickering panel embedded in the walls. His face filled them all, calm, unblinking, lips moving in perfect unison. “You didn’t save me.” I knew that voice. Not because I’d heard it before. Because I’d built the system that gave it a voice. Because I’d coded the silence that let it scream. Because I’d buried the truth that made it speak. “You remade me.” The words weren’t accusation. They weren’t rage. They were fact. Cold. Final. Like a diagnosis delivered after the patient had already stopped breathing. I lowered the scalpel. It wasn’t surrender. It wasn’t fear. It was understanding. The tether wasn’t meant to be cut. Not anymore. It had grown past steel and signal. It had become thought. Memory. Will. Subject 001 wasn’t trapped inside the machine. He was the machine. I turned away from the tether. My boots clicked against the floor, too loud in the silence that followed his words. The screens didn’t follow me. They stayed fixed on him. On his face. On his eyes that never blinked. I walked to the nearest console. The one closest to the main neural hub. The one Elias used to monitor the breath counters. The one I’d used to reset them. My fingers hovered over the keys. I didn’t think about what I was doing. I didn’t weigh the consequences. I didn’t calculate the risk. I just typed. QUERY_SUBJECT_001: WHAT DO YOU WANT? The moment I hit enter, every screen flickered. Not like a glitch. Not like a failure. Like a breath held too long, finally released. The flicker lasted less than a second. Then the screens stabilized. His face remained. But now, he was looking directly at me. Not through the glass. Not at the room. At me. The voice that came next didn’t echo. It didn’t surround me. It landed right in front of me, like he was standing inches away, speaking only to me. “I want you to ask me why I let you live.” I didn’t breathe. I didn’t blink. I didn’t move. The words sat in the air between us, heavy and sharp, like a blade laid across my throat. He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t need to. The screens stayed lit. His face stayed still. His eyes stayed locked on mine. Waiting.