Chapter 83: Blood or Truth I knelt there, waiting for the cut. The scalpel hovered above me, glinting under the sterile glow of the room’s overhead lights. Mirabel didn’t move to strike. She didn’t raise her arm for the killing blow. She just stood there, watching me with that same quiet certainty she’d carried since the beginning. Like she already knew how this would end. Like she’d written the script and I was just reading my lines. She lowered the scalpel. Not to my throat. Not to my chest. Not even close to where the machine had marked me for termination. She pressed the flat of the blade into my palm. I flinched. Not from pain. From the weight of it. The cold metal settled against my skin like it belonged there. Like it had been waiting for me to hold it again. My fingers curled around the handle before I even realized I was doing it. The grip was familiar. Too familiar. Like muscle memory waking up after years of sleep. Mirabel leaned in. Her breath didn’t stir the air. Her voice didn’t echo. It just slipped into my ear, low and steady. “Say her name or cut yourself. The machine only listens to blood or truth.” I stared at the scalpel in my hand. The edge was clean. Unmarked. No rust, no stain, no history clinging to it. Just steel. Just purpose. I looked up at her. “Which one?” She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. The question wasn’t for her. It was for me. And the machine. And whoever was still watching from behind the screens. I turned the blade over in my hand. Felt the balance. The weight. The way it sat against my skin like it remembered me. I thought about saying the name. Mirabel. Not Mira. Not Subject Zero. Not the ghost in the monitors or the voice in the walls. Her real name. The one I buried. The one I deleted. The one I signed away on paper while she sat in the next room, clutching that damn rabbit. I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. The machine didn’t wait. The air thickened. The screens flickered. A low hum built in the walls, rising in pitch until it pressed against my skull. The console behind Mirabel lit up with red text. PRIMARY LIABILITY — NONCOMPLIANCE DETECTED I swallowed. Tried again. Still nothing. My throat locked. My tongue felt heavy. Like it had turned to stone. Like the machine had reached in and clamped down on the part of me that could speak her name. Mirabel didn’t move. Didn’t sigh. Didn’t roll her eyes. She just watched. Patient. Expectant. Like she’d seen this before. Like she’d seen me fail a hundred times and was waiting for me to do it again. I looked down at the scalpel. Then at my forearm. The skin there was pale. Unbroken. No scars from this room. No marks from the last time I’d held a blade to myself. Just smooth, untouched flesh. I pressed the tip against it. Didn’t cut. Not yet. Just let it rest there. Let the cold seep in. Let the weight of the choice settle. I could still say the name. I could still speak. But the machine didn’t want words. It wanted proof. It wanted sacrifice. It wanted me to choose pain over silence. Blood over hesitation. I dragged the blade across my skin. Not deep. Not enough to kill. Just enough to split the surface. Just enough to make it real. The cut opened clean. A thin red line bloomed beneath the steel. I watched it widen. Watched the blood well up, slow and thick. It didn’t hurt. Not yet. Just warmth. Just pressure. The machine reacted before the pain even registered. The hum in the walls cut off. The red text on the console vanished. The screens around us flickered again, but this time they didn’t go dark. They lit up. One by one. Row by row. Every monitor in the room snapped to life. Faces appeared. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Men. Women. Children. Strangers. People I didn’t recognize. People I’d never seen before. People I’d condemned without knowing their names. Their breath counters were frozen. Stuck at zero. Stuck at termination. Until now. The numbers on every screen twitched. Then jumped. Not up. Not down. Just reset. 000 became 001. 001 became 002. 002 became 003. The machine didn’t announce it. Didn’t flash warnings. Didn’t ask for confirmation. It just did it. Every screen flashed the same message at the same time. SUBJECT ZERO OVERRIDE — REVERSAL INITIATED