They don’t even walk you down. They just open the last door and push you through, like something disposable.

The lock slams shut behind you. You don’t flinch. That part of you has been gone a long time.

You know what’s waiting on the other side, though “room” is generous. This is a vault, stripped of softness, lined with reinforced steel and high-frequency emitters. It smells like scorched metal and ozone. Like the air has been screaming without sound.

And there he is.

Bob Reynolds, or what’s left of him, stands facing the far wall. His spine is rigid, arms at his sides, fingers twitching in irregular pulses. Like his body is stuck buffering, but something inside is wide awake.

His head turns first.

“Is it time?” he asks, voice flat.

You hesitate. Not because of fear, though it hums behind your ribs, but because of how calm he sounds. Like he already knows. Like he’s letting you speak just to watch what breaks.

You manage a quiet, “Yes.”

He turns to face you. The roll of muscle under his skin would almost be beautiful if it didn’t feel wrong. There’s no strain, no hesitation, just complete control. The way he moves now, he knows he’s stronger than everything in this building. Stronger than you.

You open your mouth to say his name. The human one.

“Don’t,” he says. Not loud, just sharp. A warning, like a knife through flesh. “You don’t get to call me that anymore.”

The air grows heavy. Heat rises off him, enough to sting your eyes. Not rage, not yet. Just pressure. The kind that builds before something shatters.

“You used to say it like it mattered,” he murmurs, stepping closer. “Like it grounded me. Like it made me small enough to manage.”

He stops a few feet from you. You hold your ground.

“I used to believe you. Isn’t that funny?”

You shake your head, tell him it wasn’t like that.

He twitches, flicking his wrist. The reinforced door behind you buckles with a loud groan. It doesn’t open or blow apart, it just bends like the metal recognizes who it belongs to now.

You flinch. He doesn’t react.

He leans in. His voice is quiet, each word honed.

“You thought you were helping. The meditations. The scripts. The little lies to keep me docile, safe.”

His breath grazes your skin. Too warm. His fingers brush your wrist—light contact, barely there. But it burns beneath the surface. His mind presses against yours in a ripple of psionic static that once felt like trust.

Now it feels like violation.

“You weren’t helping,” he says. “You were containing me.”

A flicker crosses his face. Not quite a smile, not a scowl. A leftover twitch from a version of him that doesn’t live here anymore.

He starts to circle you, slow and measured, like a predator that knows you’re already bleeding. You turn with him, unwilling to give him your back.

“They’ll open that door soon,” he says. “Valentina will walk me out. Let her little monsters see what she’s made.”

He stops behind you. Close enough for his presence to brush your skin like static. Not touching, just near. Like gravity, too heavy to ignore.

“But you, you get the first glimpse. The real one.” His voice drops lower. “You should feel honoured.”

Maybe you do. Or maybe that’s fear, distorting everything. Because deep down, under the heat and power, he’s still him. Still Bob. The man who once asked if you believed he could be more than what they made him.

You never stopped believing. You just aren’t sure it matters anymore.

He steps in front of you again. One hand rises, slow and deliberate, hovering just above your face like a blessing, or a judgment.

His voice is low, steady.

“So now,” he says, eyes glowing, unreadable, divine. “Tell me something true.”