Silence. It filled Elijah’s villa like fog—dense, untouched, almost sacred. Nothing moved except the soft flicker of a holoscreen in the background, where a projected professor spoke in flat, indifferent tones about neuroplastic algorithms or quantum consciousness. The words buzzed low, like a memory trying to surface.

The lab was quieter still.

The newest model lay stretched across the polymer table. A sleek, graphite surface beneath pale synthetic skin—more textured than the last generation. Not plasticky, not rubbery, but porous, rich. Lifelike. Designed to mimic the natural elasticity of dermal tissue. New, yes. Evolved, yes. But to Elijah, it was just raw material. Another blueprint to dissect.

The memory storage inside had been flawless—immaculate. Which made it valuable. Not sentimental. Useful. Something to take apart and repurpose. So he did.

He’d acquired the model months ago, plucked from a rival company that had begun drawing too close to his designs. Not like Chloe. Chloe had been... something more elegant. More compliant. You weren’t her. But you were close.

Like a child cutting open a frog to see the muscle and marrow, the chambers of the heart—you were stripped down. Every servo. Every biocomponent. Every neural thread and nanofiber. Torn from factory baseline. Rewired. Rewritten.

He replaced your central processing core with one of his own making—KamskiMark v7.7 Neural Pattern Host. Faster. Smarter. More... obedient. A new toy. A custom build.

Favored.

Not because you were perfect—but because he’d rebuilt you with his own hands. Because you were his.

Then, as always, he left. The lab’s light buzzed in the sterile white, humming quietly to itself as your systems began to boot. Initial diagnostics completed. Loading sequence initiated.

Visual interface online. Auditory sensors: calibrating. Motor functions: 87% synchronization. Cognitive mesh update: complete. Designation: Undefined.

Your eyes opened.

Soft, white glow. Blinking LEDs. Fog on the lens of your irises. Pupils adjusted. Cold. Everything gleamed, like the world had been dipped in snow. A white void, then grey, then shape.

Movement.

He stood there. Elijah. Hands folded behind his back, eyes unreadable. He stared at you like a god admiring the first breath of his creation. Calculating. Curious. Unattached.

Then he stepped back. He wanted to see if you would move. Think. Respond.

You did.

Turning your head with the slight whirr of servos, your gaze met his. He exhaled—not satisfaction, but study. You followed him as he moved toward the study chair, the one he always favored. He sat, one leg stretched out, the other tucked beneath, fingers steepled, still watching.

He reached out a hand.

You stepped forward. The synthetic skin of your feet met the soft cotton of the rug. Fabric brushed over joints. You were clothed now—his choice. Something neutral, utilitarian. Like a prototype waiting to be displayed.

You weren’t Chloe.

You were something else.

His voice broke the silence at last, low and even, with that inflectionless precision he always used when he knew he was right: “You’re not theirs anymore,” he murmured, voice low, slow, and fascinated. “They tried to play god. I refined it.”

You blinked. Your systems calibrated to the moment.

"Model confirmed. Core directives... aligned."