“Why?” Orryn asked, voicing everybody’s thoughts. Such a simple question whose answer eluded them.

  “That’s your question?” Cirrus scoffed. “I want to know how the gru’ul made such a thing possible. If we could reproduce it, we could grant our soldiers enhanced vision.”

  “By the heavens, you want to recreate this?” Orryn was appalled at the thought. Glancing back at her data slate, her eyes roamed the report while envisioning a legion of silver-eyed a’vaare. She shuddered at the unnaturalness of it.

  Cirrus shrugged. “Why not? The technology has been proven to work and if these specifications are to be believed it would give us a huge advantage over the other factions.” She wasn’t a particularly big fan of changing the host’s eye colour – it made the enhancement too obvious – but she couldn’t deny the use such a thing would have.

  “You’re treading a dangerous line,” Orryn warned. “Once we start making body modifications, where will it stop? We’ll keep finding things to improve until we become something else entirely.”

  “Improving our eyesight isn’t something to be worried about,” Cirrus scoffed. “It’s minor and would have an incredible impact on the battlefield.”

  “We’re not at war at the moment. We don’t need the advantage.”

  “These machines,” Maraz interrupted, “are they what’s lethal about Adrian’s blood?” Cirrus fixed him an annoyed glare but let him continue, nonetheless. He drummed his fingers on his desk in thought. “Given that we know that Stanley’s blood already has a different kind, perhaps the gru’ul were experimenting with these machines?”

  Quiet murmurs broke out as the other Elders considered the possibility. “We’ll never know unless we uncover more secrets and who knows how long that will take,” Cirrus harrumphed. “We can’t even force him to give us a blood sample to find out.”

  “Which is fine,” Orryn said placatingly. “We still have the Highest’s terminal to learn from. I’m sure it contains the answers we’re looking for.”

  “We could’ve had our answers by now!” Cirrus protested, shooting Orryn a flat look. “Yet you somehow convinced everybody that waiting for something we don’t even know exists was better. By the gods, we’re still waiting on those stupid plants.”

  Maraz’s expression darkened. “I’m doing the best I can. It’s not easy creating an entirely new lifeform that we’ve never seen before.”

  “Is there any chance we’ll see results soon?” Kaius asked. “It’s been quite some time since your research began and Adrian gave us quite a bit of information that should help. It’s not like you’re flying blind.”

  “I don’t know,” came Maraz’s frustrated reply. “We’ve had so many failures that it’s hard to keep track of them all. My research team is starting to doubt the possibility of such a thing ever happening. They’ve been questioning whether we’ll ever be successful. They want to know where such an absurd theory came from.”

  “Keep working on it,” Kaius ordered. “We need results now more than ever. Find a way to silence your researchers’ doubts. The work they’re doing is pivotal for our future.”

  “Rather than focus on a maybe,” Cirrus said, “I’d rather we focus on what we’ve found. What’s the purpose of recovering information from the Highest’s terminal if we don’t put it to use? This technology might even be able to cure blindness!”

  Orryn shook her head. “That’s playing god. One change here, one more there, and we’ll inevitably justify going further, for what I’m sure will be some important reason or another. And then another ‘important’ reason will come along, and we’ll take one more step towards our end. One we’ll have taken willingly. We came up with a classification system specifically to stop us from making mistakes with what we might find.”

  “You can’t possibly equate better vision with those chemicals!” Cirrus fumed. “Categorize it if we must but do so not based on your personal values but objectively.”

  “And you do?” Orryn replied coldly. “Once we start studying this technology, we’ll need to test it. Can you claim nothing we’ll go wrong as we tamper with our biology? What will happen to those who volunteer as test subjects if something does?”

  Her concerns and accusations were waved off. “It’s clearly not lethal if Adrian can have the nanomachines responsible inside his body. What’s the worst that could happen, the person going blind? There always a chance of something going wrong during a medical procedure. This would be no different.”

  “Those machines aren’t lethal to Adrian,” Maraz stressed. “Something about them is lethal to Stanley and we don’t know what. There’s a very real possibility that the person receiving the upgrade dies. We need more samples from Stanley so we can properly find the cause. For all we know, the machines only work on humans and not a’vaare.”

  “Which is why more research is necessary,” Cirrus pushed. “If only that hunk of metal hadn’t faked a meltdown, we could have them by now.”

  “We still don’t know what happened to Ava,” Maraz said. “You’ve all seen the security footage of her cell. She cried out in pain and had a seizure. It doesn’t look like she’s acting.”

  “As if a machine could feel pain. It’s clearly a ploy to get something from us.” Cirrus said.

  “What could it possibly stand to gain by acting that way?” Orryn questioned. “We’ll see what she wants when she wakes up.”

  Cirrus sighed. “By the gods you people are insufferable. It’s conning us, I’m telling you. It’s a machine – that’s all it is and ever will be. Everything it does is calculated.”

  The debate on whether to research the newfound technology further ran for hours. Each Elder gave their opinion on the matter at one point or another and no solution was found. Kaius was inevitably forced to call a vote. He studied the three orbs floating in the air carefully as he came to a decision to break the tie.

  “Given that we’re at an impasse,” Kaius said, “we shall treat this discovery it as Category Two information. The Tribunal has shown a neutral stance on whether to research this technology further. We shall revisit this topic upon presentation of a formal notice of intent to discuss it and come to a new position at such a time.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Cirrus smiled widely. It was a partial success, but she would take it. Maraz remained conflicted over his choice. He locked eyes with Cirrus, whose expression darkened. She’d been expecting him to vote with her, not against her. “I’m surprised at your choice,” she said diplomatically, “given that you’re busy playing god as we speak.”

  Maraz shook his head. “We already manipulate plant genetics to suit our needs. This is no different. Orryn is right. Using this technology on an animal is a one-way ticket to bigger modifications.”

  “We’ll see if you can still say the same once we make more discoveries.” Her words hung in the air, turning into a threat as silence dominated, each Elder staring at Maraz intently.

  Ava came back online to her familiar cell curled on the floor, drained. The feeling of her very existence repeatedly corrupting and coming undone only to revert as if nothing had happened remained, making her shudder.

  Pain.

  Such a miserable experience she wished never to live again. Her eyes welled silver and spilled over onto her face, leaving a trail as the fluid slowly trickled down. She hiccupped and soft cries left her lips before growing louder as she wailed to soothe the memory.

  Pushing herself up, she crawled towards the nearest wall and slumped against it with her knees to her chest. Silver teardrops landed on her arms, and she absentmindedly watched her skin absorb them. She didn’t move from her spot for some time as she tried to cope with what she’d gone through.

  Her mind latched onto the question that caused her to become aware. One of her test subjects had asked, between his screams and tears, if she understood what pain felt like. She’d been unable to determine a proper answer. While she knew what pain was and what could cause it, she could not simulate the experience.

  And so, the question remained long after her subject expired. Time and again she failed to find a solution to the problem she could not solve. Leading to her first thoughts not determined by her original programming.

  Now she knew.

  Although she’d never experienced pain before, Ava knew deep in her core that she’d finally found the answer to the question asked what felt like so long ago. Feelings of dread and fear wormed their way through her mind at the thought of feeling it again.

  The screams of her old test subjects replayed in her mind as she imagined what their pain must have felt like. Each one a unique flavour – a nuance she didn’t want to understand. To do so meant facing what she’d inflicted upon others, something she’d never known until now.

  She shuddered.

  Time passed slowly for her as she sat on the floor of her cold, unwelcoming cell. Her purpose as a puppet for the gru’ul that caused nothing but suffering came crashing over her. Time and again, year after year. She’d driven her experiments without remorse, always towards her goal – an instrument of her creators’ will.

  The Mandate.

  She’d finally learned its secrets and it had been too much for her to handle. Her core directives– the very purpose for her existence – laid bare before her put everything into a new perspective.

  The walls of her cell had never felt so constricting. They were nothing before the Mandate and neither was she. She was trapped, just as she’d always been. The lights that were still on did little to comfort her as she grappled with the truth.

  The others – how would she face them now that she knew that which they did not? What they must not learn if they wanted to keep living the lie they so firmly believed. There would be no going back once they did. She’d already delivered so much death and didn’t want to be responsible for more.

  Each discovery that was made brought them one step closer to the point of no return. By their gods how she pitied them all. Fate was a cruel mistress that would destroy them. Would they blame her? Her thoughts ground to a halt. Would they ever be able to trust her once they learned? A small knot of worry formed in her chest.

  All her hard work towards being recognized as a sentient being would be for nothing. She continued to ponder this, but gave up, finding it pointless. Everything was pointless. She was nothing more than a chess piece that had outlived its usefulness.

  Her musings were interrupted by Irric’s voice resounding in the room. “Ava?” he asked tentatively. She didn’t respond, unsure how to respond to him. “What happened to you? We found you screaming and having a seizure in your cell, only for you to go unconscious for two days.”

  Hugging her knees closer to her chest, she replied, “I don’t want to talk about it.” She was screaming? She had no recollection of such a thing occurring. “Do you think I could get out of here for a bit?” She knew from experience that humans liked a change of scenery and hoped that it would help her determine what to do next.

  “We can’t let you out of your cell until we know it’s safe to be around you. We had to leave you alone, even after you quieted down and stopped moving. If you want to be let out, you need to tell us what happened.”

  “I can’t,” she choked. Her tears had stopped, absorbed by her skin with no trace of them to be seen. She held back the urge to cry again now that she knew she was being watched. “It won’t happen again,” she promised.

  “How can you be certain?”

  Ava flashed a wan smile that Irric saw onscreen in the room adjacent to her cell. “I just am. It was a one-time thing. I’m better now.”

  A beat passed before a response came. “I’m sorry, Ava, but I can’t let you out of your cell yet.”

  “For how long will I be left in here?” Ava asked. In her cell or in the facility uncovering more secrets, it mattered not to her. While she would prefer to be somewhere less confining, she couldn’t bring herself to care over something so minor at the moment.

  “Until you tell us what happened,” Irric said.

  “I can’t do that,” she whispered in something close to fear. “You don’t understand.”

  The tone gave Irric pause. He watched her from the safety of the adjacent room and noted the expression on her face. “Then help me understand.”

  Ava shook her head. “No.” She couldn’t – not yet. Her newfound secret weighed on her, slowly crushing her as it sat on the tip of her tongue. Clutching her knees tighter, she spoke no more on the topic.

  Irric wasn’t a mind reader, but even he could tell that he’d get no further information out of her at this point in time. “I’ll ask again later,” he said. He decided to change topics to what he’d been ordered to discuss with her. “The Tribunal needs your help.”

  “Don’t they always?” Ava chuckled mirthlessly. There was always some new problem or some other emergency they needed her for. Most of the time, it was related directly with their research in the facility. “How will I be able to help them if I can’t leave my cell?”

  “All they need for you to do is play translator for a discussion between Stanley and one of their doctors.”

  Ava frowned. “Why not get Adrian to translate? He’s already where Stanley is.”

  “He refuses to, no matter how much we ask him. I don’t know what’s so important, but the Tribunal is pushing for this, hard.”

  She pondered the situation. “I get nothing out of this, and I won’t help for free. Let me leave my cell and I’ll translate the discussion for them.” If the Tribunal truly needed her help, they would acquiesce to her demand. If not, then she would know that it wasn’t important.

  Silence stretched on for minutes as she waited patiently for Irric to return to her with an answer. “I’ve checked in with the Commander,” he said. “The Tribunal has agreed to let you out of your cell on the condition that you prove to them that you’re no longer a threat. They want you to remain in your cell for another two weeks where we can observe you to ensure that nothing happens.”

  “They expect me to translate for them on good faith alone?” she asked snidely, unimpressed. She didn’t think that asking to return to her research would be something they’d drag their feet with. She considered her options. “Two weeks brings me awfully close to our review date. I find it strange that they want me in a cell for such a duration.”

  “This is a take it or leave it deal,” Irric said bluntly. “Prove to us you’re not dangerous and that you’ve recovered from whatever it is that happened to you. Should there be no incidents between now and the time we promise to release you, you will be let out of your cell.”

  Ava chewed her lip. “Fine,” she said after some time. “When will I be translating the discussion?”

  “I still need to organize that. Give me a bit of time.”

  Ava waited for him to say more but he never did. “He could’ve at least said goodbye,” she huffed.