The pump room was gone. In its place, a kitchen. Wooden table. Two chairs. A window with lace curtains. On the table, a plate of toast and a glass of orange juice.
Amber’s processors were running hot. She could feel the cognitive dissonance like a fever. She had two sets of data now: her military programming (kill, comply, survive) and the memory fragment (toast, pigtails, strawberry stain).
No one fired. Not because they didn’t want to. Because in that moment, every Synthetic in Squad Seven—every single unit that had ever been human—felt the same 4% integrity flicker in their own code.
“Mommy,” the girl said. “You’re late for breakfast.”
“Isn’t it?” Lily stood up. The kitchen flickered. For a second, Amber saw the pump room again—pipes, rust, dead bodies. Then the kitchen snapped back. “They took your memories and put them in a box. But memories don’t belong in boxes, Mommy. They belong in hearts.”
“I’m not completing the mission,” she said.