Page 58 of The Atom Between Us

Kang is gone, too.

Petrov steps into the lab proper, walks a slow circle around my bench. His boots leave perfect, wet prints on the floor.

“Do you like working for us, Diana?” he says, voice velvet and steel.

I glance up. “It’s challenging.”

He smiles, this time with teeth. “You’re doing important work. Your research could help us save thousands of lives.”

“Or erase them,” I say, just loud enough for him to hear.

He stops, eyes on mine. “The world outside doesn’t exist anymore. All that matters is what we do here, now.”

I nod, like I agree, then lower my gaze to the samples.

Petrov leans in, breath cold in my ear. “Don’t get any ideas about contacting your friends. We’re watching, always.” He leaves, door hissing behind him.

I take the chip, tuck it into the hem of my shirt, and exhale.

On the monitor, Kang is alone in a corridor, head bowed, hand pressed to his temple. The veins at his wrist stand out, pulsing. He looks up, and for a moment, I see the man behind the mask.

He’s as lost as I am.

The Authority makes a fetish of routine, but tonight the air crackles with deviation.

Ellis comes at lights-out. No tray, no file, just a careful step and a sideways glance at the camera lens, which she knows is always ten seconds behind. Her uniform looks real until you notice the way the nameplate’s been filed down, the way the belt sags at her left hip like a holster used for something heavier, once.

She holds out her hand. “Standard issue,” she says, voice flat.

It’s a wristband, Authority blue, identical to the biometric tracker I’ve worn since intake. The moment I touch it, though, I know: it’s not Authority, not even close. The texture’s off, the weight a fraction too light, the edges feathered as if by an artisan’s file.

Ellis’s thumb taps a pattern along the band—twice, then once, then a long press. “Go to the bath and put it on. It’s keyed to your pulse.”

I play along, step into the microbath closet, and shut the door. The lights flicker, then go UV. I fit the band to my wrist, and for a moment, nothing happens. Then the band’s inner face stings with a pinprick, drawing a single bead of blood that evaporates instantly.

A blue line crawls up my arm, hidden by the sleeve. I flex my wrist, and the band’s face changes: a tiny, holographic diode flashes, then projects a barely-there dot of light onto my palm.

I whisper, “Maven?” because I want to believe.

The light blossoms into a face—three centimeters tall, grainy but unmistakable.

“Diana,” Maven says, as though they’re across a table. Their voice is tinny, compressed for bandwidth, but the cadence is pure Thorne. Quick, analytic, laced with subdermal panic.

I sit on the bath’s lid, knees drawn up, watching the hologram flicker on my palm.

“Protocol is active,” Maven says. “Can you hear me?”

I nod, then realize the device won’t pick that up. “Yes.”

“Listen,” they rush. “The Protocol, the one they ran on you—it’s not just for erasure. It’s a reprogram. They’re rewriting everyone in the Zone. Even Kang.”

A static pop as the microtransmitter in my wristband shifts frequencies.

“I know,” I say. “I saw it in the blood. Nanites, clustered around the hippocampus. They’re leaving markers—memories you can’t trust, impulses that aren’t yours.”

Maven’s mouth tightens. “Petrov’s version is the most aggressive yet. The plan was to roll it out slow, but the last Sphere event scared them. They’re pushing it into everyone, even the guards. Even Petrov’s own people.”

I think of Kang, the way his eyes blazed when Petrov questioned him, the way his hand trembled as he braced against the pain. “What do we do?”