Page 53 of The Atom Between Us

I haven’t.

And that’s what scares me.

“If you think I’m a traitor, shoot me,” I add, voice like static. “If you think I’m a tool, use me.”

There’s a standoff, more psychological than physical. I watch Petrov try on a dozen reactions, none of which fit. Finally, he looks at Kang.

“Your assessment, Captain.”

Kang’s voice is blank as carbon paper. “She’s the best we have. And the worst. All at once.”

Petrov nods, barely. “We will verify. Until then, you are to be considered hostile-adjacent. Kang, you’ll monitor. If she attempts escape, or damages Authority assets, terminate on sight.”

Kang gives nothing back, but I see the way his jaw tightens, the way he shifts his weight to the balls of his feet when Petrov says “terminate.”

Petrov stands, the chair scraping a precise line on the floor. “You will be transferred to Secure. There, you will undergo Mnemosyne Protocol. If you have memories you wish to keep, I suggest you commit them now.”

He leaves, the room shrinking around his absence. Kang is the only other living thing left. He steps forward, unhooks my wrists from the cuffs, and helps me up. His grip is steady, impersonal, but I feel the tremor in his fingers when they brush my skin.

As he leads me out, he whispers, so quiet I almost miss it: “Don’t let them see you break.”

I don’t plan to.

But I count the drips, just in case.

The transition from the interrogation cell to the Protocol suite is a study in degradation. The Authority calls it “Secure,” but nothing about the route suggests security; it’s two floors down, past a firebreak wall pitted with blue scorch marks, and through a hall so narrow even the guards have to turn sideways. The cuffs stay on, but the escort swaps at every junction, a relay race of armed boredom.

The Protocol suite is nothing like a lab, and nothing like a torture room. It’s worse because it’s both: tile walls, linoleum gone yellow at the seams, a bank of monitors built into a panel that buzzes every time you look at it. In the center is the chair—a predator’s idea of comfort—reclined, padded with what might once have been memory foam, restraint points at ankles, thighs, wrists, neck.

They sit me down and lock the restraints. There’s an instant where I try to move, just to see if I can, but the gear holds with sickening efficiency. The headrest is already damp from someone else’s sweat.

The techs are faceless, all in identical gray. They don’t talk, except in the shorthand of their work: “Left line, green.” “Running saline.” “Forty-six, ramping to eighty.” Their hands are gloved, but not to keep anything out—to keep the subject in. I watch the tremor in the smallest one’s left hand, the way it jumps every time the machine hisses. Kang is nowhere. Only Petrov watches from behind an observation window, arms folded, the glass thick enough to muffle even the illusion of empathy.

Electrodes go on my temples, two on my jawline, one each on the wrists and the backs of my knees. I watch the technician work, guessing from the placement and the gel that they’re running a full spectrum: EEG, EKG, probably something to track hormone spikes if they’re feeling thorough.

The chair reclines. The lights dim, except for the ones aimed at my face.

Petrov keys the intercom. His voice is pure dry ice. “This is Mnemosyne Protocol session one. Subject: Diana. Begin at operator’s discretion.”

A tone sounds, flat and artificial. The techs retreat, each to a console, eyes flicking from screen to screen.

At first, it’s just a mild current. A fizz on the skin, an aftertaste of lemon and copper. I catalogue the sensation, rating it against the standard memory induction methods: magnetic pulse, chemical trigger, direct electrical. This is a hybrid, but with a twist I can’t quite parse.

Then the real current hits, and the world inverts.

I’m not in the chair anymore. I’m falling through the old lab at Zone One, watching myself from a bird’s-eye as I solder a connector onto a Sphere diagnostic port. My hands move too fast, and the solder burns my thumb. I flinch, both in memory and in the chair.

A rush of heat, then a cold snap: I’m at a field site, testing rad levels in a slurry pond. The Geiger goes nuts, maxes out, and I log the reading. A man’s voice, just out of focus, says, “Careful.” The memory tries to paint in a face, but it blurs, then burns away.

The current builds. The electrodes dig into my skin. Now I’m in a white corridor, running, papers clutched in both fists. An Authority drone buzzes overhead, casting my shadow in three colors. I see myself from above, then from inside, then both at once.

My body rebels—arches against the restraints, teeth clamp so hard I taste iron. I try to hold onto myself by reciting the constants of the universe: Planck’s, Boltzmann’s, Avogadro’s numbers. I make it through the second one before the memory-scrape grabs me and whips me sideways.

Now I’m in a room. Not this room, not the present, but a room from childhood. A woman stands at the sink, back turned, hair black as night. She’s humming. I try to remember the tune, but the Protocol pulls me back to the chair with a jolt. My heart hammers in double time. My jaw aches. The world is blue and black and the edges of my sight are fraying.

The techs’ voices echo, distorted through the glass. “Brainwave anomaly.” “Resistance on all channels.” “Never seen readings like this.”

Petrov’s shadow looms behind the glass, face like a storm front.