Page 60 of The Atom Between Us

I want to say yes, or no, or both. Instead, I just watch him leave.

When the door cycles shut, I slide the wristband off, palm it, and stare at the sliver of light where Maven once was.

The world outside is silent, but in my chest, something howls.

At oh-three, the band pulses against my skin. I wait, blood humming, as Maven’s face blooms on my palm.

“Did he see?” Maven asks.

I think of Kang’s hand, the absent ring, the mask he wears like a second skin.

“Not yet,” I say. “But he knows I’m not the same.”

Maven nods, satisfied. “Neither is he. The next time he comes, ask him about the Facility. The one before the Zone. If he remembers, he’s not lost. If he doesn’t⁠—”

I close my hand, crushing the ghost of Maven to blue static.

The hunger in me is real, burning through the lies, the protocols, the Authority’s best attempts at erasure.

Tomorrow, I’ll ask Kang about the Facility.

Tonight, I count my own pulse, and promise myself I won’t forget.

Not ever again.

It’s early afternoon now, and I haven’t seen Kang since that tense moment last night. Still, I went on with my so-called duties as a scientist—hands damp with solvent, calibrating the Raman scanner, neck bent low over the control panel. I didn’t look up when the door burst open.

Petrov stormed the threshold, Authority dogs snarling at his heels. His boots hit the floor like hammer blows, each step a promise of trouble. Two new guards fanned out behind him, laser designators sweeping the walls as if I were a walking target.

“Diana,” Petrov barked, voice so parched it rasped the air. “Step away from the equipment—and drop your tablet.”

I froze, wiping solvent from my palms on the hem of my lab coat. “I’m mid-assay. If you want results by shift change, I need⁠—”

He cut me off, slamming a glow-lit tablet onto the desk. The screen showed me creeping through the quarantine wing after lights-out, clutching a vial of blood. Cameras only caught me—no sign of Ellis, but I kept that to myself.

“You were testing on blood samples,” Petrov growled, voice low and dangerous. “Unauthorized experimentation. That’s your second infraction this quarter.”

My chest tightened. “Those logs are incomplete. Authority’s own harmonics don’t match the incident data⁠—”

He shoved the tablet in my face. The image trembled under his grip. “Curiosity killed more than cats in this place, Doctor. I warned you.”

I swallowed against the burn of fear and anger, studying the old burn scar curling along his jaw. He looked exhausted—hollowed by endless shifts—but drunk on the power he wielded over me. I said nothing more. I knew any word might be my last.

He turns to the guards. “Strip her clearance. Effective immediately.”

The one on my left steps forward, hands shaking a little. He’s green, barely out of orientation, but his grip on my arm is iron. The other, older, has seen enough of this to look right past me as he jams my wrists together and cinches the flex cuffs until skin breaks.

I flinch at the pain. Not much, but enough for Petrov to smirk.

“Doctor, you are hereby relieved of your duties. Transfer to Wasteland Penitentiary 07 is immediate.”

The room tilts, just a little. My brain inventories the microfractures in my wrist, the metallic bite of the cuffs, the way the air thickens with ozone when the Sphere’s core goes unstable. I try to count, to focus, but the blue light in my vision is a distraction I can’t shake.

The guards drag me out before I can protest. The lab is gone in a blur, replaced by the corridor’s strip lights and the chorus of half-whispered rumors from every room we pass. Some faces I know—Ellis, hunched in the instrument bay, refusing to meet my gaze; two techs from Central who duck into a closet rather than watch.

We reach the elevator. The older guard pushes me in, jams his thumb on the pad, and the doors hiss shut. No music. Just the rattling of the floor counter as we plummet to Processing. I glance at my hands. They’re still streaked with chemical stains—blue and black, a map of the morning’s work. The cuffs dig in deeper every time I try to shift. I catalog the sensations, one by one, as a way to keep the panic from boiling over.

At Processing, they make a show of the intake: mug shot, DNA swab, retinal scan. The old man at the desk spits into his glove before taking the swab, a little dominance game I refuse to rise to. The retinal scan takes three tries; the machine’s old, and the blue rings in my iris always throw it off.