CTS TIME RE250.05.26 — 6:30 PM
Sleep had come to Sophia without permission, heavy and sudden, the kind earned only after exhaustion strips the mind bare. Hours of relentless training inside her quarter's 4D battlefield had finally silenced her thoughts. Her new Mk-4 attire lay folded beside the bed, faintly humming as it recalibrated from combat mode. The room's lighting had dimmed to a twilight blue, temperature tuned to her slowed pulse.
Then the world shifted.
Pressure pressed down on her chest—not physical at first, but conceptual. Gravity tightened, sharper than the system's usual corrections. The air thickened, like the room itself had inhaled and forgotten how to exhale.
Sophia stirred.
Half-asleep irritation flared before fear could catch up.
You again, she thought groggily. I told him not to come in like this.
Her hand moved on instinct, fingers closing around a smooth glass sphere—a toy her small mechanical cat used to chase endlessly across the floor. With a flick of her wrist, she hurled it toward the doorway.
The glass ball shattered mid-air.
Not against a wall.
Against nothing.
Sophia sat up instantly, heartbeat slamming hard against her ribs.
The door stood open.
And the presence filling the room was unmistakable.
Not Dr. F.
But something that wore his weight.
A man stood just inside the threshold, white coat immaculate, posture relaxed, eyes alive with something sharp and amused. The room reacted to him the same way it did to Dr. F—systems quieted, gravity adjusted—but there was a crucial difference.
This presence didn't stabilize the space.
It dominated it.
A devilish smile spread slowly across his face.
"So," he said lightly, voice smooth and dangerous, "is that how you welcome your seniors?"
Sophia's breath caught.
She swung her legs off the bed and stood too fast, instincts screaming belated warnings.
"I— I'm sorry," she said quickly, moving toward him before thinking. "I thought you were—"
Who is this? her mind raced. He's not human. Not android. Not—
She didn't finish the thought.
Dr. X moved.
One moment he was several steps away.
The next, his hand was around her throat, lifting her clean off the floor and pinning her against the wall with effortless force.
The impact knocked the air from her lungs.
Sophia gasped, fingers clawing instinctively at his wrist—but it might as well have been iron fused to reality itself. The pressure wasn't crushing, not enough to kill. It was precise. Measured.
Educational.
Her eyes widened, pulse roaring in her ears.
Dr. X leaned closer, his face inches from hers, his head tilting slightly as if examining a rare artifact. He inhaled slowly—not with hunger, not with desire, but with curiosity, like a scientist sampling the atmosphere of a foreign world.
"A fragile human," he murmured, almost thoughtfully. "And now… a Veteran."
Her mind screamed.
He's crossing a boundary— stop him—
The pressure increased just enough to make her vision blur at the edges.
This is wrong. This is not evaluation. This is not protocol.
Her thoughts spiraled, panic clawing upward.
He's not supposed to touch me. He's—
Then Dr. X stopped.
He didn't move further. He didn't escalate.
Instead, he leaned in and whispered near her ear, his voice low and cold, every syllable deliberate.
"First lesson," he said softly, "is respect."
The word echoed louder than the force holding her.
He released her.
Sophia collapsed to the floor, coughing, hands shaking as she struggled to pull air back into her lungs. Her throat burned, eyes watering—not just from pain, but from the sheer violation of her space, her autonomy.
She pressed her palm to the floor, trying to steady herself.
"Dr… F…" she whispered hoarsely to the empty room, the name slipping out before she could stop it.
A shadow fell over her.
Dr. X looked down at her, his expression no longer amused—just distant.
"Not F," he said coldly.
"From here on… only X."
The room's gravity eased.
The door sealed behind him.
Sophia remained on the floor long after he was gone, heart pounding, the echo of his presence lingering like a bruise on reality itself.
Her hands trembled as she whispered to no one,
"What have I been handed over to…?"