CTS TIME RE250.05.31 — DR. F QUARTERS
The door slid open without sound.
Sophia stood near the wide panoramic window, hands braced against the transparent alloy, staring down at DNA central area. From this height the city looked unreal—fractured lights, drifting smoke, emergency corridors glowing like veins beneath synthetic skin. Something catastrophic had happened. She could feel it in the tremor that still lived in the walls, in the way the air felt bruised.
She turned at the sound of movement.
Dr. F stepped inside.
For a heartbeat, relief surged through her chest—raw, instinctive—
Then it collapsed.
He was not alone.
Dr. F's shoulders were not squared as usual. His head was lowered, white coat stained with ash and heat distortion, his steps unsteady. He looked… diminished. As if the gravity that always obeyed him had finally decided to press back.
And behind him—
Sophia's breath caught so violently it hurt.
Dr. X.
He emerged into the room like a shadow that had learned how to smile. His presence alone distorted the space—lights dimmed, pressure thickened, the room's autonomous systems hesitated as if unsure whose authority to obey.
Sophia's heart slammed against her ribs.
No. No no no—
Every instinct screamed danger. Her body froze, memories flooding back unbidden, fear sharp enough to make her dizzy. She took a step back, spine hitting the window with a soft, hollow sound.
Dr. X noticed immediately.
"Oh," he said pleasantly, tilting his head. "There you are."
His eyes slid over her slowly—not with hunger this time, but with ownership. Assessment. As if she were a misplaced object that had finally been found.
"My dear Sophia," he continued, lips curling into that same devilish smile she had come to dread, "you didn't come back when you were told."
He sighed theatrically.
"So I had to come to you."
Sophia's throat closed. Her hands trembled at her sides. She looked to Dr. F—desperate, searching for something.
Dr. F did not meet her eyes.
He staggered one step forward, then another—and then, without ceremony, without resistance, he collapsed against the wall and slid down to the floor.
The impact was dull.
Final.
Sophia stared.
Her mind refused to process what she was seeing.
Dr. F doesn't fall.
He doesn't kneel.
He doesn't—
"Dr… F?" Her voice cracked, barely louder than a whisper.
Dr. X chuckled softly behind him.
"Don't look so shocked," he said lightly. "Even gods get tired when they try to carry responsibility."
He stepped further into the room. The door sealed behind him.
Sophia's fear spiked into something almost unbearable. She pressed herself back against the window, pulse roaring in her ears, every part of her screaming to run—but there was nowhere to go.
Dr. X stopped a few steps away, hands clasped behind his back, posture relaxed.
"You see," he said calmly, "your protector made a mistake."
His gaze flicked to Dr. F's unmoving form, then back to her.
"He thought rules still mattered."
A faint smile.
"He thought care was a weapon."
Sophia swallowed hard. Her chest felt tight, every breath shallow.
"What… what did you do to him?" she managed to ask.
Dr. X's eyes glinted.
"I showed him scale," he replied simply. "And consequence."
He leaned slightly closer—not touching, not yet—his voice dropping to a near whisper.
"And now," he added, "we are going to have a conversation."
Sophia's nails dug into her palms. Her gaze flicked once more to Dr. F—lying against the wall, silent, terrifyingly still.
Please, she thought, not knowing who she was pleading with anymore.
Don't leave me alone with him.
Dr. X straightened, his shadow stretching across the room like a closing cage.
"Don't worry," he said softly. "I won't hurt you."
Then, after a pause—just long enough to let the words sink in—
"Tonight."
And the room seemed to hold its breath, as Sophia realized that whatever line had once existed between nightmare and reality was gone.
Dr. X moved first.
His hand closed around Sophia's wrist—not hurried, not violent in motion, but absolute in force. The moment his fingers locked, her body reacted on instinct alone.
"No—!" Sophia twisted, pulling back with everything she had. Pain flared up her arm, sharp and immediate. "Let go of me!"
Her voice cracked as panic surged, raw and uncontrollable.
"Dr. F!" she shouted.
The name tore out of her chest like a last lifeline.
Dr. X did not tighten his grip—but he did not loosen it either. He turned his head slightly, looking down at Dr. F's collapsed form with something resembling curiosity.
Standing directly in front of him now, Dr. X spoke lightly, almost conversationally.
"Can I show you," he said, gesturing vaguely with Sophia still in his grasp, "how I practice with her at night?"
The words were not loud.
They did not need to be.
Something broke.
Not in the room.
Not in the systems.
In Dr. F.
It was not calculation.
Not protocol.
Not strategy.
It was primal.
Rage—ancient, violent, unfiltered—erupted through him like a detonation from within. The gravity that had pinned him moments ago shattered outward as if it had never existed. The wall behind him fractured, spiderwebbing in an instant as Dr. F stood.
Sophia barely saw him move.
One moment he was on the floor.
The next—
His fist connected with Dr. X's face.
The impact was catastrophic.
A thundercrack exploded through the room as Dr. X's head snapped sideways, his body thrown back several meters, crashing through reinforced alloy panels like brittle glass. The shockwave ripped furniture from the floor, sending fragments spinning in zero-gravity shock before slamming back down.
Sophia screamed.
Dr. X hit the far wall hard enough to dent it inward.
For a moment—there was silence.
Then the damage became visible.
Dr. X's cheek flickered.
Skin distortion rippled across his face, collapsing the illusion of perfection. Beneath it, exposed circuits sparked erratically, fine wires writhing as if alive. Fluctuations danced across his jawline, synthetic muscle failing to hold form.
His smile was gone.
Completely.
Dr. X lifted his head slowly, eyes wide—not with pain, but with disbelief.
His calm had shattered.
"You—" he started, voice glitching for the first time, "—hit me."
Dr. F stood between him and Sophia now.
His posture was wrong.
Shoulders tense. Hands clenched. Eyes burning with something that had never surfaced before—something far beyond intellect.
"You don't touch her," Dr. F said.
His voice was low.
Unstable.
Dangerous.
Sophia stood frozen behind him, heart hammering so violently she thought she might collapse. Tears streamed freely now—not from fear alone, but from shock, from the realization that the man who had always stood above everything had finally fallen into it.
Dr. X pushed himself upright, wiping a line of synthetic blood from his split cheek. His systems struggled to reassert control; the distortion faded slowly, imperfectly.
Then he laughed.
Not amused.
Unhinged.
"So," he said hoarsely, eyes locking onto Dr. F with something feral, "this is what she did to you."
His gaze flicked briefly to Sophia.
"You broke your own rules."
Dr. F did not deny it.
He took one step forward.
And the room trembled.
"Get out," he said.
Not as an order.
As a promise.
For the first time since his creation, Dr. X felt it—
Not threat.
Not rivalry.
Opposition.
And something in his expression shifted from arrogance to something far more dangerous: anticipation.
"Oh," Dr. X replied quietly, straightening his coat despite the damage, "this just became interesting."
Outside the shattered quarters, DNA itself seemed to brace.
Because two creators had finally stopped pretending they could coexist.
And Sophia—standing behind Dr. F, shaking, bleeding, alive—was no longer just the reason.
She was the point of no return.
Dr. X hissed, the sound distorted by damaged vocal modulators, part human mockery and part machine feedback.
"You've changed," he snarled, forcing himself upright despite the sparking circuitry along his jaw. "You deny it, but you have. And for that—" his eyes burned with manic certainty, "—I will collapse this entire DNA structure. Every block. Every unit. Just wait."
He didn't finish the sentence.
Dr. F moved.
There was no warning this time—no bending of gravity, no grand gesture. He crossed the space between them faster than perception could track, motion stripped down to raw intent.
The first punch landed squarely on Dr. X's face.
Not calculated.
Not measured.
Personal.
The impact folded Dr. X's head sideways with a sickening crack, synthetic bone and reinforced plating collapsing inward. Sparks erupted like a burst artery of light. The second punch followed before the first echo faded—then a third, then a fourth—each blow driving Dr. X backward until the wall behind him gave way.
He hit the floor hard.
Dr. F was on him instantly, straddling his torso, pinning him down with crushing force. His fists rose and fell again and again, relentless, brutal. Each strike distorted Dr. X's face further—skin flickering in and out of existence, revealing twisted wiring, shattered servos, exposed data-veins spasming wildly.
Dr. X tried to laugh.
It came out as a wet, broken sound.
His mouth split at the corner, synthetic teeth cracking, fragments skittering across the floor. One eye glitched, cycling through colors before going dark. His systems screamed warnings internally—structural failure, neural instability, core feedback—but none of it slowed the assault.
Dr. F's expression was unrecognizable.
This was not the composed architect of Mechatopia.
This was not the cold scientist.
This was something feral.
Something that had been buried under intellect and restraint for decades and had finally torn free.
"You don't threaten what's mine," Dr. F growled, voice shaking with contained fury. "You don't touch her. You don't speak her name."
Another punch.
Dr. X's head snapped back violently, the remaining illusion of symmetry gone. His cheek collapsed completely now, half his face a grotesque fusion of torn flesh-patterns and exposed machinery. Wires dangled loose from his mouth, twitching like severed nerves.
Sophia stood frozen near the shattered window, hands covering her mouth, tears streaming freely. Her entire body trembled—not with fear now, but with shock. With the unbearable weight of witnessing something irreversible.
He's fighting for me, her mind whispered, stunned.
He's breaking himself for me.
Dr. X coughed—a spray of dark, viscous fluid splattering across the floor. His voice cracked, corrupted.
"So this is it," he rasped. "You choose her… over everything you built."
Dr. F paused, fist hovering inches from what remained of Dr. X's face.
For a fraction of a second, silence filled the room—heavy, charged.
"Yes," Dr. F said quietly.
Then he leaned closer, eyes blazing.
"And I would do it again."
Dr. X's systems spasmed violently, his body convulsing under the accumulated damage. His arrogance was gone now, replaced by something raw and dangerous—hatred mixed with disbelief.
This wasn't a calculated rebellion anymore.
This was war.
And in that shattered room, with Dr. X broken beneath him and Sophia watching with shattered breath, Dr. F crossed a line he could never return from.
The scientist had become a weapon.
And DNA was about to learn what that truly meant.