The red light on the surveillance node blinked twice more.
SH-3 didn't flinch.
She stood barefoot in the cold cell, hands coated in dust, staring down at the word she had scrawled into the floor:
Miri.
She didn't know why she wrote it.
Didn't know how she knew it.
But the name had heat.
It pulsed.
And in this dead place, anything that pulsed meant power.
Years Earlier – Memory Fragment
They sewed her mouth shut on the fourth failure.
They said she screamed too much.
That she sang in her sleep.
That the other girls would break if they heard her voice.
So they took it.
Cut her vocal cords. Cauterized them.
Gave her a pill for the pain.
Lied and told her she would forget.
But she remembered.
Because SH-3 didn't forget anything.
Back in the cell, she moved to the far wall.
She dragged the heel of her palm along the seam where wall met floor.
Found the crack they missed.
Tiny. Hairline. But it was there.
Everything Ridgepoint built was clean, sharp, perfect.
Which meant this flaw wasn't part of the design.
It was sabotage.
Or maybe… a message.
SH-3 sat cross-legged on the floor and began working it open with the sharpened corner of her food tray.
The red light blinked again.
She ignored it.
Let them watch.
Somewhere above her, mechanical locks rotated.
A hallway camera activated.
Security did not intervene.
Why?
Because SH-3 was considered dormant.
Her neural signature was still tagged as "passive/low function."
Because the system didn't detect the one thing it was programmed to respond to:
Voice.
Ridgepoint had never programmed her body to override without a command.
They had only taught her to listen.
But Miri's pulse didn't come through tech.
It came through memory.
And that—
That rewrote everything.
After forty-five minutes, she had stripped the bottom panel off the wall.
A cold draft whispered from the exposed vent tunnel.
Her lips cracked from disuse.
She coughed dry air and tasted rust.
She crawled inside.
She didn't know where the tunnel led.
She only knew that it led out.
Ten meters in, she passed a hatch.
Another.
And then—
Voices.
Not commands. Not handlers.
Guards.
"How the hell did her vitals spike like that?"
"AI flagged an emotional response. I didn't think she had any."
"Well she does now."
SH-3 stopped moving.
She lay flat.
She waited.
Then—
"Name on the data trace said 'Miri.' Ever seen that one before?"
That was enough.
She backed up into the dark and waited for the footsteps to fade.
Then she turned.
And began climbing.
At the top of the vertical shaft, the metal hatch resisted.
She forced it open.
The light above made her squint.
A hallway. Empty. Cool air. Motion sensors disabled.
Everything too quiet.
But something inside her shifted.
Like gravity had changed.
Like a voice without words had whispered: Run.
So she did.
For the first time since she was taken—
Since her name was erased—
SH-3 ran.
Not because someone told her to.
Not because she was escaping pain.
But because she chose to.
And in the security bay, red lights began flashing.
Doors unlocked.
And something inside Ridgepoint screamed awake.
The first door she passed wasn't locked.
That alone made her pause.
Ridgepoint didn't leave doors open.
Not unless someone was expected to walk through.
But no handler had spoken.
No escort waited in the hall.
No voice in her head told her what to do.
Which meant the door was either a trap—
Or a test.
She stepped inside.
The room smelled like copper and old electricity.
A single chair sat beneath a cracked light.
Restraints hung slack from the armrests.
Dust coated the floor in symmetrical rows—one path worn down from pacing, from repetition, from punishment.
SH-3 moved slowly.
Her bare feet made no sound, but her thoughts were loud.
Don't sit.
Don't obey.
Don't remember.
The last thought stung.
Because the truth was—she did remember.
Even if the details were blurred, the pain was sharp.
The rules. The drills. The isolation tanks.
Being taught how to kill in silence.
How to die without making a sound.
And worst of all—the day they sewed her shut.
She backed out of the room before the memories could cut deeper.
Farther down the hall, motion sensors flickered.
A red glow at the corner of her vision signaled a pulse-scan corridor—meant to detect heart rate anomalies, emotion spikes, and disobedience.
She pressed a hand to her chest.
Her heartbeat was rapid, but steady.
She could feel herself slipping out of the box they'd built for her.
No longer asset.
Not quite girl.
But becoming.
Then she heard it.
Not an alarm.
A voice.
Muffled. Fragile.
It wasn't in her head.
It was in a room ahead, through a cracked panel of shatterproof glass.
She stepped closer.
Inside, a boy.
Young. Curled up on the floor, IVs snaking out of his arms.
His wrists were raw. His eyes unfocused.
He didn't look at her.
He just whispered the same thing over and over—
"No more, no more, no more…"
She stood frozen.
Something pulled at her—something buried and unfamiliar.
She had never seen another subject awake like this.
Most had been taken. Failed. Vanished.
But this boy—he was alive.
And broken.
Like her.
She looked around the door frame for a panel. Found it. Unlocked.
She didn't know why she opened it.
Only that she had to.
The boy didn't move when she entered.
He only whispered: "I dreamed someone came. But they didn't stay."
She crouched beside him.
No words.
She couldn't speak.
But she took his hand and pressed it to his own chest—right where the heartbeat was still stuttering.
His lips parted.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
"You're not like the others," he breathed.
She shook her head.
He nodded, barely.
Then passed out.
She looked down at him for a long time.
And for the first time since her own voice was taken—
She made a vow.
Not as a mission.
Not as a directive.
But as a promise only she could make.
No one gets left behind.
She stood.
Steeled herself.
And kept running.
By the time Ridgepoint systems noticed the breach, SH-3 was already gone.