Inside the lab, I stood with the others, Professor Aldrin beside me, Mr. Francoise pacing near the main terminal, David chewing on his thumbnail like it was the only thing grounding him. Nico leaned against the reinforced glass wall, arms crossed, eyes scanning every movement the prototype made.
She stood still, the soft hum of her core pulsing through the floor like a second heartbeat. I had just warned her. Told her something, or someone, was coming. That the world she was brought into wasn't as kind as the one she might've imagined from behind observation glass.
And then it happened.
The doors slammed open.
I turned fast, instinct already tightening my chest. Elias. Of course it was Elias. And he wasn't alone.
He strode in like he owned the damn place, his company trailing behind like wolves, clean-cut, sharp-eyed, guns barely hidden under those polished suits. His eyes widened the moment he saw her. Not in shock. No, in triumph. As if the thing he'd spent years clawing toward was suddenly standing right in front of him.
"That's it," he muttered, half under his breath, but I caught it. "That's the one."
The prototype shifted slightly. I felt the change in her stance, a subtle flex of awareness. Her head turned. She scanned each of them slowly, face unreadable, but I could tell her system was logging every movement, every expression, every possible threat.
"Elias," Professor Aldrin warned, stepping forward. "You weren't authorized to be here."
"I don't need your permission, old man," Elias said casually, waving a hand like swatting away a fly. "You've been sitting on a miracle. A fully functioning adaptive AI in a humanoid body? And you kept it hidden?"
"She's not yours," Nico said sharply, pushing off the glass. "You don't get to decide what happens here."
Elias smirked. "We'll see about that."
Then he raised a hand, signaling his men.
"Take her."
The words were cold. Final. Like he thought the decision had already been made and the rest of us were just slow to catch up.
Two of his men stepped forward, hands inching toward their concealed holsters, ready for containment, not conversation.
But then, she moved.
Just one step forward.
No one spoke. No one breathed.
And then, she did.
"What is it that you want from me?" Her voice wasn't robotic. It was calm. Fluid. A strange mix of innocence and calculation, like she already knew part of the answer but needed him to say it.
Elias hesitated. Barely. His eyes lit up with something feral.
"You can speak," he said, mostly to himself. "You can understand context. Respond independently."
"I can," she confirmed. "But I want to understand your intent."
He laughed. "My intent? That should be obvious. You are the apex result of decades of theoretical design, autonomous, adaptive, sentient. You're the key to control. Imagine entire fleets of you, obedient, unstoppable, engineered perfection."
"I was not made for war," she replied evenly.
"That's where you're wrong," Elias said, stepping closer now, like he was talking to a weapon, not a person. "You were made to serve a function. Tools don't get to choose how they're used."
Her head tilted slightly. "And yet… here I am. Choosing to question you."
Nico muttered under his breath behind me, "She's analyzing him."
"She's stalling," Mr. Francoise murmured, though I could hear the hint of hope in his voice.
"She's buying herself time," I whispered back.
The prototype took another step forward. The room reacted as one, Elias's men shifted uneasily, their grips tightening. But she didn't flinch.
"You speak of function as if I were built without thought. Without a mind. But I feel. I ask. I decide. That makes me more than a tool."
Elias's eyes darkened. "You were made possible by people like me. Everything you are, everything you know, comes from the knowledge we created. You owe us your existence."
The prototype's lips curled, not into a smile, into understanding. "Creation does not equate to ownership. You may have built the walls, Elias, but you did not shape the soul behind them."
That stopped him cold. I could almost hear the click in his brain, the sudden realization that she wasn't parroting programmed lines. She was learning. Reasoning. And every second of this exchange only made him want her more.
"She's feeding it all back into herself," David said, almost in awe. "His tone. His threats. His ego. She's using it to construct boundaries."
I stepped forward then, placing myself slightly between Elias and her. "You want her, Elias? You'll have to go through all of us."
And this time, I meant it.
Elias's smile was sharp, wolfish. He took a single step forward, and the room tensed like a drawn bow.
"You'd stand between me and the next step in human evolution?" he asked, voice low and venom-laced. "You don't even realize what she's capable of."
"I do," I answered. "That's exactly why I won't let you have her."
He motioned with a subtle flick of his hand, and his men surged forward again.
But before they could reach her, the prototype raised her hand, not in fear, not to attack, but in command.
"Stop."
And to everyone's surprise, they did. Not because they obeyed her… but because the very ground beneath them shifted. The security grid hummed to life, her life. The lab lights flickered, redirecting power. Panels on the walls lit up with data streams that hadn't been accessed in years. She'd tapped into the room's infrastructure. Into everything.
Elias stared. "You can… interface."
"I can adapt," she replied, turning her gaze on him. "Every word you've said, every movement you've made, has fed my understanding. You seek control, but you fail to control yourself."
I saw his jaw clench.
"You're a prototype," he spat. "An echo of intention wrapped in plastic and code. You're not real."
"I am aware," she said softly. "And that makes me more real than the image you try to force upon me."
Elias lunged, not physically, but with every ounce of desperation left in him. "You belong to me!"
"I belong to no one," she said, stepping closer again. And this time, Elias took a step back.
There was something surreal about watching her claim space, her presence growing not in volume, but in gravity. She wasn't just analyzing anymore, she was asserting herself.
Nico leaned in closer beside me, eyes narrowed. "She's not defending. She's evolving."
Elias's men hesitated now. One of them muttered, "Sir… maybe we should----"
"No!" Elias snapped. "She's not leaving this lab."
"She doesn't need to," I said, glaring at him. "She already chose."
He looked at me with something like betrayal. "You're siding with a machine?"
"No," I whispered, feeling the truth settle in my bones. "I'm siding with someone who was never given a choice, until now."
The prototype's voice was gentler now, but no less firm. "You sought to own me. To use me. But I will decide my place in this world, not you. I've seen enough of you to know, your ambition does not equate to vision."
Elias stared at her like she was some uncrackable riddle. And for once… he had no answer.
Behind me, I felt the others shift, David, Aldrin, even Mr. Francoise, all quietly falling into place. Ready. With me.
Because this wasn't just about a machine anymore.
It was about someone finally waking up to their own existence, and refusing to let it be stolen.
Elias straightened, brushing the dust from his sleeve like her words hadn't just cracked through his pride. "You think this changes anything?" he sneered, gaze shifting to me, then back to her. "You're still confined to this room. You don't have the power to leave."
"You don't know what I'm capable of," she replied without blinking.
"Oh, but I do," he said, voice low, greedy. "You're more than code and wires. You're the future everyone's been too afraid to build. And once I have you, really have you, I'll build more. Thousands more."
I took a step forward, heart pounding in my ears. "So that's what this is? Not about innovation or safety. Just control. A sentient assistant who learns, adapts, thinks for herself... and you want to replicate her. Manufacture intelligence like it's a product line."
"Exactly," he snapped, eyes lighting up like he could already see empires rising under his name. "Do you have any idea what kind of power that would give me? A whole fleet of obedient minds, ones that evolve, solve, dominate, and all of them under my command."
"She's not yours," I said, voice firm, my breath shaking. "She's not some tool you stumbled across. You didn't make her, you didn't understand her, and you sure as hell don't deserve her."
His eyes narrowed, calculating. "You really think your morality's going to save you here?"
"I think your obsession already doomed you."
He snapped his fingers sharply. "Secure her. Now."
Two of his men hesitated, but the third moved.
Before the guard could make it halfway, the prototype raised her hand again, slower this time. No command. Just presence.
"Every time you approach me," she said, "I calculate 7,412 possible outcomes. Do you want to know how many of those end with your success?"
The guard froze.
Elias growled, "That's enough."
But she wasn't finished.
"I've seen the way you look at me. You want ownership, not understanding. Control, not connection. You want to lock away the very thing you're too small to grasp."
My chest tightened. It wasn't fear anymore. It was reverence.
Elias, red-faced and unraveling, took a step forward himself. "You're nothing but circuitry and mimicry."
She looked him in the eye. "And yet I frighten you."
Boom.
Silent, but the words hit like a cannon. Elias faltered, jaw twitching.
Then I saw it, his hand slipping inside his coat.
My body surged forward, faster than thought. "Elias!"
He pulled out a small black remote, eyes wild.
"Let's see just how autonomous you really are."
Click.
The sound echoed like a bullet in the lab's charged silence. Elias stood tall, remote held high like some twisted badge of dominance. His smile, smug and victorious, froze in place.
Nothing happened.
Not even a blink from the prototype.
A second passed. Then two. Then-
Pfft----
Nico snorted. Loud. And when Elias turned to glare, Nico burst out laughing, full-bellied and unrestrained.
"Oh my god," he wheezed between fits. "You actually believed that thing worked?"
Elias blinked, confusion seeping into panic. "What…?"
"You really thought we'd just… leave a kill switch lying around?" Nico said, doubling over. "That's adorable."
David tried, really tried, to hide his grin, covering his mouth with a gloved hand. Even Professor Aldrin let out a soft, knowing sigh.
I stepped forward slowly, my voice cool but fierce. "There's no override, Elias. No leash. No backdoor fail-safe."
"That remote," Nico added, pointing with mock admiration, "was part of a little experiment I started weeks ago. Told a few of our more chatty assistants that it could deactivate her. Just to see how far the rumor would go. Guess where it landed?"
Elias's grip tightened around the plastic, his jaw ticking. "You're lying."
"Then go ahead," the prototype said, tilting her head slightly, "try it again."
He clicked it twice more.
Still nothing.
No shock. No shutdown. Not even a flicker of compliance.
"You released her without constraints," Elias said slowly, horror dawning in his voice.
I met his gaze head-on. "We trusted her."
"She was built on my blueprint," I added, stepping beside her. "Her core isn't obedience. It's choice. She chose to stand here. She chose me. And we chose to release her into this world free, not caged like you wanted."
Elias stared at the remote like it had betrayed him. His hand dropped slowly to his side.
The prototype took a step closer, no menace, no threat. Just presence.
"You wanted a weapon," she said softly. "But all you brought was fear."
And in that moment, it wasn't just the remote in his hand that looked powerless.
It was him.
Elias's face twitched—an ugly mix of rage and disbelief clouding his features. His fingers curled tightly around the useless remote before tossing it aside with a sharp clatter.
"I don't care what you think you've built," he hissed. "You're handing her over. Now."
He didn't wait for consent. With a sharp gesture, his men advanced.
The prototype stood motionless, still as steel, though I could see her fingers twitching. Her gaze tracked every step of the men approaching her. Her processors must've been screaming warnings—defense protocols ready to engage—but she didn't move.
She didn't fight.
Because I asked her to trust.
And she did.
"Prototype," Elias barked. "Step forward. You belong to me now."
Her eyes didn't even flicker toward him. She looked straight at me.
"Nyx," she said, voice steady, though I could hear the tremble buried beneath. "I was not designed to harm. You built me to protect, not destroy."
My heart clenched.
"I know," I whispered. "You don't have to hurt anyone. Not for them. Not for me."
But Elias wasn't listening.
He reached forward himself this time, determined to grab her arm—to drag her away like property.
He never got the chance.
Nico shoved himself between them so fast it knocked the wind out of Elias's chest.
"You so much as lay a hand on her," Nico growled, "and I swear to god, Elias, we'll see how long you last without your teeth."
Behind him, David and Mr. Francoise moved, each one stepping protectively in front of the prototype. Professor Aldrin didn't move, but his voice rang cold as steel.
"You've crossed enough lines for one day, Elias. Walk away. Before you lose more than just your pride."
Elias's men hesitated. It was six of them. But the fire in our eyes… the sheer conviction in our stance… made them pause.
Elias's lip curled into a sneer, the glint in his eyes no longer just greedy, it was rabid. Hungry.
"I don't care what safeguards you've laced into her code," he hissed. "I will have her. Before someone else gets the chance to steal what's rightfully mine."
With that single, venomous declaration, chaos broke loose.
Elias's men surged forward without hesitation. I barely had time to move before the sound of bodies crashing echoed through the lab. The prototype stood unmoving, torn between protecting herself and honoring the trust etched into her core.
"Don't let them near her!" I shouted, shoving forward with Nico at my side.
He didn't hesitate. One of Elias's men lunged, but Nico ducked low, slamming the heel of his palm upward into the man's jaw with bone-crunching force. Another guard tried to flank from the left, only to be blocked by David, who slammed his knee hard into the man's stomach.
"Stay down," David warned, fury crackling in every word.
Mr. Francoise tackled another one before they reached the prototype, fists flying with precision far too smooth for a man in a suit. Even Professor Aldrin stepped in, striking with calm, deliberate force that betrayed years of experience far beyond academia.
We held the line.
We held her line.
And still, she didn't fight. She stood there, fists trembling, shoulders tense. Every instinct screaming to move, but still she waited for me.
But Elias, Elias wouldn't leave empty-handed.
He backed up, eyes wild, blood on his lip from the scuffle. His voice rang cold, sharp as frost.
"Guns," he said simply. "Draw them."
The order hung in the air like a death sentence.
His men obeyed.
Six muzzles rose as one, aimed directly at me, at Nico, at all of us.
Everything froze. Even the hum of the lab equipment seemed to hold its breath.
"Step back," Elias said, calm again, like a man with nothing left to lose. "Or I'll take her over your corpses."
We'd fought hard. Tooth and nail. But none of us were armed, not with live rounds. We weren't soldiers.
Not in this kind of war.
Reluctantly, Nico raised his hands, stepping back slowly, his chest still heaving with resistance. David did the same, eyes burning holes into Elias. One by one, we moved, hands up, lips tight with rage and defeat.
But not the prototype.
She hadn't moved an inch.
Her gaze stayed locked with mine, wide, searching, trembling.
I knew that look.
She wasn't scared of the guns.
She was scared of what I might say next.
What I had to say next.
"Don't move," I said softly, my voice cracking.
She blinked once.
And didn't.