Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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The headquarters of the organization "Justice" was located in a building that no passerby would ever give a second glance. A former industrial complex on the outskirts of the metropolis, whose facades still remembered the soot of the twentieth century, now hid behind tinted glass and reinforced ceilings what was not meant for the eyes of ordinary people. Inside, it smelled of ozone from the uninterruptible servers, antiseptic, and something else indefinably metallic—not even a smell, but an aftertaste that settled on the tongue of those who spent more than ten hours straight there.

Cecilia Immergreen entered the main hall at exactly seven in the morning, as she had done every day for the past four years. Her steps were silent—the rubber soles of her army boots dampened the sound of contact with the tiled floor. The lights in the hall weren't on at full power yet, only the duty lamps glowed along the walls, picking out the silhouettes of workstations, monitors, and navigation panels from the semi-darkness. She didn't turn on the main light, walked to her terminal at the back of the hall, sat down in the chair, and placed her hands on the desk.

Hands. Prosthetics. High-precision, custom-made, with a matte ivory finish and fine joints that moved absolutely silently. Cecilia didn't remember what it was like to have real, living hands. She remembered little from the time "before." Sometimes, in rare moments of inactivity, when her brain wasn't occupied with data analysis or mission planning, she tried to summon the feeling of warmth from another's touch, but nothing came of it. These attempts were like trying to remember the taste of food you'd never eaten. So she stopped trying about six months after she woke up in the Justice rehabilitation center with a signed contract on the bedside table and new limbs that she still had to learn to use.

She hadn't applied for this job. She was chosen, rehabilitated, trained, and presented with the fait accompli. But in four years, she hadn't found the strength or the desire to contest it. The work turned out to be something she was good at. She liked the logic of operations, the cleanliness of execution, the predictability of results with correctly structured input. "Justice" had become her context, her habitat. A duty that wasn't a burden, because it left no room for doubt about her own necessity.

The terminal monitor blinked, loading the nightly summary. Seven detainees, two prevented terrorist attacks, one failure—a courier lost a tail in the port district. Cecilia's fingers ran over the keyboard. The metal clicked softly, accepting the pressure. She opened the courier's personnel file. A rookie. Yesterday was their first solo mission. Murin, Gigi. In the photo in the corner of the screen—a round face, light hair tied in two pigtails, and eyes that held something Cecilia found difficult to classify. Not fear. Not uncertainty. Rather, a kind of seething, barely contained energy that the camera had managed to capture even in a static shot.

Cecilia scrolled further through the dossier. Height 153 centimeters, weight—the field caused slight bewilderment: the figure clearly didn't match the physical parameters, as if someone had joked or entered the data in a different measurement system. She mentally noted it as a data entry error and moved on. Code name "Chaser." Specialization—pursuit, working on intuition. Intuition. Cecilia lingered on this word. She didn't trust intuition. Intuition was a synonym for unpredictability, and unpredictability meant risk. She preferred calculations, probabilities, verified algorithms. The dossier noted that the rookie had trouble remembering routes and avoided situations requiring lengthy analysis because "it gives her a headache."

Cecilia closed the file. She never had headaches. Sometimes she thought that was probably also part of the price she paid for her new hands and the right to keep breathing.

People started filtering into the hall. Operatives from the shift change, analysts, technical staff. The lights came on fully, and the room filled with the hum of voices, the shuffle of feet, the clatter of mugs on the coffee machine counter. Cecilia remained in her chair, not turning to face those entering. She drank black tea without sugar from a thermos mug she brought with her every morning. Tea was the one weakness she allowed herself. The brewing ceremony, water temperature, tea leaf grade—these were rituals in which she found a semblance of comfort. Her metal fingers held the warmth perfectly without transferring it further, and the mug seemed to her just an object, a vessel, devoid of the usual function of warming palms for others.

"Immergreen," a voice sounded behind her. The voice was low, with barely perceptible melodic notes that made it almost musical, even when its owner was just pronouncing a subordinate's surname.

Cecilia turned. Elizabeth Rose Bloodflame stood two steps away, holding a tablet with data. Tall, fit, with the perfect posture of someone used to commanding and bearing responsibility. Her scarlet hair was pulled back in a strict ponytail, her lips wore the usual dark lipstick, her gaze held the cold focus of a leader who never allows herself to relax within the headquarters' walls.

"Personal meeting with Murin," Elizabeth continued without preamble. "In one hour, the briefing room. You're bringing her up to speed on the port sector."

Cecilia blinked. Once. This gesture was enough to express everything she thought about such an order. Introducing rookies to the current situation was usually done by instructors, not field analysts with her experience and clearance level.

"My shift ends at sixteen hundred," she replied evenly. "Briefings are not in my job description regulations."

"From sixteen to seventeen, you're with Murin," Elizabeth didn't raise her voice, but a steely note appeared that left no room for discussion. "She's your responsibility for the next month. Orders from above."

The last two words sounded like a sentence. Cecilia knew what "above" meant. The Board of Trustees, people who never appeared at headquarters, but whose decisions were law. She didn't ask why the choice fell on her. In "Justice," questions of "why" were only asked by rookies. Veterans simply obeyed.

"Alright," she said and turned back to her monitor, indicating the conversation was over.

Elizabeth lingered a second longer than necessary. Cecilia felt that gaze on her back—heavy, scrutinizing, as if the commander was trying to see something in her that wasn't visible under normal light. Then Elizabeth's heels clicked on the tiles, retreating towards the command section.

The briefing room smelled of plastic and ozone—terminals worked here too, though not as intensively as in the main hall. Cecilia arrived five minutes early, turned on the projection panel, and displayed a map of the port district with overlaid data on the movements of persons of interest. Everything was ready. All that was left was to wait.

Gigi Murin burst into the room at exactly eight, not a second late, but as if she were being chased. The door swung open with a loud bang, hitting the wall, and the rookie froze on the threshold, trying to catch her breath. Her light pigtails were disheveled, there was a pillow crease on her cheek, her uniform sat slightly askew, as if she'd pulled it on while running.

"I'm not late!" she blurted out instead of a greeting. "Time-wise, I'm exactly on time, it's just the elevators are slow, and the stairs... on the stairs I counted the steps, lost count, and went back down because I thought it was the wrong floor, then I met Raora, she asked where I was running, I told her, she said the briefing room is on the third, and I was on the fourth, but I'm not late, really!"

Cecilia looked at her, expression unchanged. The stream of words cascaded over her like a waterfall, carrying no useful information, only noise. She noted to herself: agitated, pulse elevated, pupils dilated—either the result of running, or a feature of her nervous system. Probably the latter. The dossier said "energetic," but reality exceeded expectations.

"Sit down," Cecilia said, once the pause had stretched long enough for Gigi to understand—silence was expected.

Gigi blinked, stopped mid-word, obediently walked to a chair and plopped down, still breathing heavily. She looked at Cecilia with undisguised curiosity, studying her face, hands, posture. Her gaze lingered on the prosthetics longer than it should have, but there was no disgust or pity in it—only pure, almost childlike interest.

"Your hands are cool," Gigi breathed out, without thinking. "Do they shoot? Like, lasers or something?"

"No," Cecilia replied shortly. "They are designed for typing and holding objects. And for opening doors. Regular doors, no lasers."

Gigi snorted, clearly disappointed, but immediately perked up again.

"But they assigned me to you! They said you'd teach me not to get lost. I don't actually get lost. I just... sometimes choose the wrong path. Because that path seems more right. Intuitively."

Cecilia slowly exhaled through her nose. She was already regretting not asking Elizabeth to reconsider the order. Working with this person promised to be a trial comparable to interrogating a particularly resilient subject.

"Intuition," she repeated. "Your intuition yesterday led to the surveillance target being lost in the port district. You went right because you 'felt' the target turned there. The target went left. Result—eight hours of work for the external surveillance team wasted."

Gigi pouted but didn't argue. She just muttered something unintelligible under her breath.

"Show me," Cecilia pointed to the map projected on the panel. "Reconstruct your route. Tell me what you were basing your decisions on."

For the next forty minutes, Cecilia listened and watched. Gigi spoke quickly, gestured, jumped up from her chair, approached the map, poked her finger at the relevant points. Her explanations were chaotic, but a strange logic ran through them, one that couldn't be algorithmized. She didn't remember streets by name, but she registered smells, wall colors, the shape of clouds overhead, random sounds. In her retelling, the chase turned into a kaleidoscope of sensations, where every decision was dictated not by analysis, but by an immediate impression.

"Here it smelled fishier than it should, and I thought—if I'm the target and want to hide, I'd go where it stinks, to throw off trackers," Gigi explained, pointing to the spot on the map where she'd made the wrong turn. "And he, apparently, thought differently. Or didn't like fish. Stupid, right?"

"Stupid," Cecilia agreed. "Because you projected your own logic, based on irrational premises, onto the target. You don't know if he likes fish. You had no data on his sensory preferences. You were guided by emotion, not fact."

Gigi sighed, but didn't take offense. She just nodded, acknowledging defeat in this round, and smiled. She had a strange smile—not forced, not perfunctory, but genuine, as if she was truly glad for the chance to learn, even if the lesson was unpleasant.

"Okay," she said. "I'll try. Promise. But if my intuition suddenly screams again—I won't be able to shut it up. It's loud."

Cecilia looked at her for a long moment, trying to figure out if she was joking or being serious. It was impossible to tell from Gigi 's face. It was open, mobile, every feeling reflected instantly, without filters. Cecilia was used to people who could keep a straight face, hide emotions, calculate reactions. Gigi was the complete opposite—a walking emoji, a picture book for the visually impaired.

"Briefing over," Cecilia said, turning off the panel. "Tomorrow at six a.m., departure to the port. Practical exercise. Dress code—field clothes, no identifying marks. Questions?"

"Will we have time for breakfast?" Gigi immediately asked. "Without breakfast, I'm not human. I turn into an angry gremlin that bites."

Cecilia blinked. Twice. That was a new record.

"You'll have time," she replied after a pause. "The cafeteria opens at five."

"At FIVE?!" Gigi's eyes widened to the size of saucers. "That's night! That's not morning, that's torture!"

"That's the work schedule," Cecilia corrected. "Get used to it."

She stood up, gathered her tablet, and headed for the exit, but stopped at the door, hearing noise behind her. Gigi was trying to get up from her chair, but apparently her bag strap had caught on the armrest, and now she was tugging, trying to free herself, cursing softly and hissing.

"Need help?" Cecilia asked without much hope the answer would be negative.

"No-no, I'm fine, I'm fine," Gigi puffed, tugged harder, the chair tipped over, and she crashed to the floor with it, hitting her head on the wall with a dull thud. "Ow. It's fine. All good... Ow."

Cecilia closed her eyes for a second. Then opened them, walked over, extended her metal hand, and with one precise movement unhooked the strap from the armrest. Gigi froze, looking up at her, and suddenly burst out laughing—ringingly, heartily, completely unconcerned with how it looked.

"Thanks," she breathed, getting up and dusting herself off. "You're cool. I could tell right away. So calm, like a rock. And those hands... Cool."

Cecilia didn't answer. She walked out into the corridor, and only when the door closed behind her did she allow herself to stop for a moment and listen to herself. Inside, it was empty and level, as always. Neither irritation, nor sympathy, nor curiosity. Only a statement of fact: this person would be her problem for the next month. And, judging by everything, a serious one. Because Gigi Murin was exactly what Cecilia didn't understand and couldn't find a place for in her coordinate system—a living, noisy, chaotic element that couldn't be forced into the framework of reports and protocols.

She walked further down the corridor towards the main hall, thinking that tomorrow at five a.m. she'd have to drink her tea an hour earlier than usual. This disrupted the ritual. It created inconvenience. But orders are orders, and duty is duty. She would manage. She always managed.

The main hall was noisy, as usual. Cecilia walked to her terminal, sat in her chair, and her metal fingers settled habitually on the keyboard. In two hours, her shift would end. Then sleep, then an early wake-up, then the port and that rookie who laughs when she falls off a chair and calls her cool because she has prosthetics that don't shoot lasers.

She opened the morning's incident summary and immersed herself in work, shutting out everything extraneous. The hum of voices faded, became background noise, insignificant. Only numbers, facts, probabilities remained. Her world. Clear, predictable, safe. And somewhere on the periphery of this world, like a persistent fly that couldn't be swatted, buzzed the thought of tomorrow, of the disrupted ritual, and of a person who thinks intuition is more important than facts.

Cecilia dismissed the thought with a force of will worthy of special forces training. The metal on her hands glinted faintly in the monitor light. She poured more tea and continued working. Precisely until sixteen hundred hours.

---

The port greeted them with the smell of diesel fuel, fog, and rotting wood. Five in the morning in this district of the city had a special, incomparable flavor—a mix of pre-dawn dampness and that watchful silence that exists only in places where life teems during the day and freezes at night, only to stir again by morning.

Cecilia stood by the pier railing, peering into the gray shroud that enveloped the harbor. She had arrived forty minutes early, as she always did. Survey the area, check landmarks, note possible escape routes and observation points. Routine. Ritual. Her metal fingers gripped the thermos mug of tea, and even here, on the windswept pier, the temperature of the drink remained merely an abstraction for her—a number she knew but couldn't feel.

Gigi emerged from the fog like a ghost, if ghosts could stomp, trip, and loudly curse under their breath. She materialized from the white murk twenty meters away, stumbled over a bollard, dropped her paper coffee cup, caught it mid-air, spilled half on her jacket, and froze, seeing the figure by the railing.

"I'm not late!" she shouted, even before getting closer, as if this was the main thing to convey to command first and foremost.

Cecilia didn't turn. She looked at the water, where the vague outlines of a container ship were becoming visible through the fog.

"I know," she replied, as Gigi ran up and stopped beside her, breathing heavily and trying to wipe the coffee stain off her sleeve. "Seven minutes until the operation starts. You made it."

Gigi sniffled, shivered from the cold, and looked mournfully at her ruined coffee. Then she shifted her gaze to Cecilia, to her perfectly straight back, to the mug in her metal fingers, to the face that in the pre-dawn twilight seemed carved from the same material as the prosthetics.

"Do you even get cold?" she asked without any ulterior motive. "Your jacket's thin. And those hands... Do they feel the cold?"

Cecilia turned her head. Slowly, as if giving Gigi time to realize the question might be inappropriate. But there was nothing in the rookie's eyes except genuine curiosity. She just wanted to know. Like a child asking why the sky is blue.

"The prosthetics are equipped with temperature sensors," Cecilia replied after a pause. "I receive information about the temperature of the surface I'm touching. But it's information, not sensation. You probably wouldn't understand the difference."

"Uh-huh," Gigi nodded, as if that explained everything. "So you know the mug is hot, but you don't feel it burning. Handy. Yesterday I burned my tongue on pizza. Because I didn't know—I felt it was hot, but I thought, I'll blow on it and it'll be fine. Didn't work."

Cecilia blinked. Once. Information about pizza and a burned tongue had no bearing on the current operation and therefore shouldn't concern her. But it somehow lodged in her memory, like a minor detail an analyst notes "for the record" without immediate application.

"The operation," Cecilia said, steering the conversation back on course. "Look."

She took out her tablet, turned the screen brightness to minimum, and unfolded the map. Gigi moved closer, breathing out the smell of coffee and something else sweet, as if she'd grabbed a snack on the way that operatives weren't supposed to eat before a mission.

"See that container ship?" Cecilia pointed at the silhouette in the fog. "The Nord Breeze. According to our intel, in hold number four, containers marked 7-Alpha, there's cargo that interests us. The organization can't conduct an official inspection—jurisdiction, port of registry, diplomatic pouches. But we can set up surveillance and record who comes to pick up the cargo. Your task—follow the unloading crew. Not the cargo. The people. Those who approach the 7-Alpha container first, those who pay excessive attention, those who seem nervous. Remember faces, mannerisms, distinguishing features. No contact. Just observation. Questions?"

Gigi peered at the map, moving her lips as if silently rehearsing the route, and suddenly looked up at Cecilia.

"Why me?" she asked. "You said I messed up the surveillance. Why send me again?"

Cecilia put the tablet back in her jacket pocket. A good question. She'd been asking herself that for the last half hour, while drinking tea and waiting. The answer came not from logic, but from how the order was phrased.

"Because you're not supposed to follow," she said. "You're supposed to notice. They're different things. Surveillance requires stealth, patience, the ability to be a shadow. You failed at that. Noticing means being embedded in the environment, letting information pass through you, not analyzing it, but absorbing it. They say you're good at that."

"Who says?" Gigi grew wary.

"Raora Panthera," Cecilia replied, and for the first time that morning, something akin to a shadow of emotion passed through her voice. "She oversees HR and psychological testing. She says you score seventy percent on the sensory perception scale. That's above average."

Gigi beamed, clearly flattered, but quickly caught herself.

"And you? What's your score?"

"I have different indicators," Cecilia didn't elaborate. She had no indicators on this scale at all. After rehabilitation, they tested her for everything possible and discovered that some parts of her brain responsible for emotional coloring of perception operated in economy mode. She saw the world clearly, sharply, in detail. But it evoked no response in her. It was neither bad nor good. It was simply a given she existed with.

They moved along the pier. Cecilia walked with a steady, measured pace, Gigi trotted beside her, sometimes running ahead, sometimes falling behind to examine some detail—a rusty chain, a seagull on a piling, writing on a barrel. She absorbed the surroundings greedily, without filter, and Cecilia noted this peripherally as part of the work process, though she usually didn't pay attention to partners' behavior.

"Over there," Gigi said suddenly, stopping and grabbing Cecilia's arm above the elbow. She grabbed it and immediately pulled her hand back, looking at it in surprise. "Hard," she commented. "And cold. Are the sensors beeping?"

"Information recorded," Cecilia replied, not looking at her. "What's 'over there'?"

Gigi pointed at a group of dockworkers smoking near a shed about fifty meters away. In the gray light of the nascent morning, they were almost indistinguishable—identical jackets, identical helmets, identical postures of people killing time before their shift started.

"The one on the far left," Gigi said. "He's not a worker."

Cecilia squinted, peering. The far left stood leaning his back against the shed wall, hands in pockets, head down. Nothing remarkable. A jacket like everyone else's, a helmet like everyone else's.

"Basis?"

"He's smoking, but he's not inhaling," Gigi answered quickly. "He holds the cigarette in his left hand but flicks ash with his right. His boots are clean. The others' are dirty because they've already walked around the area. And he's not looking at the sea or the other workers. He's looking at the container ship. For about two minutes now. Without looking away."

Cecilia remained silent. She took out her tablet, took several photos through the lens with good magnification, noted the time and coordinates. The details Gigi had picked up were small, but they formed a picture. Cecilia herself would probably have noticed them after ten or fifteen minutes of systematic observation. Gigi noticed them in ten seconds.

"Good," she said. "Let's continue."

Gigi beamed as if she'd been awarded a medal. But she remained silent, suppressing the torrent of words ready to burst out, and Cecilia noted this as progress too. The rookie could learn, even when it seemed she wasn't listening.

They found an observation position on the upper level of a warehouse that overlooked the wharf. Cecilia set up a portable monitor and connected the cameras the technical team had placed earlier. Gigi settled on the windowsill, tucking her legs under her and clutching her cold coffee like a lifeline.

"Tell me what you see," Cecilia requested, not taking her eyes off the monitor. "Everything. Without analysis. Just name it."

And Gigi began to talk. The stream of words that usually irritated Cecilia with its chaos now took on a strange structure. Gigi listed colors, movements, sounds drifting in from the wharf, smells the wind carried through the slightly open window. She talked about how a seagull tilted its head before taking flight, how one of the workers adjusted his helmet twice in a row, as if checking it was still there, how a sunbeam pierced the fog exactly where the container with the right marking stood.

Cecilia listened and cross-referenced. Sometimes she asked Gigi to clarify a detail she'd mentioned in passing, and she readily returned to it, adding new strokes. After an hour, when unloading began and people started moving towards the containers, Gigi suddenly stopped mid-sentence and leaned forward, nearly falling off the windowsill.

"That one," she breathed. "In the blue helmet. He's not walking to the container. He's circling around it. Too smoothly, like he's pretending to walk past. He's going to trip now."

The man in the blue helmet tripped exactly as he drew level with the 7-Alpha container. Fell, braced himself on a pile of crates, got up, brushed himself off, and walked on, not even glancing at the container. From the outside—the ordinary clumsiness of a tired worker after his shift. But Cecilia had already zoomed in and captured his face, his hands, the direction of his gaze before and after the fall.

"He left a marker," she said, as the image cleared. "On the crate he leaned on. A tiny piece of gum, stuck to the corner. For those picking up the cargo at night, it's a guide."

Gigi looked at her with such an expression, as if Cecilia had just read a stranger's mind from a distance.

"You saw that?" she asked. "I didn't even realize he'd stuck gum. I just felt he was fake."

"You felt," Cecilia confirmed, continuing to record data. "I saw, analyzed, and drew a conclusion. Different tools. One result."

Gigi was silent for a moment, thinking it over, then asked quietly, almost timidly:

"Can you do that? Feel?"

Cecilia looked up from the monitor. Through the window poured not the pre-dawn twilight, but full morning light, cold and clear. It made Gigi's face too open, too alive for this room smelling of dust and old wood.

"No," Cecilia answered simply. "I don't feel. I know."

This could have sounded like a sentence, an admission of inadequacy. But Gigi perceived it differently. She nodded, as if she'd heard something important and understandable, and stared out the window again, watching the wharf.

"I guess that's convenient," she said thoughtfully. "Not feeling. When you feel too much, sometimes you want to turn it off. But you can't. It just comes at you. Look, see that one with the red beard, he's going to scratch his head now. See? He's done it twice already. Probably has eczema there, or it's a nervous habit."

Cecilia moved the camera. The man with the red beard scratched his head.

"Noted," she said.

They sat in that warehouse until midday. Cecilia recorded, Gigi commented, and gradually their interaction turned into something vaguely resembling coordinated work. Cecilia stopped noticing the chatter, the way one stops noticing the hum of ventilation when it runs without fail. And Gigi, for the first time in a long while, it seemed, felt that her ability to see the world differently wasn't a hindrance, but a help.

When the unloading shift ended and the 7-Alpha container remained on the wharf, keeping company with a dozen others awaiting night shipment, Cecilia packed up the equipment and stood.

"Returning," she said. "Data needs to be transferred to the analysis department by seventeen hundred."

Gigi jumped off the windowsill, stretched her stiff legs, and suddenly asked:

"Can I stick with you? I mean, not just today. In general. I was assigned to you, right? Can I be with you? I won't get in the way. I'll be quiet. Well, almost quiet."

Cecilia looked at her for a long moment. Inside, as always, it was empty. Neither sympathy nor irritation. Only cold calculation: this person had proven useful today. Her abilities complemented what Cecilia herself lacked. Together, they could be more effective than separately.

"The decision isn't mine," she replied. "But I'll note in my report that the interaction was productive."

Gigi beamed again. This ability of hers to glow from within at the slightest pretext seemed as alien to Cecilia as if she'd suddenly grown wings. But she didn't judge. She merely stated: Gigi Murin is a creature that reacts to encouragement brightly and directly. It could be used in training.

They left the warehouse, crossed the port area, and got into the service car parked two blocks away. Gigi buckled up, took a sandwich from her backpack that had already become something formless, and bit into it with appetite.

"Want some?" she offered with her mouth full, holding out half.

"No," Cecilia refused, starting the engine. "I don't eat while driving."

"Do you eat at all?" Gigi persisted. "You're so thin. And those hands. Do you eat with them? Like, hold a spoon?"

Cecilia pulled out of the parking lot, not answering. The questions were tactless, but Gigi , it seemed, didn't know any other way. She asked whatever came into her head, without a filter of social conventions. Cecilia could have been offended, if she knew how to be offended. But she merely noted that the topic of prosthetics sparked heightened interest in her new partner, and decided that sooner or later this interest would fade on its own once Gigi got used to it.

"Yes," she said, when the pause stretched. "With specialized cutlery with reinforced grips. The prosthetics are equipped with pressure sensors; I control the force of grip. Dishes don't suffer."

Gigi snorted, processing this information, and took another bite of her sandwich. The car filled with the smell of sausage and bread, and Cecilia lowered the window a couple of centimeters, letting in cold air. Not because the smell bothered her—she didn't distinguish smells as pleasant or unpleasant, only as the presence or absence of chemical compounds in the air. It was just the proper thing to do. Service vehicles shouldn't smell of food.

They returned to headquarters by three. Cecilia submitted the data, wrote her report, noting in the "special remarks" section Gigi's observations that led to the identification of the marker on the container. Elizabeth Rose Bloodflame, who received the report, read that part twice, lifted her gaze to Cecilia, and asked:

"She actually saw this? Or did you prompt her?"

"She saw it," Cecilia replied. "I recorded the fact after she pointed out the subject's suspicious behavior."

Elizabeth leaned back in her chair, and something akin to interest flickered in her eyes. She rarely showed emotion openly, preferring to keep her distance, but now, it seemed, she was surprised.

"Good," she said. "So assigning her to you wasn't a waste. Continue in the same vein. In two weeks, a new operation; you'll take her along. Murin is still a trainee, but if this keeps up, we'll transfer her to junior staff."

Cecilia nodded and left the office. In the corridor, Gigi was waiting, apparently having lurked there the whole time the debriefing lasted. She was bouncing on the spot with impatience and, seeing Cecilia, froze, drilling her with her gaze.

"So? What did she say? Am I getting fired?"

"No," Cecilia replied, walking past. "Operation in two weeks. You're in."

Gigi made a sound like a squeak and ran after her, showering her with thanks and promises to be useful. Cecilia listened with half an ear, thinking that today had disrupted another of her rituals—she'd spent her lunch break not in the cafeteria, but in the car, listening to chatter about sandwiches and sausage. Tomorrow she'd need to get back to her usual schedule.

But tomorrow, as it turned out, the usual schedule didn't happen. Because at seven the next morning, when Cecilia entered the main hall, a call signal was already flashing on her terminal, and sitting on the chair beside it was Gigi with a thermos mug in her hands—exactly the same as Cecilia's own.

"I thought," Gigi said, holding out the mug, "if you drink tea in the mornings, I should too. Only I put coffee in it. I don't like tea. But the mug is the same. Symbolic, right?"

Cecilia took the mug. Her metal fingers closed around the warm ceramic side. Sensors registered the temperature—sixty degrees, coffee, probably with milk and sugar. Information, without value.

"Thank you," she said. "But I only drink tea."

"Oh," Gigi wasn't the least bit upset. "Well, I'll drink it then. You go get yours. I'll wait. We're working together today, right? You said we'd process the port data. I'll help. I learn fast."

Cecilia looked at her. Then at the mug in her hand. Then at the monitor with its flashing call signal. Somewhere deep inside, in the area that in other people handled irritation or tenderness, it was empty in her. But somewhere on the periphery of her consciousness, in the department responsible for analyzing non-standard situations, it was noted: this person came an hour early, bought a mug like hers, and is now sitting and waiting because she wants to be useful.

The motives were clear. A desire for approval, a need to belong to a group, an attempt to establish contact through imitation. Cecilia knew this from the psychology textbooks she'd studied at the rehabilitation center. Knew it, but had never encountered it personally, because no one had ever tried to contact her outside of official necessity before.

"Alright," she said, placing the mug on the desk. "Wait. I'll pour tea and we'll start."

She walked to the water cooler, feeling Gigi's gaze on her back. Her metal fingers gripped the edge of a cup, pouring boiling water. There was no time to brew tea properly today—the ritual had to be reduced to a minimum. Cecilia noted this as a forced deviation from the norm, caused by another person's presence.

Returning to the terminal, she sat in her chair, opened the data, and began to work. Gigi sat beside her, sipping her coffee and staying silent. Unusually long for her. Cecilia glanced sideways and saw Gigi looking not at the screen, but at her hands. At the prosthetics methodically working the keys.

"They're beautiful," Gigi said quietly. "Really. I was thinking yesterday. You probably don't like people staring at them. But I'm not staring out of pity. They're just... different. Like you're not quite from here. From the future, maybe."

Cecilia stopped. Her fingers froze over the keyboard. She looked at her own hands—at the matte plastic, the fine joints, the perfect lines. She had never thought of them as beautiful. They were functional. They were part of her, as integral as her ability to breathe or see. But the word "beautiful" applied to them was a first.

"They are prosthetics," she said. "They perform the function of lost limbs. Nothing more."

Gigi shrugged, not arguing. She sipped her coffee and stared at the monitor, ready to work. Cecilia returned to the data, but for the next few minutes, a corner of her mind kept returning to this conversation, replaying it like a file to be analyzed for hidden meanings.

There were no hidden meanings. Gigi had said what she thought. Simply because she didn't know any other way.

Cecilia exhaled and continued working. Two hours later, a message arrived from Elizabeth: an attempt had been made during the night to breach the 7-Alpha container; the capture team had taken three individuals; the marker left by the man in the blue helmet had served as bait. The report specifically noted the value of the data obtained during the morning observation.

Gigi, when shown the message, beamed from ear to ear and started fidgeting in her chair, visibly restraining the urge to jump for joy.

"It worked!" she breathed. "I told you that guy was fake! And you said—analysis. And together it worked!"

"Yes," Cecilia agreed. "Together it worked."

She looked again at her hands, then at Gigi, then at the screen with the report. Somewhere deep in her torso, in the area where other people's hearts beat, she had a rhythm stabilizer—a small device that ensured the uninterrupted functioning of what remained of her heart muscle. It was working steadily now, as always. No malfunctions, no extraneous impulses.

But when Gigi smiled at her across the desk, Cecilia suddenly thought that perhaps analysis wasn't the only way to understand the world. And that sometimes chaos could be not a hindrance, but a tool.

The thought was alien, not fitting into the system. Cecilia filed it away for later, to be revisited when she had free time and the opportunity to calmly ponder this phenomenon.

There was no free time for the next two weeks. There was work, reports, night missions and daytime analyses. And there was a person nearby who was always where she needed to be, asked strange questions, and brought coffee every morning in a mug like the one Cecilia drank tea from.

She had almost gotten used to it. Almost stopped noticing. Almost.

But every morning, entering the main hall and seeing Gigi on the adjacent chair, she noted to herself: present. Like a sensor registering an object's presence within range. Without evaluation, without emotion. Just a fact.

Which repeated day after day, becoming part of a new reality.

---

Headquarters greeted them with the smell of freshly brewed coffee and the quiet hum of the ventilation systems. Seven in the morning, Tuesday, mid-month, and outside the windows of the main hall, the gray sky pressed down on the city with its habitual autumn weight. Cecilia entered, carrying her thermos mug of tea in her metal fingers, and paused for a second at the threshold, scanning the room with her customary gaze.

Gigi was already there. Sitting in her chair, one leg tucked under her, quickly sketching something in a notebook, biting her lip in concentration. Beside her on the desk stood two mugs—one with cold coffee, the second empty, prepared for Cecilia, though she never drank from someone else's cup. A gesture that had become a ritual. Meaningless, yet repeated every morning for two weeks.

Cecilia walked to her terminal, sat down, placed her mug on its coaster. Her metal fingers clicked softly as they released their grip. She glanced at the monitor, where an incoming message icon was already flashing with an "urgent" classification, but before opening it, she turned her head towards Gigi.

"What are you drawing?"

Gigi looked up, and that same smile spread across her face—the one that, over two weeks, had stopped seeming alien to Cecilia. Almost stopped.

"A map," Gigi said, turning her notebook around. "Of that area we were in yesterday. I want to remember it, but in my own way. Here, see, I marked where it smelled like baked goods, and here where there was construction noise, and here where a cat sat on a windowsill watching us. I remember things better by these kinds of landmarks than by street names."

Cecilia looked at the page. Indeed, a map—but not topographical, a sensory one. Streets were marked not by lines, but by patches of smells, sounds, random details. The cat on the windowsill, for instance, was drawn with exaggeratedly large eyes and labeled "witness number one."

"Non-standard," Cecilia said after a pause. "But if the system works, it doesn't need changing."

Gigi beamed and snapped her notebook shut. Cecilia turned back to the monitor and opened the message.

The text was brief, like everything emanating from Elizabeth Rose Bloodflame. Operation "Silent Dock." Objective—infiltration into the infrastructure of a ship repair yard, where, according to intelligence, a large batch of forged documents for arms transit was being prepared. Task: two days, full immersion mode, working as a pair. Cecilia—on-site coordination and analysis, Gigi —gathering primary information through environmental contact. Postscript at the bottom: "Murin is cleared for field work with the right to make tactical decisions within the approved plan. Responsibility—Immergreen."

Cecilia read the message twice. Then she looked at Gigi, who was feigning nonchalance, twirling the empty mug in her hands, but was practically vibrating with curiosity.

"Get ready," Cecilia said. "Departure in an hour. A two-day operation. Take warm clothes and a change of shoes. No personal items with identifying marks."

Gigi froze, processing the information, and then bounced in her chair so suddenly she nearly tipped the desk over.

"Two days? In the field? Together?" she blurted. "I won't let you down! Promise! I'll be like a mouse! Well, like a mouse that sometimes rustles, but quietly!"

Cecilia blinked. Once.

"A mouse that rustles," she repeated. "Try to keep the rustling within acceptable limits. Go get ready. Meet in the parking lot in fifty minutes."

Gigi dashed off, leaving behind the smell of coffee and a slight mess on the desk. Cecilia looked at the empty mug prepared for her, then at her own, with tea. Her metal fingers closed around the warm ceramic. She finished her tea, placed the mug in the sink by the water cooler, and headed for the exit, mentally running through the gear she'd need to take.

In the parking lot, Gigi was already waiting, bouncing on the spot from cold and impatience. She wore a bulky jacket that was clearly the wrong size, a backpack swollen as if it contained her entire apartment's belongings, and a silly knitted hat with a pompom that she'd pulled down almost to her eyes.

"It's my lucky hat," she explained, catching Cecilia's glance. "I think better in it. Don't ask me why, I don't know. I just do."

Cecilia didn't ask. She opened the trunk of the service SUV, stowed her compact backpack with equipment, and gestured for Gigi to load her luggage. The backpack fit with difficulty, and Cecilia mentally added "control over excess baggage" to the operation plan.

They left five minutes later. Gigi was silent the whole way—a rare occurrence—but the silence was tense, as if she was fighting the urge to bombard the driver with questions, and losing that fight with mixed success. Cecilia drove steadily, observing speed limits and checking her mirrors. The heater was on in the car, and her metal fingers on the steering wheel didn't feel the warmth, but sensors indicated a comfortable temperature.

The ship repair yard greeted them with the smell of metal, oil, and sea water. Huge hangars, slipways, cranes, and everywhere—people in work clothes, bustling between workshops with businesslike efficiency. The cover story was simple and functional: two technical specialists from a subcontracting organization, arrived for a scheduled safety inspection of the premises. The documents prepared by "Justice" would withstand any scrutiny, but Cecilia still felt nervous. Not in the sense of emotions—there were no emotions—but in the sense of heightened readiness for unforeseen circumstances.

They passed through the checkpoint, presenting their passes, and moved deeper into the territory. Gigi swiveled her head in all directions, absorbing, memorizing, recording. Cecilia could see her eyes darting across objects, picking out details, and her lips moving silently, mouthing the incoming information.

"Over there," Gigi whispered, as they passed workshop number three. "Around the corner, a guy in a blue work suit is standing and smoking, but he's not a worker. His boots are new, and he's looking at the gates, not his cigarette."

Cecilia's gaze slid over. The man around the corner was indeed standing, leaning against the wall, pretending to smoke. New boots, clean work suit, gaze fixed on the workshop gates, where a container with markings matching their intelligence was just being unloaded.

"Noted," she said, taking out her tablet and making a notation. "Continue."

Their task for the first day was legal presence—walking the grounds, checking documentation in the administrative building, a few meaningless conversations with locals. All to create an alibi while simultaneously soaking in the environment. Gigi was handling it surprisingly well. She talked to the workers easily and naturally, asked simple questions, laughed at their jokes, and no one would have suspected that this round-faced girl in the silly hat was an operative from a secret organization.

Cecilia observed from the sidelines, took notes, and felt—if this could be called feeling—something like satisfaction from a properly executed process. Gigi was a tool, and the tool was working without fail.

By evening, they had checked into a nearby hotel—a cheap room for two, because separate accommodations would have violated their cover story as traveling specialists. Gigi burst into the room first, threw off her backpack, jacket, and hat, and stretched out on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

"My feet are killing me," she complained. "I've never walked so much in one day. What about you? Do your feet hurt?"

"No," Cecilia replied, carefully hanging her jacket in the wardrobe. "I have standard physical conditioning that allows me to endure up to twelve hours of continuous activity without loss of functionality."

Gigi propped herself up on one elbow and looked at her curiously.

"Do you always talk like that? Like a robot? No offense. It's just... you always phrase things like a report. Even when it's just about feet."

Cecilia paused for a second, considering the question. Then she sat on her bed, placing her metal hands on her knees.

"I don't know how to speak otherwise," she said. "I think in structures. That's how I was taught. Or how it turned out. I don't see a difference."

Gigi snorted but didn't pursue it. Instead, she jumped up, went to the window, and pulled back the curtain.

"Out there," she said, peering into the darkness beyond the glass. "See those lights? That's the port. Something's probably happening there right now. I can sense it."

"Insufficient data for conclusions," Cecilia replied, but she too went to the window. "However, it's logical to assume the night shift will be more active regarding the cargo that interests us."

They stood side-by-side, looking at the distant lights. Cecilia felt the warmth radiating from Gigi—sensors registered infrared radiation, and her brain interpreted it as the presence of another body in close proximity. Nothing more. Just information.

"You know," Gigi said quietly, not turning around, "I used to be afraid they'd kick me out. Of the organization. I don't know how to do anything the normal way. Can't read maps, can't remember routes, can't do mental math. But you taught me there's another way. That my intuition is also a method. Thank you."

Cecilia was silent for a long time. Her metal fingers clenched into a fist and unclenched. She didn't know what to say in situations like this. At the rehabilitation center, they hadn't taught her how to respond to gratitude.

"It wasn't me," she said finally. "It was you. I only created the conditions."

Gigi turned and smiled at her with that smile that, over two weeks, had stopped feeling foreign.

"Conditions are important too," she said. "Okay, I'm hitting the shower. If anything happens—yell loud, I'll hear you even over the water."

She disappeared into the bathroom, and a minute later, the sound of water and muffled singing emerged. Cecilia remained at the window, looking at the port lights and thinking that today had once again disrupted her usual routine. She was spending the night in the same room as another person. She was hearing someone else's singing from the shower. She was standing at the window looking into the darkness not to collect data, but just because she was standing there.

Anomaly. But an anomaly that didn't create a desire to eliminate it.

She stepped away from the window, sat on the bed, and opened her tablet with the day's report. Work distracted her, brought her back to familiar territory, and for the next half hour, she methodically entered data, categorizing observations. By the time Gigi emerged from the shower, wrapped in a towel with wet hair, the report was finished and sent.

"Do you ever relax?" Gigi asked, drying her hair. "Like, just sit and do nothing?"

"Inefficient," Cecilia replied.

"Try it sometime," Gigi flopped onto her bed and stared at the ceiling. "Just lie down and do nothing. Don't think about anything. It's called 'doing nothing.' Very good for the nervous system."

Cecilia looked at her, then at her bed, then at the tablet in her hands. Logic suggested that sleep would be a more effective restorative than aimless lying down. But Gigi was looking at her expectantly, and refusing would create unnecessary tension in the team.

She lay down. Placed her metal arms along her body, closed her eyes. Around her was darkness and silence, except for Gigi's breathing on the neighboring bed. Cecilia listened to herself. The rhythm stabilizer was working steadily. Temperature sensors indicated the room was cool. The prosthetic systems had switched to standby mode, conserving energy.

"Strange, isn't it?" Gigi's voice came from the darkness. "Two weeks ago, we didn't know each other at all. And now here we are, lying in the same room, breathing."

"It's a work process," Cecilia replied.

"Uh-huh," Gigi agreed. "But still strange."

She was silent for a moment, then added:

"Good night, Cecilia."

"Good night," Cecilia replied.

She lay awake for a long time. Eyes closed, listening to another person breathe. The breathing was steady, calm, occasionally interrupted by a snore or muttering. Gigi talked in her sleep—unintelligibly, isolated words. Cecilia registered this as data, attaching no significance.

In the morning, they were awakened by the tablet's signal—an urgent message from Elizabeth. Cecilia read it, sat up in bed, and looked at Gigi, who was struggling to open her eyes and figure out where she was.

"Plan changes," Cecilia said. "The cargo we're waiting for arrives this afternoon, not tomorrow. Infiltration into the workshop needs to happen now."

Gigi was instantly awake, sitting up and staring at her with wide eyes.

"Right now? What about the cover story? Preparation?"

"Cover story remains the same. Preparation on the fly," Cecilia was already up, pulling on her jacket. "We have two hours to get into position inside the workshop before unloading begins. Get dressed. Time's running."

Gigi jumped up, scrambled around the room grabbing things, and five minutes later they were running outside. The morning was gray, drizzling, and Gigi pulled her lucky hat down almost to her nose, sheltering from the damp.

Workshop number three greeted them with the hum of machinery and the smell of metal shavings. They passed through with their passes, nodded to the foreman, who glanced briefly at their documents and waved them through—go ahead, don't interfere. Cecilia led Gigi through a labyrinth of equipment to the part of the workshop that offered a view of the unloading area.

"Over there," she whispered, pointing at the platform behind dirty glass. "The container arrives in an hour. Our task is to record who comes to meet it. No intervention, only observation."

Gigi nodded, and they settled in a corner behind a pile of crates. Cecilia set up portable equipment, adjusted cameras. Gigi pressed her face to the glass, peering at the still-empty platform.

"What if they sense something?" she whispered. "Like, if they have their own observers?"

"Possible," Cecilia agreed. "But our cover story holds. We're technicians, checking systems. If someone approaches, we'll pretend to be busy."

The hour passed slowly. Gigi fidgeted but stayed silent, suppressing her usual chattiness. Cecilia monitored the equipment and, out of the corner of her eye, the surroundings. When the container truck finally rolled onto the platform, she felt—if this could be called feeling—the familiar tension of readiness.

"Look," Gigi breathed, poking a finger at the glass. "Those ones in the dark jackets. They're not port workers. Too clean."

Cecilia was already filming. Four men in dark jackets got out of a minivan and headed for the container. Confident movements, sharp glances. One pulled out a phone, said a few words, and put it away. Unloading began.

"They're nervous," Gigi whispered. "That one with the beard keeps looking around. And the second one's fiddling with a lighter, but he's not smoking. His fingers are shaking."

Cecilia recorded everything: faces, gestures, tattoos on wrists, shoe brands. Data flowed into the tablet, structured, filed into the report. Beside her, Gigi continued whispering observations, and some of them Cecilia also logged, though they seemed illogical—sock color, wind direction, a bird landing on the container at an inopportune moment.

When unloading finished and the container moved deeper into the workshop, Cecilia packed up her equipment and nodded to Gigi—time to leave. They slipped out of the workshop through an emergency exit, merged with the crowd of workers, and half an hour later were sitting in the car, driving away from the yard.

"We did it," Gigi breathed, slumping in her seat and pulling off her hat. "I think I didn't breathe the whole time."

"Data sent," Cecilia said, putting away the tablet. "The capture team is deploying. If everything goes according to plan, the subjects will be detained by evening."

Gigi turned to her and stared with that particular expression she got when she wanted to ask something important.

"Hey," she said. "Do you even like this job? I mean, not as a duty, but just—do you like it?"

Cecilia started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot before answering. The question hung in the air, demanding a response, and she didn't know what to respond. Like? The word had no clear definition for her. She did her job because it was her function. Because without it, she wouldn't know what to do. Because it filled time, structured days, gave meaning to existence.

"I don't know," she said finally. "I don't evaluate work on a 'like—dislike' scale. I evaluate it by effectiveness and result."

Gigi sighed but didn't argue. Just muttered under her breath:

"Difficult with you, Immergreen. But interesting."

They returned to headquarters by lunchtime. Cecilia submitted the data, received confirmation that the capture team had taken all four, and sat down to write her report. Gigi settled beside her, drinking coffee from her favorite mug, and remained silent. Unusually silent for a long time, and Cecilia glanced sideways to check if everything was alright.

"I'm thinking," Gigi said, catching her glance. "About what you said. About effectiveness. I guess it's convenient—not worrying about emotions. Just doing and that's it."

"Convenient," Cecilia agreed, returning to her report. "Doesn't distract."

"But I get upset sometimes," Gigi continued thoughtfully. "Or scared. Or so happy I can't sit still. And that distracts. But if I didn't get distracted, I probably wouldn't notice half the things I notice. Do you understand?"

Cecilia stopped. Her metal fingers froze over the keyboard. She looked at Gigi—at her animated face, at eyes that now held not the usual mischief, but a genuine question.

"No," she answered. "I don't understand. But I accept that it works."

Gigi smiled, and the tension dissipated. She finished her coffee, stood up, and stretched, cracking her joints.

"Okay, I'm going to my room. Sleep. These two days wiped me out like I'd been hauling sacks. You rest too when you're done. Don't spend all your time on reports."

She left, and Cecilia remained sitting, staring at the screen where the cursor blinked at the end of an unfinished sentence. She finished the report, sent it, closed all programs, and only then allowed herself to lean back in her chair and look at the ceiling.

Doing nothing. Gigi said it was beneficial. Cecilia tried—just sat and stared at one spot, not thinking about anything specific. The rhythm stabilizer worked steadily. Prosthetic sensors indicated the room temperature was twenty-two degrees, humidity fifty percent, noise level forty decibels.

Information. Just information. Nothing more.

But somewhere on the periphery of consciousness, in that department responsible for registering anomalies, a sensation remained—not a feeling, but a sensation—that today's conversation had been important. Not for work. For something else.

Cecilia didn't analyze it further. She got up, took her empty mug, washed it in the sink by the water cooler, and put it back in its place. Then she poured herself tea, sat back down, and opened the day's incident summary.

The tea cooled as she read. Her metal fingers held the mug but didn't feel the warmth. Outside, darkness fell; inside, lamps were being lit; the shift gradually dispersed home. Cecilia remained in place, because going home meant going nowhere, and work was her home.

An hour later, Raora Panthera entered the hall. Light, silent, with her inevitable folder in hand and a watchful gaze that seemed to see right through you. She approached Cecilia's terminal, stopped two steps away, and smiled—the perfunctory smile that usually concealed something important.

"Immergreen," she said. "How's it going with the newbie?"

Cecilia looked up. Raora oversaw HR and psychological testing, so the question fell within her competence.

"Progress is being made," she replied. "Murin proved useful during the last operation. Her abilities compensate for my deficiencies in the area of sensory perception."

Raora snorted, clearly pleased with the phrasing. She perched on the edge of the neighboring desk, crossing one leg over the other, and gave Cecilia a long, appraising look.

"And you?" she asked. "How are you doing yourself?"

Cecilia blinked. The question lacked context, making it difficult to answer.

"In what sense?"

"Directly," Raora wasn't in a hurry to explain. "Gigi Murin is a non-standard person. Very alive, very emotional. Working with such people often causes stress in analysts, even if they don't realize it. I want to make sure you're coping."

Cecilia considered the question. Stress? She hadn't experienced stress in four years. Since she'd woken up in the rehabilitation center with new hands and a signed contract, her emotional baseline had remained at a steady zero. Gigi didn't cause her irritation, didn't cause sympathy, didn't cause anything classifiable as an emotional reaction.

"I'm coping," she said. "Murin doesn't create problems. Quite the opposite."

Raora nodded, but something like doubt flickered in her eyes. She stood, straightened her folder, and headed for the exit, but turned at the door.

"You know, Immergreen," she said. "Sometimes people don't notice things changing because the changes happen too slowly. Just be attentive. To yourself, too."

She left, leaving behind the scent of perfume and unspoken words. Cecilia looked at the door, then at her hands, then at the cold tea in her mug.

Be attentive to herself. Why? She knew everything about herself that was necessary for work. The rest didn't matter.

She finished her tea, switched off her terminal, and walked towards the exit. Tomorrow would be a new day, a new shift, and probably Gigi again, with her morning coffee and endless questions. Cecilia had almost gotten used to it. Almost.

Leaving the building, she caught herself thinking that tomorrow morning didn't evoke the familiar feeling of level emptiness. It had acquired a certain definiteness. A point of application. A person who would be sitting in the adjacent chair, waiting for her to pour her tea.

She wouldn't call it anticipation. Rather, a predictable event. As predictable as sunrise or a shift change.

But getting into her car, Cecilia suddenly realized that for the first time in a long while, she had something to predict beyond work reports. And that, perhaps, could be called a change, if she knew how to notice changes in herself.

She didn't. So she simply started the engine and drove home, to her empty apartment, where only silence and tomorrow's early wake-up call awaited her.

Home—a strange word for a place where no one waits. But she had no other. Nor any choice—to consider it home or just a temporary shelter between shifts.

Cecilia didn't think about it. She just opened the door, undressed, lay down, and closed her eyes. Six hours remained until morning. That was enough to recover and be ready for a new workday.

At exactly seven, she would enter the main hall. Gigi would be there. An empty mug, prepared for her, would be on the desk. And a new day would begin, similar to the previous one, but with that elusive difference Cecilia couldn't yet identify.

She fell asleep to the quiet hum of the stabilizer, working in time with what had once been her heart.

---

The "Justice" training ground was located thirty kilometers from the city, in a zone marked on all maps as a closed military installation without a name. Hangars, shooting ranges, obstacle courses, training buildings—everything was built with that utilitarian solidity that left no doubt about the seriousness of what happened inside the perimeter.

Cecilia arrived here at six in the morning, an hour before the general assembly. She loved the training ground at this time—empty, cold, swept by wind from the nearby reservoir. Here she could check her equipment, adjust sights, walk the range without being distracted by others' presence. A ritual she observed every quarter when mandatory training for operative staff was held.

Her metal fingers habitually slid over the rifle's mechanics, checking bolt action, trigger integrity, balance. Cecilia didn't feel the recoil when shooting—the prosthetics dampened vibration, turning the shot into information: pressure, sound, shift in center of gravity. For her, shooting was mathematics, where every movement was calculated with millimeter precision.

By the time others started arriving at the range, she had already fired three series, checked two targets, and filled the first page of her results report. People entered the shooting area in groups, greeting each other, warming up, adjusting weapons. Cecilia stayed apart, at her terminal, only tracking the situation peripherally.

Gigi appeared in the crowd of operatives, as always, visible from a mile away. She wore a uniform that fit slightly loosely, as if borrowed, her hair tied in two pigtails, her face bearing an expression of concentration that quickly alternated with curiosity and back. She swiveled her head, taking in the training ground, the weapons in colleagues' hands, the targets in the distance, clearly trying to memorize everything at once.

Spotting Cecilia, Gigi headed towards her, weaving between groups of operatives and adjusting the rifle strap on her back as she went.

"Hi!" she breathed, running up. "I'm not late, am I? We're supposed to assemble at seven, and it's quarter to, I thought I was arriving early, but the bus from headquarters took a detour for some reason, and there were traffic jams, and I almost lost my mind thinking—that's it, I'm late, but no, I made it, you're here, and that's good."

Cecilia listened to this stream without changing expression, and nodded towards the empty space beside her.

"Line up. Assembly in ten minutes. Did you check your rifle?"

Gigi froze, staring at her with round eyes.

"Check it? How? They issued it, said—yours, and that was it. I thought it worked by default."

Cecilia slowly exhaled through her nose. Her metal fingers gripped the edge of the table and released. A gesture that over the past weeks had become associated in her mind with Gigi's presence and the need to adjust plans considering her peculiarities.

"Give it here," she said, extending her hand.

Gigi obediently removed the rifle and handed it over, watching the process with such interest as if Cecilia were about to perform magic tricks. Cecilia took the weapon, and her metal fingers slid over the mechanics with that automatic precision born of thousands of repetitions. Bolt, magazine, sight rail, trigger—she checked every part without looking, by feel, and within a minute returned the rifle to its owner.

"The magazine wasn't secured properly," she said. "Could have fallen out at the first movement. The cartridges are loaded correctly, the sight is off by two clicks to the left. Fix it."

Gigi stared at the rifle, then at Cecilia, then back at the rifle.

"You figured that out by feel?" she asked reverently. "Do you have a scanner inside or something?"

"Muscle memory," Cecilia replied. "And knowledge of standard malfunctions. Adjust the sight. You have three minutes."

Gigi started turning the sight adjustment wheels, moving her lips and occasionally squeezing her eyes shut in concentration. Cecilia watched her peripherally and noted that the rookie's movements were uncertain but diligent. She learned fast, even if she didn't always understand what exactly she was doing.

The assembly was conducted by Elizabeth Rose Bloodflame, who appeared at the training ground exactly at seven. In perfectly fitted field uniform, tablet in hand, and her usual cold focus in her gaze, she resembled a commander's statue brought to life for inspection. Instructions were brief: division into groups, range rotations, standards, checkpoints. Cecilia and Gigi ended up in the same group—the fourth, designated for practicing tactical interaction in limited visibility conditions.

As the groups dispersed to their stations, Gigi approached Cecilia with a conspiratorial air.

"Limited visibility—that's like fog, right? Or smoke? Or darkness? I see worse in the dark, but I hear better. Is that normal?"

"Individual characteristic," Cecilia replied, heading towards the hangar equipped with an obstacle course and a fog simulation system. "Use what works. Today's task is to navigate the route together, covering each other. Targets appear randomly, only shoot at those identified as 'hostile.' Do not hit friendly objects."

"What if I make a mistake?" Gigi ran ahead, peering into her face. "What if I mistake a friendly for hostile?"

"Then you fail the mission," Cecilia answered evenly. "So pay attention. I'll give signals. Memorize them."

She demonstrated a few hand gestures—short, clear, inconspicuous to an outsider's eye. Gigi watched as if spellbound, trying to repeat them, and while her attempts were clumsy, they were recognizable.

"Two fingers down—danger left," she muttered, counting on her own fingers. "Fist—stop. Spread fingers—disperse. Palm edge—target. I remembered. I think."

"We'll test it on the course," Cecilia said, and entered the hangar first, where artificial fog already swirled, illuminated by sparse red emergency lights.

Inside was damp and cold. The fog smelled of ozone and something chemical, settling on the skin with clammy moisture. Cecilia moved forward, rifle at the ready, registering every change in the environment. Behind her came Gigi's rapid breathing and muffled curses as she bumped into obstacles.

Cecilia gave the first signal three minutes in. Fist—stop.Gigi froze instantly, even held her breath. Somewhere ahead, in the fog, a rustling sound was heard. Cecilia listened, trying to identify the source. Her metal fingers shifted slightly on the rifle's forestock, ready to fire.

The rustling came again, closer. Then a silhouette emerged from the fog—human-shaped, in a uniform like theirs. Friendly? Or a target?

Cecilia waited. Beside her, Gigi was breathing raggedly, and suddenly Cecilia felt a light touch on her shoulder—Gigi was making the "target" gesture. Palm edge, uncertainly, but recognizably. Cecilia looked closer at the silhouette. Indeed, there was something unnatural, mechanical, in the way it moved. A training mannequin on a mobile platform.

She nodded and smoothly pressed the trigger. The blank shot cracked loudly in the hangar's silence. The mannequin jerked and stopped—hit confirmed.

"Good," Cecilia whispered. "You saw what I didn't. Continue."

Gigi beamed, invisible in the fog, but Cecilia somehow knew she was smiling. They moved on, and the next twenty minutes became an unexpected experience for Cecilia. Usually on such training exercises, she worked alone or with partners whose actions she could predict. With Gigi, nothing could be predicted—she reacted to the environment spontaneously, guided by inner instinct, and that instinct led them directly to targets several times that Cecilia herself noticed with a delay.

When they exited the hangar, wet, tired, but without a single protocol violation, Gigi collapsed onto a bench by the entrance and stared at the gray sky.

"I've never concentrated so hard," she breathed. "Even my head hurts. But that was cool! We made it through the whole thing? Not a single mistake?"

"Not one," Cecilia confirmed, packing her rifle into its case. "Your performance was above average for the group. Especially in target identification."

Gigi let out a happy squeak and waved her arms, attracting the attention of passing operatives. Cecilia looked away to avoid witnessing this effusive reaction, but still peripherally watched Gigi try to calm down and pretend she was just stretching.

The next two hours were spent at the shooting range. Cecilia practiced shot series at different distances;Gigi tortured her rifle, trying to hit the target from twenty meters, and periodically sighed, looking at Cecilia's results.

"Your bullets all go into the same hole," she complained. "Mine are spread over half a meter. It's not fair. Your hands are steadier."

"Hands have nothing to do with it," Cecilia replied, lowering her rifle. "It's a matter of practice and self-control. Your hands move exactly as much as you allow them to. If you flinch at the moment of firing, the bullet goes wide."

Gigi tried again, squeezed her eyes shut for a second before firing, and the bullet went even wider. She groaned and lowered the rifle.

"I can't do it," she said dejectedly. "I want to hit it too much, and that makes me flinch. How do I stop wanting?"

Cecilia pondered the question. How to stop wanting? She never wanted to hit the target. She just made the shot, calculating trajectory, wind speed, humidity, ballistics. Wanting was an extra variable that only interfered with calculations.

"Try not wanting," she said. "Just perform the action. Hand, eye, breath. The target is a point where the bullet needs to go. Everything else is irrelevant."

Gigi looked at her strangely and suddenly smiled.

"Are you talking about shooting, or about life in general?" she asked.

Cecilia didn't understand the question. But before she could answer, an instructor approached and announced a lunch break.

The training ground cafeteria served simple but filling food. Cecilia took a standard meal: soup, buckwheat with a cutlet, compote. Her metal fingers held the spoon confidently, and to an outsider, it was almost unnoticeable that they were prosthetics, unless one looked closely. Gigi sat opposite with a tray piled high with enough food to feed three.

"I eat a lot after exertion," she explained, catching Cecilia's glance. "My body demands it. You eat like a sparrow. Don't you need to replenish calories?"

"My metabolism differs from the standard," Cecilia replied, not going into details. Part of her internal systems ran on batteries, part was maintained medicinally, and the usual laws of energy expenditure applied to her with caveats.

Gigi didn't press. She ate her lunch with appetite, occasionally pausing to wave at someone she knew or ask Cecilia another shooting-related question. Cecilia answered briefly but to the point, and gradually lunch turned into a semblance of a working meeting, with Gigi asking questions and Cecilia explaining theory.

After lunch was tactical medicine. Cecilia listened to the instructor with half an ear—she knew this material by heart, had passed the standards dozens of times. But Gigi listened attentively, even taking notes in her notebook, which was unexpected. Usually during lectures, she fidgeted and got distracted, but this topic seemed important to her.

"I need to be able to help, just in case," she whispered to Cecilia during a break. "What if you fall, and I'm nearby? I'd never forgive myself if I couldn't."

Cecilia looked at her. The thought that she might "fall" was abstract—her body functioned with the reliability of a machine, and malfunctions were rare, only if the technology failed. But Gigi, apparently, thought differently. For her, Cecilia was a living person who could get hurt, lose consciousness, need help.

"Highly unlikely," Cecilia said. "But the skills are useful regardless."

Gigi nodded and returned to her notes.

By evening, the training was over. Tired, exhausted operatives loaded onto buses to return to the city. Cecilia sat by the window, Gigi plopped down beside her and almost immediately dozed off, her head falling onto Cecilia's shoulder.

This was unexpected. Metal shoulders weren't designed for sleeping on—they were hard, without cushioning. But Gigi, apparently, didn't notice the discomfort. She breathed evenly, her face relaxed in sleep, the usual tense readiness to smile or be surprised gone.

Cecilia sat motionless, looking out the window at the passing lights of the suburbs. On her shoulder lay a warm weight, sensors registered another person's body temperature, breathing rhythm, slight movements in sleep. Information requiring no response.

The bus jolted over bumps, Gigi sighed in her sleep and sometimes muttered something unintelligible. Cecilia didn't move. Not because she felt sorry to wake her partner—she felt no pity. Simply because it wasn't necessary. Gigi was sleeping, the bus was moving, and there was no reason to interrupt this process.

When they arrived at headquarters, Cecilia lightly touched Gigi's shoulder with her metal fingers. Gigi startled, opened her eyes, and stared at her with a bleary, just-woken gaze.

"We're here," Cecilia said. "Time to get off."

Gigi blinked, realizing where she was and whose shoulder she'd been sleeping on, and suddenly blushed so deeply that even in the bus's dim light, it was noticeable.

"Oh," she said. "I... sorry. I didn't mean to. I was just tired and..."

"Nothing to worry about," Cecilia replied, standing up. "Tomorrow at eight, general medical examination. Don't be late."

She stepped off the bus and headed for her car, leaving Gigi standing on the steps with her mouth open.

The next morning greeted Cecilia with the smell of medicine and the sound of working scanners. The "Justice" medical building was in a separate structure, connected to the main complex by an underground passage. The smell here was different from other premises—sterile, clean, lifeless. Cecilia perceived this smell as information: antiseptic concentration above average, air sterilization system operating, humidity maintained at forty percent.

She arrived at eight, as scheduled. The lobby was already crowded with operatives waiting their turn for examination. Cecilia took a ticket, sat on a free chair by the wall, and prepared to wait. Waiting she could do—it was part of the job.

Gigi appeared ten minutes later, out of breath, with damp hair from a shower and in fresh uniform. She scanned the lobby, found Cecilia with her eyes, and headed towards her, weaving through the crowd.

"Did I make it?" she asked, plopping onto the adjacent chair. "I was showering after yesterday, and I fell asleep, and woke up to my alarm blaring, and almost overslept. Did I make it?"

"You made it," Cecilia replied, not looking at her. "Your number is twenty-seven. Mine is twenty-eight. We'll go through almost simultaneously."

Gigi exhaled and leaned back in her chair, studying the ceiling.

"I hate medical exams," she admitted. "Always these tests, questions about how I'm feeling, blood pressure measurements. My blood pressure is always high because I get nervous. And they say—you're hyperactive, calm down. How am I supposed to calm down when they're the ones making me nervous?"

Cecilia didn't answer. She never felt nervous before medical exams. For her, it was a routine calibration and diagnostic procedure, no different from equipment checks.

When number twenty-seven was called, Gigi jumped up and dashed into the examination room, leaving behind the scent of shampoo and a faint cloud of nervousness. Cecilia remained sitting, staring straight ahead and counting time to herself.

Gigi emerged half an hour later, slightly disheveled, with her sleeve rolled up and a cotton ball on her elbow crease.

"They took blood," she reported. "Measured my pressure—one-forty over ninety, they said it's high, I said it's always like that when I'm nervous, they didn't believe me and wrote 'tendency towards hypertension' in my file. Idiots."

"Your number is twenty-eight," Cecilia said, standing. "Wait here."

She entered the examination room, where familiar surroundings awaited: an examination table, monitors, an instrument stand, and the doctor—a middle-aged woman with tired eyes and quick movements. Cecilia had been examined by her every quarter, and they had long established a ritual requiring no extra words.

"Undress to the waist, sit on the table," the doctor said, not even looking up. "As usual."

Cecilia removed her jacket and shirt, revealing a torso marked not by scars, but by smooth lines of transition where living flesh met machinery. From her left shoulder down, across her chest, to where her heart once was, ran thin seams and diagnostic ports. The skin around them was pale, almost translucent, lacking the usual pigmentation of living tissue.

The doctor approached, took a tablet, and began running a scanner along the transition lines. Graphs, numbers, and indicators appeared on the monitor.

"Stabilizer functioning within normal parameters," she commented. "Joint wear within limits. Prosthetics show one hundred percent functionality. Blood pressure, pulse... pulse, as always, non-existent as a phenomenon. Neural interfaces in order. How are you feeling?"

"No change," Cecilia replied.

The doctor nodded, continuing to move the scanner. She had worked with Cecilia for a long time and had long stopped asking whether she felt pain or discomfort. The answer was always the same: everything within calculated parameters.

"In six months, scheduled replacement of stabilizer power elements," the doctor said, finishing the examination. "Appointment already entered into the schedule. Get dressed."

Cecilia pulled on her shirt and jacket, feeling the fabric settle against her cool skin. The procedure took twenty minutes—faster than for regular patients, because with her, there was no need to check reflexes, listen to her heart, or measure pressure with standard methods.

When she emerged into the lobby, Gigi jumped up from her chair and stared at her with concern.

"Well?" she asked. "Everything okay? You were so fast. I took half an hour, and you finished in twenty. Is that good or bad?"

"Good," Cecilia replied. "I have fewer parameters to check."

Gigi was silent for a moment, processing this information, and then asked quietly:

"Can I... take a look? If it's not a secret. I've just never seen prosthetics like yours. In person."

Cecilia looked at her for a long moment. Usually she didn't allow anyone to examine her hands or the connection points. It was personal, though the concept of "personal" had long blurred for her. But Gigi looked with that same genuine curiosity with which she examined everything new, and there was no pity or disgust in her gaze.

"Not here," Cecilia said. "Somewhere else."

They left the medical building and headed for a quiet inner courtyard where employees usually smoked, but which was now empty. Cecilia sat on a bench, removed her jacket, and rolled up her shirtsleeve, exposing the connection point of the prosthetic with her shoulder. The thin line where matte plastic met pale skin was almost invisible, if you didn't know where to look.

Gigi sat beside her and stared with wide eyes. She didn't touch, only looked, and Cecilia could see her pupils dilate with interest.

"Beautiful," Gigi said finally. "Just like a robot from the movies. Did it hurt when they put them in?"

"I don't remember," Cecilia replied. "I woke up with them already. The installation process was part of the resuscitation."

Gigi nodded, accepting this as fact. Then she asked carefully:

"Do you remember what it was like before? When your hands were real?"

Cecilia thought. Memories of "before" were fragmentary, like old photographs, faded and blurry. She remembered some faces, sounds, but couldn't connect them into a coherent picture. Sometimes it seemed to her that memories of the past had been deliberately erased to make room for the new.

"No," she said. "Almost nothing."

Gigi didn't ask further. She sat nearby, looking at the connection line, and was silent. Then, suddenly, she took Cecilia's metal hand in both of hers and simply held it, saying nothing.

Cecilia felt the warmth of her palms through the sensors. Information: body temperature thirty-six point six, skin moisture within normal limits, wrist pulse—around eighty beats per minute. Data of no value. But Gigi held her hand, and it was... Cecilia didn't know how to classify this. Not a work process. Not diagnostics. Not a ritual.

"Warm," Gigi said, meaning her own hand, not the prosthetic. "Yours is cool. Do the sensors heat up?"

"No," Cecilia answered. "Heating is not provided. Prosthetic temperature equals ambient temperature."

Gigi snorted and suddenly smiled that smile that every time made Cecilia want to analyze its cause.

"So in winter, your hands are ice cold," she said. "Good to know. I'll have to knit you mittens. Special ones, for metal hands."

Cecilia blinked. Mittens for prosthetics. This thought had never occurred to her. Prosthetics didn't get cold; they didn't need protection from cold. But Gigi, apparently, thought differently. For her, cold hands were a problem that needed solving.

"Not necessary," Cecilia said.

"But I'll knit them anyway," Gigi replied stubbornly. "Just because. Not for any reason, just because I can."

She released Cecilia's hand, stood up, and stretched, cracking her back.

"Okay, I need to go to HR, see Raora. They said some kind of interview. Probably they'll ask how I'm liking it here. What should I say? The truth?"

"Always tell the truth," Cecilia replied. "It's more effective."

Gigi nodded and ran off, leaving Cecilia alone in the courtyard. She sat a while longer, looking at the gray sky, then stood, rolled her sleeve back down, put on her jacket, and headed for the main building.

In the evening, as she was going through the day's reports, a message from Gigi arrived on her terminal. Short, with no subject line: "I would have knitted them, but I don't know how. Guess I'll have to learn. — Gigi."

Cecilia looked at the screen, then at her hands. Her metal fingers rested on the keyboard, ready to continue working. The message didn't require a response—it was informational, not a question. But she lingered on it longer than on usual work emails.

Then she closed it and returned to her reports. Outside, darkness fell; inside, lamps were lit; the shift prepared for night work. Cecilia sat in her place and thought that tomorrow morning Gigi would be waiting for her again, with an empty mug on the desk.

Information. Just information.

But somewhere on the periphery of consciousness, where other people stored warm memories, she now had a file: "Gigi Murin, will knit mittens, doesn't know how, but will learn."

A file unrelated to work. But saved, for some reason.