Hana lowered herself carefully, her radioactive aura dimming just enough so she wouldn't scorch the floor beneath her. Her feet touched the ground with a soft hiss of heat. She knelt beside Haazi, dread tightening her chest.
He was breathing.
Barely, but still breathing.
Blood trickled down his forehead in a thin, dark line, dripping onto the floor. Hana's breath caught. She hadn't meant to hurt him, not like this. Not when she still didn't understand what was happening to him… or to herself.
If someone tried to possess me the moment I touched his mind… then they must have had control of him first.
Her thoughts raced.
That would explain the sudden mood swings.
The tone changes.
The way he'd sometimes speak like someone else was using him as a mask.
But who would do that?
What kind of "friend" was the Director to Haazi?
And if the Director really was his master… then how did he manipulate Haazi so completely? Haazi didn't seem like someone who would willingly side with evil. He hesitated. He cared. He had tried to warn her.
What is the missing piece in this puzzle…?
Something shifted in her peripheral vision.
Hana snapped her gaze to Haazi.
His head had tilted to the side, exposing the back of his neck.
And there, half-hidden beneath his hair, was a device.
A collar.
Almost identical to the one they had locked around her neck earlier. Except this one pulsed with a faint, sickly green light. Weak, but alive.
Hana's eyes narrowed.
Using her radioactivity, she reached out, not with heat, but with precision. She altered the stability of the atoms in the collar, weakening the structure until it snapped open with a metallic click.
She pulled it off him and held it up to the dim light.
Could this be what the Director used to control him?
But before she could examine it further…
The collar pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Then it flinched in her hand.
Hana's eyes widened. She jerked her arm back, instinctively raising a shield of radioactivity between herself and the device.
Even with her power, the fact that the Director had used something capable of mind manipulation meant it could still be dangerous.
The collar jolted violently.
Then-
It changed forms.
Metal twisted. Plates shifted. Wires reconfigured. In seconds, the collar reshaped itself into a small, animal-like creature. Four-legged, metallic, and with glowing green eyes.
It leapt.
Straight at her arm.
It broke through her radioactive barrier with shocking force. Hana stumbled backward, losing her footing. The ground rushed up toward her, but she summoned a cloud of semi-solid radioactive particles beneath her, catching herself before she hit the floor.
She pried the creature off her arm, holding it at arm's length. It wriggled, then froze, staring at her with those eerie green eyes.
Is this… an AI?
How strange.
Then it whimpered. Actually whimpered.
Hana blinked, then smirked despite herself. "Honestly… you look kind of cute."
The creature tilted its head. She held it up, her expression softening just a little.
"Why don't I become your master?"
Her tone wasn't too sinister. It was a little hopeful, too. The metallic creature perked up instantly, ears twitching, tail-like wires swishing. Hana raised an eyebrow.
Maybe it didn't like the Director either…
Which made absolutely no sense for an artificially intelligent device. But then again, if mind manipulation was possible, then this might be too.
She sighed, smiling bitterly.
The creature nuzzled her hand.
For the first time in a long time, Hana didn't feel completely alone.