*May 4, 2125*

Elion stuffed the last of his clothes in the plastic case. He stored caught water from the bathroom faucet in a water bottle and stuffed it in the side of the matte black case. He could only carry two, but it would have to do. Tonight was the night. He wasn't sure when his father was returning, and he couldn't take the chance.

There hadn't been an attack from the Artisans since the first day of the internship. Since he got his memories restored, he waited with bated breath to see if they would make a move. Maybe he could follow them to wherever they lived. He imagined they would be living underground, active at night when the city was locked down. But he never found out anything about them.

He'd spent the last three weeks plotting how to escape. He found out the traffic patterns of the RPs. A perk of having a friend in the Security Sector. He'll avoid them, though he didn't know the city well. Sneaking out of the house was easy enough, he'd done it plenty of times to visit Kira. His heart rate increased. He inhaled and exhaled slowly three times to calm himself down. Control, control, control, he whispered to himself.

"Ari?" Elion sent a message to Arion's neurolink.

"Yeah?" She answered after a minute.

"I just want to say, thanks for all your help with my assignments. Especially anything to do with coding," Elion fiddled with the handle of the case.

"That is strange, but you are welcome," Arion answered, "I haven't figured out the location thing–"

"Let's not talk about that here," he cut her off. He'd asked her to deactivate the location feature in the neurolink, but she says that the feature is completely blocked. Almost like it's controlled by a different processor than the one in the chip. She could fiddle with memories, but location code was off limits.

"Ok, I have an assignment to finish before lockdown," Arion said.

"I'll see you at breakfast then,"

"Goodnight, Eli."

"Goodnight, Ari," Elion responded before disconnecting their link.

Elion spent his lunch hour at POLARIS looking around as much as he could without arousing suspicion. He'd made it to the ninth floor yesterday, the medical sector. The floor was mostly free of RPs. Elion shivered at the memory. It was even colder than everywhere else in the building. Most doors were transparent, but there was one that he was drawn to. A large white door with no label at the end of the passage.

He slipped into the room just as he saw someone else do the same—a CANA agent, clad in a dark blue jacket, disappearing through the doorway ahead of him. Through the narrow pane of glass, he caught a fleeting glimpse: someone lying motionless on a bed, a massive machine suspended overhead.

A chill crept down his spine. This had to be the Enforcers' office. He couldn't be certain, but something told him that memories—fragments, data, perhaps even consciousness—were being kept somewhere in this place. He'd hoped for a clue, maybe a sign. But the deeper he went, the less certain he felt.

Whatever he was looking for, he hadn't found it. Not yet. And he was starting to realise—he couldn't do this alone.

The lockdown alarm broke through the memory. He stashed the behind the bathroom door and assumed his position in the bed. CANA came in a few moments later, after a quick scan, it left, locking the door behind it. Elion waited until deep into the night. That was when CANA would shut itself down. All robots need to recharge. He wasn't sure how long it would take, but he had at least an hour.

He retrieved the case. He scanned the neurolink to unlock the door, the screen flashed red. He tried it again, maybe he didn't do it right, though he'd done this a million times before. It flashed red again. A third incorrect attempt could set off an alarm. He tossed the case on the floor and knocked himself in the head. All this planning, and he didn't think that they'd change the door locking mechanism. They always automatically unlocked in the mornings, and he never bothered to try the scanning after lockdown. His stupidity angered him. He paced the expanse of the room. He failed, and he just started.

The night stretched on endlessly, as if morning would never come. Elion sat at the edge of the bed. His head rested heavily in his hand. He played a million simulations in his mind. None of which resulted in him getting out of here with his mind intact. He blamed himself. If he hadn't been so stupid, so reckless, played it a little safer, he could've—

His eyes burned; they were wet. He looked at his palms. They held a couple of drops of water. He wiped his eyes. He'd never cried before. He wiped and wiped, and wiped until his eyes were raw, but the tears never stopped. He wept.

~~~~

Nyran perched unmoving on a stool in the living room. Her dark brown hair was pulled tight into a bun. Not a single strand out of place. The fabricated afternoon light washed over her, making her glow like an LED bulb. She could have been mistaken for a CANA if not for her plain clothes and not the white coats he's gotten used to seeing at POLARIS. Elion approached with cautious steps.

"Mother," he said, his voice shakier than he intended.

Her sharp blue eyes pierced through him. He sobered his features, hoping his eyes weren't reddened from crying and rubbing.

"Yes, Elion," she answered. Her gaze was locked onto his. There was no delicacy in sight.

"I would like to go for a walk,"

She blinked. The first sign of anything genuine. "A walk."

"Outside," he added for clarity.

"What is the reason?"

"Jax and I—," no, he didn't want to involve anyone else. "As the future heir to POLARIS, I thought I should observe society as it is. I should see how people operate daily. See what areas are lacking."

"GERMAN can teach you everything you know." No, it doesn't. GERMAN has been created to filter out the truth about the world they've built.

"Yes, however, what do people say to each other? Are there parents allowing their children to play? Are there unauthorised gatherings with malevolent intentions? The incident at the company had me thinking. Maybe people out there are not aligning with our ideology. I need to know and learn about them."

Nyran got up and placed chilly hands on his shoulder. "You finally understand your role in this family."

Elion nodded curtly. "May I go?"

"Yes, however, your walk must be limited to the city square; do not venture outside of its bounds." If he had known it was that easy to escape, he would have asked long ago.