Abba gasped, "What a big word!"

Benjamin and Suzanne followed with impressed wows. Abba had placed the word radio on the board, and Aimee had linked the word jellyfish to it. And although, the 'i' in radio had become the first 'i' in 'jillyfish', the misspellings of a five-year-old were easily forgiven.

Whilst squeezed in the arms of her mother, Aimee pointed to the floor and crooned, "It's like the rug!"

"Yes, it's like the rug," she laughed adoringly.

Abba's phone rang suddenly, and her arms unfurled from Aimee. There was a grin on her face when she answered the call, oblivious to the caller ID. That grin disappeared. She stood up from the floor and Suzanne and Benjamin did the same, visibly and vividly anxious.

"Aimee, please put the game away," she said, stroked her daughter's chestnut hair.

"Is it Buckley again?"

Abba ignored Suzanne and dashed into the kitchen. She and Benjamin hurried after her, to find her standing near the pantry door. They waited patiently, listening to her side of a heated dispute.

"I do not believe a word out of your mouth. You will never lay a finger or an eye on my microchips!"

Then, Abba's eyes went wide with angst. For seconds, though they felt much longer, she said nothing, only hoped that the man on the line was lying, as she had first suspected. Gradually, her thumb ended the call.

"He wants us to meet him this evening to discuss a new deal," Abba explained mutedly.

"Are you going to give –?"

"No," Benjamin blurted. "He's not getting his hands on them."

"Nobody was supposed to find out!" Abba's face was scarred with dread. Her husband's hand held her shoulder in consolation as he promised her that everything would be fine. "He wishes to meet at the house. That means he might already have them."

"Or he is lying," murmured Suzanne.

Abba sighed, "That is what I'm hoping for." She cursed softly in French.

Aimee was on her ankles, cleaning up, when her parents came back to the living room and each gave her a kiss.

"We'll be back soon, chérie," Abba promised, her kiss still warm on her daughter's forehead.

Aimee silently watched the grown-ups head for the stairs. Abba and Benjamin would retrieve their coats from the coatrack at the door and then be off.

"Ils vont justement à la boutique," Suzanne enlightened Aimee once she had returned from walking them out.

Aimee hadn't asked where they were going. It did not matter to her as long as they would return soon, like Mom had said. But now, when Aimee's conscience recalled that night, it seemed as though they had known something ominous was to come. And it did: the accident, the phone call, the hasty and first mysterious race to the hospital, the realisation of what was happening, and speaking to Abba for the last time.

Suzanne and Aimee sat in the waiting area. Aimee had been crying so much that she tired and rested her head on her aunt's lap, determined to stay awake until keeping her eyes open became impossible.

In the ER, Abba had given Suzanne a note. It hid now in her pocket – a miniscule, crumpled piece of paper – and she was both worried and made curious by the thought of what it held. She took it from her pocket eventually, thinking of how she had told herself to read it when no one was around – with Aimee asleep, she was practically alone. The note was no bigger than the palm in which she held it. Abba's handwriting was messier than usual, but Suzanne could still comprehend the words written.

They did this.

She struggled to breathe; her hand cupped her mouth as she stared at the same three words in horror, almost as if she was hoping the letters would reshape into something else.

"The microchips came into effect a day later," said Suzanne. "I'd almost lost hope that they would work at all, but they did. They were not as powerful then as they are now. Still, GINM saw their potential."

Benjamin was seething from the well-hidden rage that had haunted him since the day it had happened.

"They never had the microchips; they couldn't even find them, but they found you, Aimee. They were the ones who took you from Suzanne's care – stole you. They told us they knew we would inject ourselves with our own invention, and that we would keep improving it if it meant they would let you return to us without hurting you.
"Abba kept at it for all these years. Even though she knew it was impossible to perfect AIM, it tortured her that the closest thing she had to seeing you every day was the camera she programmed to follow your microchip. She would not give up until she had you back. But it was too late. Eventually, she realised you probably wouldn't want to come home; you had a new life, with new friends. All of a sudden, you grew up.
"GINM had taken your childhood from us, and in our heartbreak and anger we wanted revenge. So, one night, Abba invented Domino Doomsday. I told her that nothing good could come of her plan, that we just had to do what GINM wanted, but she would not listen."

Aimee was trying her hardest to hold back any signs of emotion. She would not believe them so easily, but something held onto her and told her this had to be the truth. What would be the point of lying now?

"It wasn't meant to end this way," whispered Aimee, more to herself than anyone else. "Abba gave Sylvain a message for us. She wanted us to know that created the microchips so that we could all be together forever, she just got lost along the way. Domino Doomsday was never real; she made it up to scare GINM and get me out of America. And she wanted you to know that even though she made mistakes, we were not among those mistakes. Her last request was that you shut AIM down and live a good life."

Aimee's sights were on her lap. She knew Benjamin was in tears and she couldn't bear to look at him, couldn't risk crying, too. She glimpsed at Suzanne's hand as it clenched her pants leg – she couldn't look at her either.

"It's not AIM that you should worry about; our research cannot continue without Abba."

"And what about your chip?" inquired Stefan.

"You should be concerned about GINM," he replied, earning an eye roll from Stefan. "They have microchips now. It's what Buckley has wanted this whole time. He means to create an army, too – any government would want fighters to defend their country, especially expendable ones – and with the AIM, such an army is possible."

Stefan scoffed, but each mention of his father in the present tense singed him. "If that was really my father's plan then why did you inject me?"

"Suppose I was angry. Your father has taken everything from me. Why would I care if he used you as one of his invincible soldiers? You're already his pawn."

Stefan vaulted over the coffee table between them as though a switch had been flipped within him, and had Benjamin by his collar. "That was not my father; he created GINM to help people!"

Benjamin's face softened if only for a second as he realised what Stefan's words meant: that Mitchel Buckley was dead, and that Stefan wanted to convince himself he deserved a different fate. Still, he kept his head high and made his case. "You're defending a self-obsessed man who only told you lies and brought you nothing but pain!"

"And you think you're any better?" Stefan ground his teeth and tried to ignore the tears that would not stop escaping him, "He was capable of many things, but not this. I keep thinking that, in lieu of everything, he was a good man. Now you're telling me that he's an even bigger bastard than I gave him credit for, and I'm just supposed to believe you?"

"Stefan," Suzanne whispered, her hand slowly clasping his forearm. "Let him go. Please."

Benjamin's eyes never wavered from Stefan's, from his rage or his anguish. "Ask your mother. She will tell you."

Stefan's fingers tightened at the mention of Janet, and that switch of his was blinking red.

"Let him go," that voice rang in Celeste's ears again.

Violet stood in the doorway with a straight face, staring daggers into Stefan. Then, she looked at Celeste. The part of Violet that missed her wanted to run up to her and squeeze her in her arms, but another part of her was angry; not only had Celeste abandoned her, but now she was with GINM. Suzanne had told her all about them.

"I called the police. If I were you, I would leave now."

Stefan got up at his own pace, glimpsing between Benjamin and the girl at the door. Aimee, who had been on her feet ever since Stefan sprung to his, came up to him and held him at his shoulders.

"Sorry for causing any trouble," she said to Violet politely – she was not entirely sure who the little girl was to her, but she could put two and two together later. "We'll be on our way."

Celeste stood at once, and Aimee gave Benjamin one last long look. She struggled to fathom how her parents could be so cruel, do so much bad out of a love. She wondered how much they really could have loved her if all she could remember them for now was their trail of violence, pain and devastation. She turned her face away, and she held firmly to Stefan's hand.

"Jane. Please stay," muttered Benjamin.

She walked backwards so he could see her face, her eyes, when she said "I have to get home."

Celeste commandeered the chopper on the way back while Stefan sent that Frenchman the directions to his car, having found his cellphone number and other personal information through thorough searching on his highly modified cell. Aimee sat on Stefan's lap, resting her head upon the window, her hand in his. She wanted to ask him if he believed what Benjamin had said, if he was going to talk to Janet about it, but she understood that it was too soon. He didn't even know what he was going to do next, and he contemplated in silence.

Soon enough, the chopper descended on GINM's rooftop, and the engines droned into a sleep.