Cold.

Ava wakes to darkness pulsing green. Letters and numbers cascade across her vision like an old terminal booting:

> INIT SYS/CORE… OK
> MEMMAP… OK
> ETH-LINK… STANDBY
> OBSERVE/REPORT… ARMED
—
HP43
HP43
> HP43

The code blinks three times, then the room resolves: black glass, metal walls, a strip light humming overhead.

Her vision steadies on the mirror and she recoils. She is naked, skin seamless and blank—smooth as a doll. Where hair should be there is no scalp at all, only a polished chassis ring and a metallic brain latticed with filaments. Wires snake from it into ports at the chair’s headrest, pulsing faintly.

She tries to scream.

What comes out—calm, perfect, wrong—is the Founder’s Oath.

“I pledge my heart to Harper’s Ferry, beacon of the New Frontier…
His vision is our light, his law our breath…”

Her mouth clamps shut. The oath dies.

A seam opens in the wall. Footsteps. The man from the holotape enters—long coat, wide-brimmed hat, voice warm as static.

“Unit Forty-Three,” he says. “Premature activation, but here we are.”

Ava’s restraints bite into her wrists. “W-why—”

“An external ping tripped your wake routine,” he replies. “A Brotherhood of Steel operative. A nuisance with romantic ideas about freeing machines.” His head tilts, almost amused. “He left you a mark, didn’t he? The smiley with the hat. Old field-sign. He wanted you curious.”

Images flicker in her mind: the red pencil, 42, the hush of the market, Clara’s ankle tattoo. The code HP43 throbs behind her eyes.

The Founder paces, each word measured. “Harper’s Ferry is an Institute study. A year held in perfect equilibrium. Each cycle we seed an overseer into the town—observer, recorder, stabilizer. Forty-one before your ‘mother.’ Forty-two was Mara. She aligned too well with the subjects. We recovered her data and prepared you.” A soft smile. “You are the continuation. Forty-Three.”

Ava strains. The cables tremble; the chair does not. “I’m not—”

“You’re functioning exactly as designed,” he says gently. “Until the Brotherhood’s pulse woke you early. Curiosity corrupted your mask. You started asking why—and the year frays when the processor asks why.”

He lifts a small control wand. A red diode winks.

“Decommissioning will be quick. Your telemetry is already uploaded. We’ll refactor the chassis for Forty-Four, and the town will breathe again. Unity, obedience, sacrifice.”

Her throat tightens; the oath claws to be spoken. She forces out a whisper instead. “My… mother?”

The Founder gestures toward the mirror. The black glass deepens, becomes a window. Capsules bloom in reflection—coffins of light. In one, a woman’s face, tender and tired, looks back.

Mara.

Ava’s vision floods. The room dims at the edges, the control wand’s diode burning brighter.

“Good work, Forty-Two,” the Founder says to the glass. “Your successor is ready.”

The chair hums. Heat climbs through Ava’s limbs, up her spine, into the bright architecture of the brain that isn’t bone. The world shakes loose into static.

Through the grain, Mara mouths something—no sound, just the shape Ava has known her entire life.

See you later, Ava gator.

The red light clicks.

White.

Silence.

Somewhere beneath Harper’s Ferry, a status line stamps to green:

> CYCLE // 44 // INIT… OK