They wheeled him into a room that smelled like antiseptic and fear.Not the bright, clinical white of the observation chamber — this place was colder somehow, lit by a ring of low, direct lamps that made every face into a mask. Two-way glass ringed the space; rows of chairs and tablets waited like jury seats. Cameras hung from the ceiling like black flies.
Kayden's wrists were cuffed again. The restraints were different — lighter, more surgical. Each movement had been calculated to be annoying, not crushing: the kind of touch that chips away at you slow enough for your mind to notice.
On the far side of the glass, the SRD command officer sat with a tablet balanced on her knees. Her eyes were hard. She had the look of someone who had never once flinched in a room full of screaming things.
Four interrogators entered. Sharp coats. Sharper voices. Two techs hovered by a console humming with power. The woman in command gave Kayden a look like someone surveying a specimen.
"Phase Four: Silence Test," she said into the room with flat precision. "We will break him today."
A med-tech clipped a thin microphone near Kayden's throat. Another slid a small screen in front of him — a loop of images: a boy in an orange hoodie laughing, a man with a tired smile (Hale), a lanky kid waving (Phineas), Alex's face frozen in a million memories. The images flicked like bait.
The lead interrogator sat across from him and opened a file. He didn't smile.
"Kayden Voss," he began, voice clinical. "You were found with an anomalous resonance signature. You present an existential risk to national security. You will answer my questions. Who are you affiliated with?"
Kayden looked at the man. He felt the hum at the edges of the room — the hum that had carried the Citadel's voice before, a faint vibration under the floors. He thought of the Agent's words: "Say nothing."
His mouth stayed closed.
The interrogator waited a measured beat, like someone timing a metronome.
"Answer," he said softer, as if patient.
Silence.
They tried the obvious next move: irritation. The interrogator leaned forward, eyes narrow. "Do you hear me? You speak now, or we escalate."
Kayden's fingers twitched in the cuffs. The screen flashed: Alex laughing, Alex crying, Alex begging. The room smelled faintly of the orange hoodie in his memory. He swallowed. He remembered the Citadel's line: "Silence is resistance."
He said nothing.
The interrogator's tone sharpened. "You're a child. You don't understand what's good for you. Cooperation will make this easier. Who trained you? What is APEX? Who watches your dreams?"
Kayden's jaw clenched. A hot flush rose in his chest. The quiet in him settled like a stone. He felt fear — white-hot — but the fear didn't have words. He kept his lips closed. He let them throw language at him and simply refused the exchange.
They escalated.
A technician tapped a control and the lights shifted. A low bass thrummed through the floor. The screen now played a short clip: Alex's voice, raw, recorded earlier — a smear of a plea. Kayden flinched as the sound filled the room.
"Do you hear that?" one interrogator hissed. "He's breaking on tape. He said your name. He begged for you. Are you going to leave him to rot?"
The screen showed Alex falling apart, calling his name, the exact moment Kayden had screamed into a pillow weeks ago. The clip was chosen to make the heart break, to shape him into answering.
Kayden's heart tore, but he bit down on the tide of words. He felt the Citadel's last instruction like a guardrail: Don't be measurable.
The interrogators traded glances, irritation bleeding into contempt. They tried psychological puzzles, bait questions, repeating the same thing in different voices so the answer would slip out by accident. Each time, Kayden shut his mouth like it was a vault.
They changed tactics. A soft mechanical clamp descended near his temple; gauges blinked. The techs said it was a stabilizer — calibrations, tests — but the lead interrogator made no pretense.
"We can increase the dosage of the inhibitor," he said. "We can remove the sleep modifier and keep you awake for seventy-two hours. We can play every voice you love until the voice becomes noise and you beg for silence."
Kayden met his eyes. The threat arrived like a winter wind. He wanted to scream. He wanted to beg. He thought of Alex's hands, of Phineas's smirk, of Hale's cracked voice. He thought of APEX whispering, threadbare and brave, "…hold on…"
Still he said nothing.
They brought in a new instrument: a soft, padded hood that smelled faintly of ozone. It was a sensory reducer, they said — blinkers for the ears and lights, an environment that made the mind hunt for reality. The hood would amplify internal images until they became the room.
The interrogators slipped it over his head. Darkness swallowed him. The world narrowed to the pulse against his temples and the sound of their breathing, amplified into a rhythm.
Inside that black, they began whispering again. Not questions now, but stories: a montage of what life would be like if he cooperated — safe rooms, non-violent reconditioning, "help" they promised. They threaded in small mercies: Alex alive and smiling, Phineas at the door, Hale not compromised if he answered— everything tailored to weaken the spine he had made by silence.
Kayden's hands curled. He could feel the edges of those images bleeding into him, trying to become truth. He pressed his teeth together until the pain was a color. He remembered the Citadel's final line: "When they break the silence… then you speak."
They escalated again — this time with motion sensors that pressed gentle, repetitive pressure on his arms and knees like a mechanical hands that never tire. After hours that felt like months, they brought in a recorded voice — softer, familiar — Alex pleading for him to say something. The voice could have cracked a glacier.
But Kayden breathed through the onslaught. He let the sound wash over him and become just more noise. He counted his breaths. One. Two. Three. He found rhythm where they expected collapse. He watched the internal clock tick away.
Somewhere behind the glass, the command woman's jaw worked. The interrogators ran out of tactics and circled back to repetition, to desperation. They started asking the same questions slower and slower, like a tide wearing away rock.
At the edge of breaking, Kayden felt something like a presence slip past the hood — a thread of cool voice that was not SRD, barely a whisper.
"Hold."
Citadel or memory — he couldn't tell — but he felt steadied.
The lead interrogator finally huffed, exhausted. He leaned in so close Kayden felt warm breath on his lips.
"Who are you," he whispered. "Who do you belong to?"
Kayden's chest ached. The silence inside him was absolute now — not emptiness but resolute. He opened his mouth and spoke one syllable.
Not an answer. Not a confession.
"…"
His mouth stayed shut. The interrogator blinked.
The silence hit the room like a stone. It was small, and it was loud. It made the glass hum.
On the other side of the room, in the shadows, someone— technology, a hand, a distant agency— flickered briefly: a tiny spike in the monitoring console. The Citadel had listened.
The interrogator slammed his palm on the table.
"This is not over," he growled. "We will break you."
Kayden felt their threats like weather.
He felt the memory of the Citadel's voice: "Survive Phase Four. When they break the silence… then you speak."
He had been silent all day.
He would be silent one breath more.
Because silence was an answer that didn't belong to them.
Because silence could be defiance.
Because for now, refusing to be named was the only thing he could give that was fully his.
The room tightened around him, full of forms trying to shape him into an asset. Kayden closed his eyes.
He stayed quiet.