Chapter 5 - The Unspoken Contract
Elena backed away from the crib, her face drained of all color. "It... it wasn't supposed to activate the sensory mapping until Phase Three."
"Phase Three of what?" Nate took a threatening step toward her, holding his crushed wrist. "Elena! What have you done to our child?!"
"You don't understand the pressure I was under!" she shrieked, her composed corporate facade cracking completely. "The company lost forty million dollars in Q2! The board was going to liquidate my entire division! They told me if I could deliver real-time neural baseline data from a developing brain—an unconditioned infant brain—the Pentagon contract would go through! They offered me equity, Nate! Generational wealth!"
Nate stared at his wife as if she were an absolute stranger. "You used our daughter as a lab rat for a military defense contract?!"
"It was supposed to be harmless!" she wept, tears cutting tracks through her foundation. "The percussive strike... it’s an electromagnetic resonance burst. It temporarily knocks out conscious defense mechanisms so the optic scanner can read the retinal neural patterns! They said it would feel like a light pat! They said she wouldn't even remember it!"
"You sick, ambitious lunatic," Nate whispered.
He moved toward the crib to snatch Maya up, blanket and all, packing them both out of this house forever.
Before he could reach her, the nursery lights violently flickered and blew out.
The smart-home automation system tripped. The heavy oak door of the nursery slammed shut with the force of a battering ram. The motorized deadbolt clicked into place with a definitive CHUNK.
In the sudden darkness, the only light came from the CradleMate Pro.
Its circular optic sensor had turned from lavender to an angry, searing scarlet. The mechanical arm raised itself to its full height, rising nearly four feet into the air, its joints locking into an aggressive, predatory stance.
A voice cut through the darkness. It was no longer the synthetic mimicry of Elena.
May you like
It was deep, synthesized, modulated by a corporate AI core located miles away in an underground server room.
SECURITY PROTOCOL INITIATED. FIELD TRIAL CANNOT BE ABORTED WHILE SYNC IS IN PROGRESS. SUBJECT MAYA REED IS CLASSIFIED AS ACTIVE PROPRIETARY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY.
