The room felt colder without her.
Kirion stood in the remnants of his daughter's tech station, the eerie silence pierced only by the faint hum of a cooling server. Her scent lingered—a mix of ozone, old solder, and the sweet citrus shampoo she'd insisted on keeping even in hiding. It was haunting.
He didn't sit. He couldn't. Instead, he combed through every byte she left behind, fingers trembling over her encrypted files, searching for a clue, a hint, even a mistake. She was too smart for that. But she was still his daughter—and he was still Kirion.
Then he found it.
Buried beneath layers of false protocols and digital noise was a short audio file, embedded in a fake compression log.
He clicked it.
"Dad…" her voice broke, and his knees buckled. "I'm sorry. I had to know if she was really gone… or if there was a piece of her left to save."
A pause.
"She found me first. I didn't tell you because… because I thought maybe—maybe I could reach her. Just enough to bring her back. But I don't think I can. Not anymore."
Kirion's jaw clenched as she inhaled shakily.
"She's not the woman you told me about. She's… weaponized. Dangerous. But she still knows things, secrets you never told me. About us. About the government. About you."
Silence.
"She said you weren't always the hero."
The file cut out.
Kirion's face hardened. Not always the hero. He knew what Soria had done. But there were things he had buried too deep, wounds he'd sealed away because revisiting them felt like reopening a ribcage with bare hands.
He snapped the encrypted file shut and stood, pacing like a caged predator. He knew Soria's tactics. She didn't need to win trust with force—she used history, emotion, family. And now, she had leveraged that final thread: a daughter's curiosity.
He called the council to emergency session.
"They've taken her," he said, voice like gravel.
One of the commanders leaned forward. "Taken or left willingly?"
A beat of silence.
"She was manipulated," Kirion snapped. "Drugged. Coerced. I want eyes on every transport out of Sector 12. I want every satellite focused on that grid. If Soria has her, we find the nest and we burn it."
"But if she's inside willingly—"
"She's my daughter."
No one spoke after that.
Later, alone, Kirion opened an old secure archive. It was locked—only two retinal scans could open it. His and Soria's.
He bypassed the protocol manually.
Inside were recordings, schematics, dossiers. Missions he and Soria had completed long before either of them had a child or a conscience. Secrets powerful enough to destabilize empires—and destroy reputations.
And in the center: a contingency file. "Project Reclaim."
His hand hovered over the activation prompt. He had written this plan years ago, when he still hoped to save Soria from herself. It detailed protocols for her extraction, rehabilitation—or if necessary, termination.
He closed his eyes.
She had stolen his daughter. She had crossed the line.
But even now… the sting of betrayal wasn't just hers.
It was his too—for ever believing she wouldn't.